1 of 29

Hacking the literature review

Dr Inger Mewburn - "@thesiswhisperer"

(with material from Dr Judy Maxwell)

School of Graduate Research

www.thesiswhisperer.com

RMIT University

2 of 29

Why did you come today?

Have a chat with a couple of your neighbours for 5 minutes or so and then report back

3 of 29

3 common feelings:

There's too much literature!

I don't know how to start...

I'm not sure how to do it 'properly'

4 of 29

5 of 29

Hack: "To jury-rig or improvise something inelegant but effective, usually as a temporary solution to a problem." (Urban Dictionary)

6 of 29

Hacks for: "There's too much literature!"

7 of 29

1. Don't panic!

Always know where your towel is.

There is no way you are going to find and read everything. There is no way to really 'manage' this.

Here's my 'towel': A quote from Kenneth Burke,

"Imagine you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is all about. �

In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that have gone before. �

You listen for awhile, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponents, depending on the quality of your ally’s assistance. �

However the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress..." �

You just need to find the stuff which is most relevant.

8 of 29

2. Harness the wisdom of crowds

9 of 29

3. Crowdsource your bibliography (with Mendeley and/or citulike)

10 of 29

4. Use a database - or four

�

Try:

Endnote / Zotero /Mendeley

Evernote

Blog it with Wordpress or

Use an Excel spreadsheet

11 of 29

5. Regularly dispose of ROT (redundant, outdated and trivial material)

12 of 29

6. Try a simple audience analysis

This idea comes from the Melbourne museum

Every museum patron sits somewhere in this Cartesian grid.

The ‘easy riders’ are parents out to amuse the kids on a Saturday afternoon. Easy riders are less ‘engaged’ (ie: not as into finding out information) as the ‘duty bound’ parents, who were taking their kids to the museum as an educational activity. However both sets of parents were ‘other motivated’, ie: visiting for their kids rather than themselves.

The ‘self motivated’ museum visitors occupy the left hand side of the matrix. The ‘inspirers’ come to openings, but are less engaged in the museum content than the ‘informers’ who were there for the purposes of educating themselves. Of course, some Easy riders will be more engaged than others and some informers not as interested in learning, but I think this diagram is a useful simplification nonetheless.

13 of 29

Try to fill in blank spaces ...

What does each audience know already?

What do they want to learn more about?

I have identified 4 potential audiences for my friend @thetokenlefty’s work on predicting sun activity for solar power generation:

The four audiences are @thetokenlefty, your examiner, practitioners (professional solar energy engineers) and other researchers in the area of engineering and solar power generation.

Now @thetokenlefty and his examiner are probably more concerned with the form of the thesis: is it coherent? Do all the chapters follow on from each other? Have all the questions been answered?

Other researchers might be reading for specific content. They probably wont read the whole thing from start to finish but will dip in and out to find the things they need. Practicing engineers will be similar to researchers, but they may need more background as they will not be as immersed in the literature.

Hopefully practitioners will be looking to action @thetokenlefty’s work (@thetokenlefty wants to action it too – to get a job!). I have put ‘research’ on the opposing axis to ‘action’ because I think examiners and other researchers will be interested in generating research based on things they find in the thesis.

What advice can we give @thetokenlefty based on this analysis? Like all thesis writers he needs to think about the needs of each different audience: what does each audience know already? & What do they want to learn about?

Write a section for each to act as a guide to choosing what literature to include.

14 of 29

Hacks for "I don't know how to start..."

15 of 29

7. Use a Matrix to organise your themes

(www.litraturereviewHQ.com)

Theme:	Humbug et al (2009)	Mewburn et al (2012)
Reasons for undertaking a higher degree	Argues that this varies by discipline	Argues that there is a clear gender division in the discipline enrolments - but older people less so.
Completion rates
Social learning		Suggests that learning happens in informal talk
relationships with supervisor - how important is it?	Argues that the relationship with supervisor is a key determinant of success	Argues that the supervision relationship may not be the only determinant of successful outcomes
'identity work'

16 of 29

7. Try some quick sentence skeletons*

X deplores the tendency to__________________�

X celebrates the fact that___________________�

X insists that_____________________________��X questions whether_______________________�

X refutes the claim that_____________________��X urges us to_____________________________

X observes that__________________________�

* from Graff and Birkenstein (2006)

17 of 29

8. Try a spider diagram

What do we know about PhD students who start after the age of 45?

