Lesson 5: The Critical Literature
Review
Prepared and presented by: PROF. MARIA VICTORIA C. MACALE
Learning Objectives:
After completing Chapter 4 you should be able to:
1. Discuss the functions of a literature review.
2. Write a literature review on any given topic,
documenting the references in the prescribed manner.
3. Discuss the ethical issues of documenting the
literature review.
Introduction
• To be able to generate viable alternatives for effective decision making you
have to become an expert on your topic.
• A second review of the literature, or critical literature review, is therefore
essential in most research projects.
• A literature review is “the selection of available documents (both published
and unpublished) on the topic, which contain information, ideas, data and
evidence written from a particular standpoint to fulfill certain aims or express
certain views on the nature of the topic and how it is to be investigated, and
the effective evaluation of these documents in relation to the research being
proposed” (Hart, 1998 , p. 13).
In general, a literature review ensures that:
• 1. The research effort is positioned relative to existing knowledge and builds on
this knowledge.
• 2. You can look at a problem from a specific angle; it shapes your thinking and
sparks useful insights on the topic of your research.
• 3. You do not run the risk of “reinventing the wheel”, that is, wasting effort on
trying to rediscover something that is already known.
• 4. You are able to introduce relevant terminology and to define key terms used in
your writing. This is important because the same term may have different
meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. Definitions will also help
you to give structure to your essay, article or report (see Box 4.1 for an example).
• 5. You obtain useful insights of the research methods that others have used to
provide an answer to similar research questions. Knowledge of the research
methods used by others allows you to replicate existing research, which will help
you to relate your research findings to the findings of others.
• 6. The research effort can be contextualized in a wider academic debate. In other
words, it allows you to relate your findings to the findings of others.
HOW TO APPROACH THE LITERATURE REVIEW
• The first step of a literature review involves the
identification of the various published and
unpublished materials that are available on the
topic of interest, and gaining access to these.
Data Sources
• The quality of a literature review depends on a cautious selection and reading of
books, academic and professional journals, reports, theses, conference
proceedings, unpublished manuscripts, and the like.
• Academic books and journals are, in general, the most useful sources of
information.
• However, other sources such as professional journals, reports, and even
newspapers may also be valuable because they can provide you with specific,
real‐ world information about markets, industries, or companies.
• Therefore, as a rule, you will need to use a combination of information
resources. The precise combination of resources depends on the nature and the
objectives of your research project.
Textbooks
• Textbooks are a useful source of theory in a specific area. An
advantage of textbooks is that they can cover a broad range of
topics.
• What’s more, textbooks can cover a topic much more thoroughly
than articles can.
• Hence, textbooks offer a good starting point from which to find
more detailed sources such as journal articles, theses, and
unpublished manuscripts.
• A downside of textbooks is that they tend to be less up to date than
journals.
Journals
• Both academic and professional journals are important sources of up‐to‐date information.
• Articles in academic journals have generally been peer‐reviewed: this means that the
articles have been subject to the scrutiny of experts in the same field before being accepted
for publication.
• Review articles (that may or may not contain a meta‐analysis: a type of data analysis in
which the results of several studies are combined and analyzed as if they were the results
of one large study) summarize previous research findings to inform the reader of the state
of existing research.
• Review articles are very useful because they provide an overview of all the important
research in a specific area.
• Research articles are reports of empirical research, describing one or a few related
studies. The conceptual background section of a research article provides a compact
overview of relevant literature.
• Research articles also provide a detailed description of the purpose of the study, the
method(s) used, and the results of the study
Theses
• PhD theses often contain an exhaustive review of the literature
in a specific area.
• Most PhD theses include several empirical chapters.
• These
chapters often have the same
characteristics as academic journal articles.
structure
and
• Note that not every empirical chapter of a thesis is eventually
published in an academic journal.
Conference Proceedings
• Conference proceedings can be useful in providing the latest
research, or research that has not (yet) been published.
• Conference proceedings are very up to date, and for this reason
this information source is quite valuable if you are working in a
relatively new area or domain.
• Not every manuscript presented at a conference is eventually
published in an academic journal; hence you must critically
assess the quality of this information source.
Unpublished Manuscripts
• The APA defines an unpublished manuscript as any information source
that is not “officially” released by an individual, publishing house, or other
company.
• Examples of unpublished manuscripts may include papers accepted for
publication but still “in press,” data from an unpublished study, letters,
manuscripts in preparation, and personal communications (including
e‐mails).
• Unpublished manuscripts are often very up to date.
Reports
• Government departments and corporations commission or
carry out a large amount of research.
• Their published findings provide a useful source of specific
market, industry, or company information.
Newspapers
• Newspapers provide up‐to‐date business information.
• They are a useful source of specific market, industry, or
company information.
