Writing a Critical Review of a Journal Article Can Help to Improve Your Research Skills
What is a literature review?
"A literature review is both a summary and explanation of the complete and current state of knowledge on a express topic as found in academic books and journal manufactures. There are 2 kinds of literature reviews you might write at university: ane that students are asked to write equally a stand up-alone consignment in a class, often as office of their training in the research processes in their field, and the other that is written as role of an introduction to, or preparation for, a longer work, usually a thesis or inquiry written report"
Source: University of Guelph Library – Writing a Literature Review
You may exist asked to write a stand lone literature review on a given topic, or you may be required to behave a literature review as function of a larger piece of research, such thesis or dissertation.
The purpose of a literature review is to:
- Larn about a topic in preparation for a large research projection.
- Review writings by other researchers on a given topic
- Update a previous literature review
What to include
You lot will want to do a wide survey of the existing literature on your topic. This will include scholarly enquiry articles, books, theses, dissertations. When y'all are searching in library databases, be sure to use the scholarly journal/research commodity/peer reviewed limiters to become advisable results.
Equally stated on the SFU Academic Writing: What is a Literature Review folio:
"Don'tprovide a lot of detail virtually the procedures used in your sources.Don'tmention every report conducted on the topic. Include only the ones that are most relevant for the purpose and telescopic of your review"
Steps for writing a literature review
The University of Guelph Library has prepared a helpful listing of ix steps to writing a literature review.
1. Find a Working Topic
Expect at your specific area of study. Think well-nigh what interests you, and what is fertile ground for study. Talk to your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals in the field.
ii. Review the Literature
- Using keywords, search a computer database. It is best to use at to the lowest degree ii databases relevant to your discipline
- Call back that the reference lists of recent articles and reviews can lead to valuable papers
- Make sure that you also include any studies contrary to your point of view
iii. Focus Your Topic Narrowly and Select Papers Accordingly
Consider the following:
- What interests you?
- What interests others?
- What time span of research will you lot consider?
Choose an area of inquiry that is due for a review.
4. Read the Selected Articles Thoroughly and Evaluate Them
- What assumptions do most/some researchers seem to be making?
- What methodologies do they use? what testing procedures, subjects, textile tested?
- Evaluate and synthesize the inquiry findings and conclusions fatigued
- Annotation experts in the field: names/labs that are frequently referenced
- Notation conflicting theories, results, methodologies
- Watch for popularity of theories and how this has/has not inverse over fourth dimension
5. Organize the Selected Papers Past Looking For Patterns and By Developing Subtopics
Annotation things such as:
- Findings that are mutual/contested
- Two or three important trends in the inquiry
- The most influential theories
6. Develop a Working Thesis
Write a one or ii sentence statement summarizing the conclusion y'all take reached well-nigh the major trends and developments you encounter in the research that has been washed on your subject.
7. Organize Your Own Paper Based on the Findings From Steps 4 & 5
Develop headings/subheadings. If your literature review is extensive, find a large tabular array surface, and on information technology identify mail service-it notes or filing cards to organize all your findings into categories. Motility them around if you decide that (a) they fit meliorate nether different headings, or (b) you need to constitute new topic headings.
viii. Write the Torso of the Paper
Follow the plan yous have developed above, making certain that each department links logically to the one before and after, and that you take divided your sections by themes or subtopics, not by reporting the piece of work of private theorists or researchers.
9. Look At What You lot Have Written; Focus On Analysis, Non Description
Expect at the topic sentences of each paragraph. If you were to read only these sentences, would you find that your paper presented a clear position, logically developed, from beginning to cease? If, for example, you find that each paragraph begins with a researcher'south proper noun, information technology might indicate that, instead of evaluating and comparing the research literature from an belittling indicate of view, you take but described what research has been washed. This is 1 of the well-nigh common problems with pupil literature reviews. So if your paper still does not announced to be defined by a primal, guiding concept, or if it does not critically analyse the literature selected, then you should brand a new outline based on what you have said in each section and paragraph of the paper, and decide whether yous need to add together information, to delete off-topic information, or to restructure the paper entirely.
For example, look at the following two passages and note that Student A is merely describing the literature and Student B takes a more than analytical and evaluative arroyo, by comparison and contrasting. Y'all can likewise see that this evaluative arroyo is well signalled by linguistic markers indicating logical connections (words such every bit "all the same," "moreover") and phrases such as "substantiates the claim that," which indicate supporting evidence and Educatee B'due south ability to synthesize knowledge.
Source: Academy of Guelph Library: Writing a Literature Review.
Helpful resource:
Print books:
Efrat, S., & Ravid, R. (2019). Writing the literature review: A practical guide. New York: The Guilford Press. Telephone call number LB2369 E289 2019
Garrard, J. (2011). Health sciences literature review fabricated easy: The matrix method. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Call number R118.6 G37 2011
Petticrew, M. (2006). Systematic reviews in the social sciences: A applied guide. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Call number H62 P457 2006
Online manufactures:
Badke, W. (2017). The literature review in a digital historic period.Online Searcher,41(3), 57-59.
Neill, C. (2017). Writing & research. Writing a literature review.Radiations Therapist,26(1), 89-91.
Online resources:
Concordia University: How to Write a Literature Review
Guelph University Library: Writing a Literature Review
University of Toronto: The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting it
Source: https://library.questu.ca/research/research-guides-menu/literature-review-tips/
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