What is Literature Review Finding Information Searching using the Internet Evaluating Sources Reading a Scientific Paper	Citing Sources Writing a Good Review Quiz / Feedback Powerpoint Download	Literature Review Exercise Assessment Rubric Sample Literature Review Submission of Exercise Retrieval of Results
What is Literature Review? You've decided on your research topic. What's next? Your research topic may be something which you have immense interest in since young, perhaps trying to find out what causes fighting fish to fight. Or you may be looking at some topics which are far and high and your mentor chucks a topic to you and you stare blankly at 1,2-dimethyl-3,6,6-tribromocyclohexane. Either way, you'll need to read up to check whether your naive childhood thoughts are true, to find out what alien compound that is, or simply to find out more about your research topic -- what information is available out there and how your research is different and how it will create an impact. This "reading up" part is called your literature review. An article from University of California, Santa Cruz says:   A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.   A literature review should function: to justify your choice of research question, theoretical or conceptual framework, and method to establish the importance of the topic to provide background info to understand the study to show readers you are familiar with significant and/or up-to-date research relevant to the topic to establish your study as one link in a chain of research that is developing knowledge in your field A literature review should answer the following questions: What do we already know in the immediate area concerned? What are the characteristics or key concepts or main factors or variables? Which are the most important that we should pay attention to? What are the relationships between these key concepts, characteristics, factors or variables? What are the existing theories? How are they similar? How are they different? Where are the inconsistencies or other shortcomings in our knowledge or understanding? What views need to be (further) tested? Why study (further) the research problem? What contribution can the present study be expected to make? What research designs or methods seem unsatisfactory? In all, a literature review... is about evaluating readings and research shows the relationships between different works and more importantly, yours highlights key ideas concerning your project focuses on the purpose of the research explains why a research needs to be carried out That was a pageload of information! Still don't quite get it? Here's a little snippet from a literature review: Several researchers addressed the problem of optimal handing unit. Steudell (1990), Tanchoco (1998) and Agee (2000) studied various aspects of the subject. The last two references incorporate the size of the pallet in evaluation of the optimal lot sizes. In a report on a specific case, Normandin (1998) demonstrated that using the container can result in considerable savings.   NEXT: Finding Information
Hwa Chong Institution (High School) | Centre for Scholastic Excellence Research Module | Literature Review | Last updated on January 2009