• Note that opinions in newspapers are not always unbiased.
The Internet
• The amount of information that can be found on the World Wide Web is enormous.
• You can search for (the details of) books, journals and journal articles, and conference
proceedings, as well as for specialized data such as company publications and reports.
• The number of newspapers, magazines, and journals that is available electronically is
enormous.
• Note that the Internet is unregulated and unmonitored.
• Moreover, developing an Internet page is easy and cheap. For this reason, the Internet
provides exceptional challenges in determining the usefulness and reliability of
information.
• Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! can help you to find relevant information. For
instance, Google Scholar, which can be accessed from the Google homepage, can help you to
identify academic literature, such as peer‐reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and
articles from academic publishers, universities, and other scholarly organizations.
Searching for literature
• Electronic journals. Your library is probably subscribed to journals that are
published or made available online. Discover which journals are provided online
by your library.
• Full‐text databases. Full‐text databases provide the full text of the article. Find
out which full‐text databases are provided by your library.
• Bibliographic databases. Bibliographic databases display only the bibliographic
citations; that is, the name of the author, the title of the article (or book), source
of publication, year, volume, and page numbers. These contain the same
information as can be found in the Bibliographic Index books in libraries, which
are periodically updated, and include articles published in periodicals,
newspapers, books, and so on. Some useful indexes are provided in the appendix
to this chapter.
• Abstract databases. Abstract databases also provide an abstract or summary of
articles. They do not provide the full text of an article or manuscript.
Evaluating the Literature
• Accessing the online system and searching for literature in the area of interest
will provide a comprehensive bibliography on the subject. Because the search
for literature can sometimes provide as many as 100 or more results, you will
have to carefully select relevant books and articles.
• A glance at the titles of the articles or books will indicate which of them may be
pertinent and which others are likely to be peripheral to the contemplated
study.
• The abstract of an article usually provides an overview of the study purpose,
general research strategy, findings, and conclusions.
• A good abstract thus provides you with enough information to help you to
decide whether an article is relevant for your study.
• An article’s introduction also provides an overview of the problem addressed
by the research and specific research objectives. The introduction often ends
with a summary of the research questions that guide the study.
Documenting the Literature Review
• The purpose of the literature review is to help the researcher to build on the work of
others and to make informed decisions during the various stages of the research
project.
• A review of the literature identifies and highlights relevant themes and documents
significant findings, frameworks, and/or instruments from earlier research that will
serve as the foundation for the current project.
• Documenting the literature review is important to convince the reader that the
researcher is knowledgeable about the problem area and has done the preliminary
homework that is necessary to conduct the research.
• A point to note is that the literature survey should bring together all relevant
information in a cogent and logical manner instead of presenting all the studies in
chronological order with bits and pieces of uncoordinated information.
• A literature review is intended to synthesize (and not necessarily to summarize)
relevant research on your topic.
• To synthesize is to combine two or more elements to form a new whole. In your
literature review, the elements are the findings of the literature you select and read;
the new whole is the conclusion you draw from these findings.
ETHICAL ISSUES
• Earlier in this chapter we have explained that research
involves building on the work of others. When you summarize,
add to, or challenge the work of others, there are two
important pitfalls that you have to beware of:
• 1. Purposely misrepresenting the work of other authors – that is,
their viewpoints, ideas, models, findings, conclusions, interpretations,
and so on.
• 2. Plagiarism – the use of another ’ s original words, arguments, or
ideas as though they were your own, even if this is done in good faith,
out of carelessness, or out of ignorance.
• Both purposely misrepresenting the work of others and
plagiarism are considered to be fraud.
ETHICAL ISSUES
• In today ’s information age, copying and pasting information
from online sources into your own research paper has become
very simple.
• This may create a temptation to copy (significant) portions of
text into your work. Your task is to resist this temptation.
• Plagiarism is a type of fraud that is taken very seriously in the
academic world, mainly because using the work of others as if
it were your own does not convey much respect for the efforts
that other people have put into their work.
APA FORMAT FOR REFERENCING RELEVANT
ARTICLES
• A distinction has to be made between a bibliography and references.
• A bibliography is a listing of work that is relevant to the main topic of
research interest arranged in alphabetical order of the last names of the
authors.
• A reference list is a subset of the bibliography, which includes details of all
the citations used in the literature review and elsewhere in the paper,
arranged, again, in alphabetical order of the last names of the authors.
• These citations have the goals of crediting the authors and enabling the
reader to find the works cited.
Specimen format for citing different types of
references (APA format):
Book by a single author
Leshin, C.B. (1997). Management on the World Wide Web. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Book by more than one author
Diener, E., Lucas, R., Schimmack, U., & Helliwell, J.F. (2009). Well‐being for public
policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Book review
Nichols, P. (1998). A new look at Home Services [Review of the book Providing
Home Services to the Elderly by Girch, S.]. Family Review Bulletin, 45, 12–13.