Who are they?

Do they withdraw more often than other students?

How are they discussed in 'the literature'?

Evidence of 'age blindness' in most seminal papers

Why do they decide to do a PhD?

Is there a gender trend?

What does the national data tell us?

Most analyses does gender, and enrolment type, not age

Are they located in some disciplines more than others?

18 of 29

9. Make a seating chart

You

BFF

The people you had to invite because they work with you

"Crazy Uncle Mike"

While you are friends, you don't agree on politics

BFF

19 of 29

Hacks for: "I don't know how to do it 'properly'..."

20 of 29

10. Diagnose your attitude using a metaphor*

* from Kamler and Thomson (2006)

Think of your metaphor for the literature review and share it with the person next to you.

21 of 29

"... persuading one arm of an octopus into a glass"*

How is the literature represented?

What is the researcher doing?

How powerfully is the researcher represented?

* from Kamler and Thomson (2006)

22 of 29

11. Use the topic sentence of each paragraph as your soapbox.

Avoid using a quote in the first sentence of every paragraph.

Always be the first one to 'speak'.

(From Kamler and Thomson, 2006)

23 of 29

Talk is identity work; a way of making us legible to ourselves as well as others. Telling stories about troubles is one way to come to terms with an altered identity. The concept of identity work has become a useful way of understanding the process of becoming an academic (Green and Lee 1998; Johnson and Lee 2000; Barnacle 2005; Dall’Alba and Barnacle 2007; Petersen 2007), the production of thesis texts (Kamler and Thompson 2007; Dunleavey 2003), the management of supervisor student relationships (Johnson, Lee and Green 2000; Green 2005) and in the practices of everyday doctoral life (Barnacle and Mewburn 2010)...

24 of 29

12. Follow the Literature reviewing cycle ...

25 of 29

...one paragraph at a time:

Evidence to support or refute

Reason you should believe this evidence

How this topic relates to the argument I am making

Topic sentence (no quoting other people now!)

What other people say about this topic

26 of 29

13. Pay attention to word placement

(Goodson, 2013, pg 118)

This is a 10 minute exercise to work on word placement and emphasis from Patricia Goodson:

1) Pick a chunk of text between two sub-headings

2) Examine the text sentence by sentence and ask yourself:

Where did I place the key idea in this sentence?

3) Try moving the key idea around to see what effect it has on your sentence

In the following example I move the key idea from my previous example to the end of the paragraph to create more emphasis.

27 of 29

Talk is identity work; a way of making us legible to ourselves as well as others. The concept of identity work has become a useful way of understanding the process of becoming an academic (Green and Lee 1998; Johnson and Lee 2000; Barnacle 2005; Dall’Alba and Barnacle 2007; Petersen 2007), the production of thesis texts (Kamler and Thompson 2007; Dunleavey 2003), the management of supervisor student relationships (Johnson, Lee and Green 2000; Green 2005) and in the practices of everyday doctoral life (Barnacle and Mewburn 2010). This paper argues that telling stories about the self - especially the self in some kind of trouble - is a strategy PhD students use to come to terms with an altered identity.

28 of 29

14. Don't treat the literature as a giant block of cheese...

Some things taste better sprinkled.

29 of 29

Useful references:

Becker, Howard (2007) Writing for social scientists: how to start and finish your thesis, book or article, Chicago University Press, Chicago.

Goodson, p (2013) Becoming an Academic Writer: 50 Exercises for Paced, Productive, and Powerful Writing, SAGE, NY

Kamler, B & Thomson, P (2006) Helping doctoral students to write, Routledge, New York.

Graff, G & Birkenstein, K (2010), They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Norton and Company, NY�

Sword, Helen (2012) Stylish academic writing, Havard University Press, Massachusetts