Literature Review
How not to reinvent the wheel
Types of literature reviews
• A brief review of existing knowledge in an
area as it relates to your topic of study. It is
organized as an argument in favor of a given
research study, explaining why it should be
undertaken and how it will contribute to our
knowledge on a given topic
• A reader should come to the conclusion that your
proposed research will shed light on an important
topic/concern.
Types of literature reviews
• A second type of literature review sees the
review as an end in itself. It is an extensive
discussion of a topic that attempts to critique
and integrate a large body of literature in a
way that reveals areas of agreement,
disagreement, and missing information. It
usually encourages the reader to adopt a
particulary theoretical perspective.
Literature review
• Consists of:
• A search for information regarding the
chosen topic
• Quality of information
• Quantity of information
• A thoughtful analysis of the content
identified in the first step
• Organization
• An essay written based on that analysis
• The steps overlap
How do you approach a
literature review?
1. Develop a general understanding of the
topic
1. Identify major theories, research streams
2. Identify subject terms and important
language relating to your topic
3. Search library catalogs and databases for
quality information on the topic
4. Supplement scholarly information with
news and popular culture sources
5. Organize the material for
presentation
6. Write the review, edit, rewrite, edit
again, etc. until the final piece is
well-written, succinct and compelling
Important information to make
your life easier:
• You can download a citation
manager/database software program
from UK for free
• Endnote X2 for your appropriate
operating system
• http://download.uky.edu/
General sources:
Encyclopedias
• General v. topical
Handbooks
• Somewhat more hit-and-miss than an
encyclopedia
• However, articles tend to be more in-depth
and to cover research better
Consider a textbook
• Textbooks on the topic area can be
useful as well
Yearbooks, annual reviews
Take-away from general
sources
• A basic understanding of the topic of
interest
• A set of sources for further, more indepth reading
Books
• Range from popular books aimed at a
general audience to scholarly books
that are advanced and demanding
• Abstracts and book reviews help you
determine whether a book is too general
or too advanced and demanding for
your needs
Search library catalogs and
databases for quality information on
the topic
• Go to the Library web page
• Choose either
• Or
Identify subject terms, important
language of the field or study topic
• Examine the library catalog entries for
subject terms that relate to those books
and articles that you find most useful
• Keep a list of terms for use in searches
• Write down important terms from
abstracts, headings and subheadings in
your reading
For books
• Search the catalog
• Scholarly books on a topic are:
• most likely to provide a comprehensive
treatment of your topic
• most likely to develop a fully laid-out
theoretical argument
• often out of date compared to articles
• not subject to the type of peer review that
articles are
Edited books
• Some books are a compilation of
reviews of important topics within a
larger subject area
• Chapters are written by experts on
particular topics and are reviewed by
the editors of the volume to see that
they meet high standards
For articles
• Go to the database page
• Find an appropriate database to search for
articles
• I usually pick resources organized by subject
and then scroll to “Communications” and hit
“submit”
• “Communication and Mass Media Complete”
• This database provides citations from a great
number of media-related journals, usually with a
short abstract. You can download full-text (pdf) files
from several of the periodicals.
For articles
• You can search using the subject terms
you kept from the earlier citations
• Limit your searches around the terms to try
to find the best sources first
• You can limit the search to scholarly (peerreviewed) and/or full-text articles
• Expand if you don’t get enough cites at first
For articles
• Boolean logic
• “And” v. “or” v. “not”
• Use of selected fields
• Some fields are quite restrictive (‘title’) while
others not at all restrictive (‘all text’)
An example: “Cultivation”
Type “cultivation” in blank and require that it
be included in the abstract
• or
• “authority” in all text and “television” in
abstract
For articles
• You could also find one or more of the
articles cited in the overall reviews you
looked at earlier
• Then use the subject terms for the best
articles
• Or else look for the authors of the
overall reviews and see what they have
written
For articles
• When you have found some good articles
and are reading them, you should be able
to identify sources the authors used that
would help your review
• Carry on a “fan-out” search—look up the
sources from the bibliographies of the best
articles
• In several of the databases you can
electronically link to cited sources and can
even save full-text versions of those articles
Reviews in academic journals
• Some journals will carry review articles
or overviews of a topic area
• Use “review” or “overview” as a search
term in an appropriate database along with
topic-specific terms
• Holmstrom, A. J. (2004). The effects of
the media on body image: A metaanalysis. Journal of Broadcasting &
Electronic Media, 48, 196-217.
Don’t be skimpy
When you are starting out it’s easier to
collect too much and shed what’s
unnecessary than to have to make multiple
searches
As the literature review progresses and you
know what you need, you can more
narrowly tailor the follow-up searches and
keep only the best content for use in the
review
Supplement scholarly information with
news and popular culture sources
• Though they generally are not as well
thought-out or accurate, popular
sources can provide examples,
interesting angles and/or update your
findings from the academic literature
• Websites of organizations involved with
your topic (may do their own research,
develop white papers, etc.)
• Pew Center
• Newspaper/newsmagazine sites are
available with helpful (and easily
readable) stories about many topics of
interest
• Library databases provide many full-text
newspapers and popular magazines
NOTE:
Go to news, popular magazine, or WWW
sources AFTER you have done a good job
mining the scholarly literature. You’ll be
more efficient that way, and will be able to
critique the sources you find more
effectively.
Admittedly, some of the most recent or
technical topics may call for more use of
news and popular culture
Organize the material for
presentation
• Develop an outline!! (And then follow it).
• Don’t do the “train of
consciousness” thing. What seems
perfectly rational and sensible to
you will turn out to be full of logical
holes, leaps of faith and selfcontradictory logic.
Writing the review
• Lay out your argument in step-by-step
fashion and then place the evidence
you have found where it fits on the
outline.
• Do some of your claims lack support?
• Are some arguments especially
controversial?
• These require the most background
Write the review, edit, rewrite, edit
again, etc. until the final piece is
organized, succinct and compelling
• Presentation counts! Spelling, usage,
structure, organization—they all matter in
how well your ideas are presented. You
are trying to convince the reader of
something. A well-written, articulate
argument is more convincing.
NOTE:
• One of the most common shortcomings
of research studies is that the
researcher does not write a good
literature review. Putting in the effort
during the conceptualization stage will
be rewarded during operationalization
and interpretation. Your write-up will be
faster and higher quality.