Supervising Masters & PhD students Writing a literature review

Dr Katherine Samuelowicz Academic Writing & Research Consultant

Why is literature review so important?

Why is literature review so important?

Its an integral part of the thesis (and students need to bear this in mind from the beginning) It sets the scene for the research presented in the thesis It provides justification for the research presented in the thesis Some examiners claim they can judge the quality of a thesis from its literature review

What problems have you encountered with students literature reviews as a supervisor and or as an examiner?

Deficiencies noted by examiners

exclusion of landmark studies emphasis on outdated material adopting a parochial perspective not being critical not discriminating between relevant and irrelevant materials, and lacking synthesis (Afolabi, 1992)

Deficiencies (continued)
Literature Review the second most deficient aspect of theses (typographical errors were first) Most common criticisms: Failure to use recent literature, and an inability to critically assess the existing literature Lengthy; irrelevant; outdated; tedious; repetitive; bewildering; & flabbergasting (Hansford & Maxwell, 1993)

What is its purpose?

What is its purpose?

To demonstrate professional competence in the area of the research (ideally, students know the background to their work and have an appreciation of the present state of the art: the breakthroughs, the controversies, whats hot in the field, etc.) To justify the need for the research undertaken To establish the theoretical framework of the research

The literature review then needs to:

Show a thorough knowledge of the relevant research, theory, ideology & opinion (convergence/divergence of views) Locate students work within the above Ensure the reader knows their review is selective and relevant to the research question Evaluate the focal literature critically Distinguish between what has previously been done or said and what is proposed in this study

Therefore ..
The literature review has to be: DISCURSIVE - a logical argument not a list of studies presented one after another (students need to focus on ideas, theories, issues, results not sources) not a catalogue of facts

When to do it? How to do it?

When and how to do it

At the beginning When students have first results At the end, when all other chapters are finished

At the beginning
Students need to do two things: learn from the literature and learn to evaluate it critically In doing this, they should be looking for the strength, and the significance, and contributions made by the researchers and limitations, flaws and weaknesses of particular studies, or of whole lines of enquiry

Some questions students could ask when reading 1/2

Is the problem important and clearly spelled out? Is the methodology well justified as the most appropriate to study the problem? How were the results analysed? Is the theoretical basis transparent? What perspective are they coming from? How large a sample was used? Are the results presented new?

Some questions 2/2

Are the generalisations justified by the evidence on which they are made? How convincing is the argument made? What is the significance of this research? What are the assumptions behind the research? Was the research influential in that others picked up the threads and pursued them?

When students have first results

Now your students would be better equipped to make sense of the literature They would be able to synthesise findings, to start placing their results within the body of knowledge, to see the quality of results in other studies, to see the finer points of methods used

At the end
Now your students should be able to see where their results belong, how they compare with other results, what they add to the understanding of a particular problem They will be also see how previous research motivated their own research They should be able to seamlessly integrated their lit review into the plot of their thesis

Structuring the review

Examiners appreciate work which is logically presented, focused, succinct, and in which signposts are used to help readers to understand the path they are taking through the work One of the problems with work that is poorly presented is that the examiner tends to lose confidence in the candidate and can become suspicious that there are deeper problems of inadequate and rushed conceptualisation. (Johnson, 1997 p.345 in Mullins
and Kiley 2002)

Helping students structuring their lit review

Exercise
During the next 5 - 10 minutes plot out the story your literature review is going to tell. You may use concept maps, diagrams, flow charts to present your plot. Think about the sections into which you would like to divide your review. Think about the abstract youve written in the previous session to make sure that your review fits with the overall plot of the thesis.

How to do it
Plot out the story your literature review is going to tell in order to achieve your purpose Use maps or diagrams to shape it to see the overall picture and to identify the core literature (re-do if emphasis changes) From the diagram, organise the review into sections

Ho to do it - working on sections
Once you have the overall story/plot for your literature review work on sections: - What is the point Im making in this section? - What is its purpose in the whole story?

Reviewing
EVALUATE the worth of what others are doing (and build a bank of useful VERBS) SHAPE this to show how your work logically comes out of what others have done Bring together what you read into a FRAMEWORK and identify the relationships, contradictions, anomalies. Dont forget to look critically at already accepted work

Reviewing - Examples
Establish a bank of poor and good reviews and discuss them with students

Reviewing - Example 1 (first take)

Significance of the problem: theoretical practical History of the problem Problems with current approaches (i.e. to the problem!) leading to the research in this study

Reviewing - Example 2 (final)

Batt & Kompala (1989) lumped the biotic phase into The key criticism of the model is that the proposed kinetics is essentially unfounded Whether there is a need to include a description of changes in cell composition , also remains to be clarified. To my knowledge, no data have shown With 49 parameters, the model of Batt & Kompala is expected to fit Thus, the fit was achieved to data that were wrongly transformed.

Example 2 (contd)
From a production point of view, the key point of interest is what limits the system and how to overcome these limits. The limitation of the system is what ultimately determines the economics. Surprisingly little fundamental research work has been performed on animal cell culture in this area. One reason for the lack of work in this area has been the assumption that growth is inhibited at

Reviewing - Verbs
Lets look at the language used in Example 2 often students use three verbs: Smith (2001) says.. Black (2002) stated that Green (1999) mentioned

Reviewing - Example 3 (draft)

clearly judged to suffer from a number of deficiencies (Baker, 1974; Baker and Freeland, 1975). These deficiencies For example, the are some of the objections (Baker, 1976). In addition, the data validity (Dumbleton, 1986). Furthermore, many models did not in decision making (Lee, et al., 1986). Lastly, most of the models did not allow decision makers to priority structure associated with the multiple objectives.

Reviewing - Example 4 (final)

In summary, recent writings have used the concept of tradition as an intellectual phenomenon to relate . There are a number of common themes in the writings examined. First, there is an acceptance that . Second, this relationship depends not so much upon There is also general agreement upon the dimensions of this intellectual and attitudinal base.

Reviewing - Example 5 (draft)

Definitions of food security used over the last ten years reflect an evolution from concern for early warning, to improved prediction and understanding of the structural processes and outcomes for prevention of food insecurity. As well as broadening the focus of definitions, geographical concerns . Consequently there is a need for a sound generic definition that provides a structural framework applicable to a range of . Operational definitions of food security can be formulated from this general framework according to the specific context.

Reviewing - Example 5 (contd)

One of the first definitions was given by . Since then food security has been defined in various ways . However, the various definitions illustrate genuine differences in emphasis between the scale and dimensions of . While there may be differences, most definitions include five components which form the framework of the food and nutrition system:

Reviewing - Things to remind your students

Provide an OVERVIEW; remain in control Clarify WHOSE CRITIQUE it is Use SPECIFIC DETAIL when relevant Develop and assess DEFINITIONS CLUSTER similar studies and review the body of work Make use of SECTION SUMMARIES RE-WRITE at several stages

Seek comments & talk about your work with

Your supervisor Fellow research students Website: PhD: First Thoughts to Finished Writing http://www.uq.edu.au/studentservices/linkto/phdwriting//
Mullins, G & Kiley, M. (2002). Its a PhD, not a Nobel Prize: How experienced examiners assess research theses. In Studies in Higher Education V.27, N.4.