Specimen format for citing different types of
references (APA format):
Chapter in an edited book
Riley, T., & Brecht, M.L. (1998). The success of the mentoring process. In R. Williams (Ed.),
Mentoring and career success, pp. 129–150. New York: Wilson Press.
Conference proceedings publication
Sanderson, R., Albritton B., Schwemmer R., & Van de Sompel, H. (2011). Shared canvas: A
collaborative model for medieval manuscript layout dissemination. Proceedings of the
Eleventh ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, pp. 175–184. Ottawa, Ontario
Doctoral dissertation
Hassan, M. (2014). The Lives of micro‐marketers: Why do some differentiate themselves
from their competitors more than others? Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of
Cambridge.
Specimen format for citing different types of
references (APA format):
Edited book
Pennathur, A., Leong, F.T., & Schuster, K. (Eds.) (1998). Style and substance of thinking.
New York: Publishers Paradise.
Edited book, digital, with DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
Christiansen, S. (Ed.). (2007). Offenders’ memories of violent crimes. doi:
10.1002/7980470713082.
Journal article
Jeanquart, S., & Peluchette, J. (1997). Diversity in the workforce and management models.
Journal of Social Work Studies, 43 (3), 72–85. Deffenbacher, J.L., Oetting, E.R., Lynch, R.S., &
Morris, C.D. (1996). The expression of anger and its consequences. Behavior Research and
Therapy, 34, 575–590.
Specimen format for citing different types of
references (APA format):
Journal article in press
Van Herpen, E., Pieters, R., & Zeelenberg, M. (2009). When demand accelerates
demand: Trailing the bandwagon, Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Journal article with DOI
A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency (the
International DOI Foundation) to identify an object (such as an electronic document) and provide a persistent
link to its location on the Internet. A publisher assigns a DOI when an article is published and made available
electronically.
López‐Vicente, M., Sunyer, J., Forns, J., Torrent, M., & Júlvez, J. (2014). Continuous
Performance Test II outcomes in 11‐year‐ old children with early ADHD symptoms:
A longitudinal study. Neuropsychology, 28, 202–211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/
neu0000048
Specimen format for citing different types of references
(APA format):
More than one book by the same author in the same year
Roy, A. (1998a). Chaos theory. New York: Macmillan Publishing Enterprises.
Roy, A. (1998b). Classic chaos. San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass.
Newspaper article, no author
QE faces challenge in Europe’s junk bond market (2015, March 27). Financial Times,
p. 22.
Paper presentation at conference
Bajaj, L.S. (1996, March 13). Practical tips for efficient work management. Paper
presented at the annual meeting of Entrepreneurs, San Jose, CA.
Unpublished manuscript
Pringle, P.S. (1991). Training and development in the ’90s. Unpublished manuscript,
Southern Illinois University, Diamondale, IL.
REFERENCING AND QUOTATION IN THE
LITERATURE REVIEW SECTION
• Cite all references in the body of the paper using the author–year method
of citation; that is, the surname of the author(s) and the year of
publication are given in the appropriate places.
• Examples of this are as follows:
• 1. Todd (2015) found the more motivated students are . . .
• 2. More recent studies of transformational leadership (Hunt,
2014; Osborn, 2013) focus on . . .
• 3. In a follow‐up study from 2013, Green demonstrates . . .
Quotations in text
• Quotations should be given exactly as they appear in the source. The original
wording, punctuation, spelling, and italics must be preserved even if they are
erroneous.
• The citation of the source of a direct quotation should always include the page
number(s) as well as the reference.
• Use double quotation marks for quotations in text.
• Use single quotation marks to identify the material that was enclosed in double
quotation marks in the original source.
• If you want to emphasize certain words in a quotation, underline them and
immediately after the underlined words, insert within brackets the words: italics
added. Use three ellipsis points (. . .) to indicate that you have omitted material from
the original source. See the example that follows on the next slide.
For instance, Weiner (1998, p. 121) argues that:
Following the outcome of an event, there is initially a general positive or
negative reaction (a “primitive” emotion) based on the perceived success or
failure of that outcome (the “primary” appraisal). (. . .) Following the
appraisal of the outcome, a causal ascription will be sought if that outcome
was unexpected and/or important. A different set of emotions is then
generated by the chosen attributions.
Note:
If you intend publishing an article in which you have quoted extensively
from a copyrighted work, it is important that you seek written permission
from the owner of the copyright. Make sure that you also footnote the
permission obtained with respect to the quoted material. Failure to do so
may result in unpleasant consequences, including legal action taken
through copyright protection laws.
Thank You. Any questions?