If you are a first-time researcher it might, be useful to find out few tips on literature searching and review. It helps us to focus on what we are looking for. We need to develop a search strategy and search skills.
Literature searching involves special techniques. Whether you are a marketing practitioner, quality manager or compliance professional to find frameworks and best practice materials, suitable search and review strategy might go a long way and save time.
1. Define the parameters of your search and keywords
You need to be precise about your requirements when searching for literature. Do you want your material in English or prefer worldwide material? A good habit would be to limit the research on what has been published in the last 5-10 years. Sometimes, however it is required to cover wider literature. It is important to be able present the development of knowledge over time in our reports.
We also need to define on where the study is conducted. What industry or field? Business, hospitals, prisons, universities, and so on.
The next step would be to define the research area. For example: nursing, science, education, engineering etc.
Sometimes, you can't afford spending too much time on shifting through a large number of references, thus must eliminate irrelevant items. It might be worth using alternative keywords, if research is not being useful so far. Think of synonyms or consult dictionary. Make notes of accepted words for future use.
Next to high number of digital resources, we also need hard copies and books. It allows us to interact with the text.
In terms of Google search, it is important to be precise. The more precise we are the more accurate will be the search. It is useful to ask question in Google search. Google scholar might be useful as it provides citation tracking for authors.
In Google books some books are free to downland if the author given permission to do so. Other books are limited to preview or there is a charge for accessing one.
Books, however, date quickly. You may need to use journals of your specific area. They can point you in the right direction and refine your research.
2. Evaluating sources
When evaluating sources it is worth to think whether we have only search for information that supports our argument or hypothesis. It is useful to consult a wide range of sources. We need to make an effort to critically evaluate the evidence. The evidence must support authors arguments. Be watchful for bias of other researchers, but also our own. We might agree with someone's conclusions, but fail to check these were suitably justified. Information is not always provided in sufficient detail.
3. Consider copyrights and licensing restrictions
If you want to downland files online and use them in a latest date, you must be careful about copyright and licensing restrictions. we all cut and paste from web pages, but need to be careful on ensuring to provide information on where they were retrieved and who's words we are pasting. Give yourself plenty of time for this tasks. Be optimistic and if you find something, do not loose it.
The literature review
Aveyard defines literature review as:
" a comprehensive study and interpretation of literature that relates to a particular topic. When you undertake literature review, you identify the research question and seek to answer this question by analysing relevant literature using a systematic approach. This review leads you to development of new insights that are only possible when each piece of relevant information is seen in the context of other information."
The review is part of our academic development. Evidence of reading is required for research projects.
The "critical review"
The review should provide the reader with a picture of the state of knowledge and major questions on the subject. This, in practice, can prove anything but easy. Discipline is required to produce a review. We need to study the work with insight. It involves critical assumptions, querying claims made for which no evidence has been provided. We need to consider findings of one researchers against others, evaluate and organise them. Literature review must identify and explain relationships between facts.
Verma and Beard say that
" the researcher must produce a concept or built a theoretical structure that can explain facts and relationships between them... The importance of theory helps the investigator summarise previous information and guide his future course of action. Sometimes the formulation of theory may indicate missing ideas and the kinds of additional data required. Thus, a theory is an essential tool in research in stimulating the advancement of knowledge still further. "
Theory and theoretical frameworks
Theory describes relationships between categories. Care has to be taken before embarking theory-after approach as it requires a lot of data and well beyond small studies. "Models" are often used interchangeably with "theories". Both may seem as explanatory. Models often use analogies to give more graphic representation of a concept. They can be a great help in achieving clarity and focusing on key issues.
A "framework" on another side, is defined as
"conceptual underpinning of a study... In a study based on theory it it referred as theoretical framework". In a study that has its roots in a specific conceptual model, the framework is often called as "conceptual framework"."
Theoretical framework is explanatory which explains the main things to be studied and the relationships among them. Framework are useful in summarising facts. It makes the knowledge more accessible and more useful to those who want to implement it.
Research generally cannot start until it has relevant "theoretical base".
We can establish a framework for our analysis and review of literature. It can be difficult to produce a comprehensive review, because research involves human beings and we often take account for a large number of variables involved. This makes it difficult to establish any common pattern. However, it is still perfectly possible to succeed.
Categorising and grouping
Some concerns are being addressed internationally or nationally and some literature review might be extensive.
We need to choose the most accurate pieces of theory and explore them thoroughly. Document the review. Even though the sources might have different approaches or systems you might discover similar patterns and findings. Support each of the findings with the name, date and page number to provide a full list of reference. Findings can be categorised under main headings. Categorising and re-categorising might be complex but we might be able to produce a good review.
Sometimes it might be useful to provide a table with previous analysis and predictions and we continue with analysing our own findings. We draw conclusions from research findings this way and categorise them.
Generally researches have an extensive knowledge of their topics before undertaking any work.
We are then able to produce an exhaustive review of previous studies related to our study. It might be useful to produce brief account for selected literature and draw some conclusions if possible. Headings, categories and grouping can be based on our experience and gradually adapted or changed during the course of our reading.
Quotations
We can illustrate work of others by paraphrasing their ideas, expressing them in our own words or by using a direct quotation. Quotations are generally used for definitions of important terms, particular examples of a viewpoint difficult to paraphrase or well-expressed opinions.
Quotations need to fit grammatically with the rest of the sentence. We include in a bracket the name of the author, date and page number. In some cases, we can modify the quotation using square brackets [...] to change pronoun to change it grammatically or to insert our own words to ensure that the quotation makes sense. Omitted information are shown in ellipsis as ....
We can all learn by reading what other researches have done. Look critically at reviews of others. Research findings can be dangerous if used in undisciplined way as there might be no evidence in the findings to support a claim.
Evidence of reading will always be required in any research. Researches may collect many facts but must select, organise and classify findings into a coherent pattern. We need to examined our sources critically before we decide to use them. Unless we are comparing like with like, we can make no claim for comparability.
Bibliography
Aveyard, H. (2010) Doing a Literature Review in Health and Social Care: A Practical Guide (2nd edn). Maidenhead: Open University Press
Bell, J. and Opie, C. (2002) Learning from Research: Getting More from Your Data. Buckingham: Open University Press.
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