Secondary literature:

• Looking and grouping studies- bringing your own interpretation into the evidence and knowledge gathered from sources

• Secondary literature = any form of academic writing about a topic that is not considered to be primary research

• What do you do with secondary literature? Review, synthesis, summary, critique, and analysis; being able to summarize what you are seeing and reading

• Trying to convince the reader we need their study

3 phases of scholarly reading:

• Gathering, Engaging, Deploying

• Train your brain to looks for patterns in the material

• Gathering sources should feel like a treasure hunt. You’re not doing deep reading at this point

• You’re pursuing keyword searches and combing through bibliographies for clues to follow and trails to trace

• During this phase trying only to determine the lay of the land — skimming and organizing the scholarly books and articles and the names of scholars we find, into categories we can use later

Engaging:

• Once gathered main sources, interact with them closely and thoughtfully

• Choose from your broad bibliography the specific books and articles that offer you the most interesting, surprising, disquieting, puzzling information

• Looking at these sources and identifying those patterns

• seeking material dealing with emerging research questions, *do not skim

• goal is to read, highlight, and annotate only the sources most relevant to your focus

Deploying:

• Identify and retrieve crucial quotes, ideas, and points of view

• make the insights of others available for your own future readers, to demonstrate how your work connects with the work of other scholars in your subfield and discipline

• Use quotations sparingly; picking something that helps make your point and solidifies the argument

• Identify and retrieve crucial quotes, ideas, and points of view

What is a literature review:

• A literature review is a comprehensive overview of prior research regarding a specific topic

• shows the reader what is known about a topic, and what is not yet known

• It shares with the reader the results of other studies that are closely related to the study being reported

• filling in gaps and extending prior studies.

• It provides a framework for establishing the importance of the study

• The literature review is where you identify the theories and previous research which have influenced your choice of research topic and the methodology you are choosing to adopt; quantitative, qualitative, positivist

Why are literature reviews crucial:

• force a writer to educate him/herself on as much information as possible pertaining to the topic chosen

• Literature reviews demonstrate to readers that the author has a firm understanding of the topic

• By reviewing and reporting on all prior literature, weaknesses and shortcomings of prior literature will become more apparent

What does a literature review include:

• Literature reviews include a comprehensive overview of a general topic

What Various Foci Should a Literature Review Take:

• summarizing past research based on overall conclusions of the past research

• Methodological (highlighting different methodological approaches used in past research and the contributions of each type of research)

• By the end of the literature review, the reader should have a solid understanding of what is already known about the topic, what is not yet to be known, and therefore a good idea of what exactly the current study is going to examine, and why

What types of sources are appropriate to use:

• Scholarly empirical articles, dissertations, and books

• Scholarly, nonempirical articles and essays

• Textbooks, encyclopedias, and dictionaries;Trade journal articles

• Certain nationally and internationally recognized “good” newsmagazines

What is the Appropriate Way to End a Literature Review?

• it is at this point where the weaknesses in findings or the methodology of prior research are explicitly stated

• by understanding what the topic is, all of the relevant literature on the topic, any weaknesses in prior findings/methodology, and what this study is going to contribute to the further understanding of this topic