explains
indicates
notes
describes
Most of us have favourite verbs that we default to almost unconsciously when we are writing—reports, argues, describes, studies, explains, asserts—but these verbs are not interchangeable. They each inscribe a slightly different stance towards the knowledge—not only the writer’s stance, but also the stance of the researcher who created the knowledge. It is critical to get the original stance right in your critical summary. Nothing irritates me more than seeing my stance mispresented in someone else’s literature review. For example, if I wrote a paragraph offering tentative reflections on a new idea, I don’t want to see that summarized in someone’s literature review as ‘Lingard argues’, when more accurate would be ‘Lingard suggests’ or ‘Lingard explored’.
Writers need to extend their library of citation verbs to allow themselves to accurately and persuasively position knowledge claims published by authors in their field. You can find many online resources to help extend your vocabulary: Tab. 2 , adapted from one such online source [ 4 ], provides some suggestions. Tables like these should be thought of as tools, not rules—keep in mind that words have flexible meanings depending on context and purpose. This is why one word, such as suggest or conclude , can appear in more than one list.
Verbs to represent the nature and strength of an author’s contributions to the literature
Verbs to report what an author DID | Verbs to report what an author SAID | Verbs to report an author’s OPINION | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
analyse, assess, , discover, describe, demonstrate, examine, explore, establish, find, identify, inquire, prove, observe, study, show | Weaker | Stronger | Weaker | Stronger |
comment, describe, note, remark, add, offer, | affirm, emphasize, stress, maintain, stipulate, explain, , identify, insist | accept, believe, consider, think, , suspect, speculate | argue, assert, claim, contend, deny, recommend, reject, advocate, maintain |
Knowledge is a social construction and it accumulates as researchers debate, extend and refine one another’s contributions. To avoid your literature review reading like a laundry list of disconnected ‘facts’, reporting verbs are an important resource. Tab. 3 offers a selection of verbs organized to reflect different relationships among authors in the field of knowledge being reviewed.
Verbs to express relations among authors in the field
Depicting similar positions | Depicting contrasting positions | Depicting relating/responding positions |
---|---|---|
Taylor Jackson’s claim that … | Taylor Jackson’s claim that … | Taylor to Jackson’s claim that … |
affirms, agrees, confirms, concurs, aligns, shares, echoes, supports, verifies, concedes, accepts | argues, disagrees, questions, dismisses, refuses, rejects, challenges contradicts, criticizes, opposes, counters, disputes | extends, elaborates, refines, builds on, reconsiders, draws upon, advances, repositions, addresses |
Finally, although we have focused on citation verbs in this article, adverbs (e. g., similarly, consequently) and prepositional phrases (e. g., by contrast, in addition) are also important for expressing similar, contrasting or responding relations among knowledge claims and their authors in the field being reviewed.
In summary, an effective literature review not only summarizes existing knowledge, it also critically presents that knowledge to depict an evolving conversation and understanding in a particular domain of study. As writers we need to know when we are summarizing and when we are critically summarizing—summary alone makes for a literature review that reads like a laundry list of undigested ‘facts-in-the-world’. Finally, writers need to attend to the subtle power of citation verbs to position themselves and the authors they are citing in relation to the knowledge being reviewed. Broadening our catalogue of ‘go-to’ verbs is an important step in enlivening and strengthening our writing.
Thanks to Mark Goldszmidt for his feedback on an early version of this manuscript.
PhD, is director of the Centre for Education Research & Innovation at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and professor for the Department of Medicine at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.
The literature review is a written explanation by you, the author, of the research already done on the topic, question or issue at hand. What do we know (or not know) about this issue/topic/question?
Essentially you will need to:
This video from NCSU Libraries gives a helpful overview of literature reviews. Even though it says it's "for graduate students," the principles are the same for undergraduate students too!
A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process.
What is the purpose of literature review , a. habitat loss and species extinction: , b. range shifts and phenological changes: , c. ocean acidification and coral reefs: , d. adaptive strategies and conservation efforts: .
What is a literature review .
A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.
A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2
1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge.
2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field.
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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research.
4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered.
5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research.
6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature.
Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic.
Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies:
Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements.
Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources.
The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems.
Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning.
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Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements.
Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review.
Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria.
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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research.
Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1
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The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.
A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.
Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.
Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic.
Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods.
Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers. Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved. Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic. Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings. Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject. It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.
The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review: Introduction: Provide an overview of the topic. Define the scope and purpose of the literature review. State the research question or objective. Body: Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology. Critically analyze and evaluate each source. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies. Highlight any methodological limitations or biases. Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research. Conclusion: Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review. Highlight the research gap. Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction. Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.
Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows:
Annotated Bibliography | Literature Review | |
Purpose | List of citations of books, articles, and other sources with a brief description (annotation) of each source. | Comprehensive and critical analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. |
Focus | Summary and evaluation of each source, including its relevance, methodology, and key findings. | Provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on a particular subject and identifies gaps, trends, and patterns in existing literature. |
Structure | Each citation is followed by a concise paragraph (annotation) that describes the source’s content, methodology, and its contribution to the topic. | The literature review is organized thematically or chronologically and involves a synthesis of the findings from different sources to build a narrative or argument. |
Length | Typically 100-200 words | Length of literature review ranges from a few pages to several chapters |
Independence | Each source is treated separately, with less emphasis on synthesizing the information across sources. | The writer synthesizes information from multiple sources to present a cohesive overview of the topic. |
References
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So, what is a literature review .
"A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available or a set of summaries." - Quote from Taylor, D. (n.d)."The Literature Review: A Few Tips on Conducting it".
Each field has a particular way to do reviews for academic research literature. In the social sciences and humanities the most common are:
In all these cases you need to dedicate a chapter in these works to showcase what has been written about your research topic and to point out how your own research will shed new light into a body of scholarship.
Where I can find examples of Literature Reviews?
Note: In the humanities, even if they don't use the term "literature review", they may have a dedicated chapter that reviewed the "critical bibliography" or they incorporated that review in the introduction or first chapter of the dissertation, book, or article.
Literature reviews are also written as standalone articles as a way to survey a particular research topic in-depth. This type of literature review looks at a topic from a historical perspective to see how the understanding of the topic has changed over time.
Social Sciences
Hard science and health sciences:
4 literature review and citations/references.
Figure 4.1: Literature reviews and references
Your may have done a literature survey as part of your proposal. This will be incorporated into your dissertation, not left as separate stand-alone. Most economics papers include a literature review section, which may be a separate section, or incorporated into the paper’s introduction. (See organising for a standard format.)
Some disambiguation:
A ‘Literature survey’ paper: Some academic papers are called ‘literature surveys’. These try to summarise and discuss the existing work that has been done on a particular topic, and can be very useful. See, for example, works in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Journal of Economic Literature, the “Handbook of [XXX] Economics”
Many student projects and undergraduate dissertations are mainly literature surveys.
Your literature review should explain:
what has been done already to address your topic and related questions, putting your work in perspective, and
what techniques others have used, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and how might they be relevant tools for your own analysis.
Figure 4.2: Take notes on this as you read, and write them up.
Focus on literature that is relevant to your topic only.
But do not focus only on articles about your exact topic ! For example, if your paper is about the relative price of cars in the UK, you might cite papers (i) about the global automobile market, (ii) about the theory and evidence on competition in markets with similar features and (iii) using econometric techniques such as “hedonic regression” to estimate “price premia” in other markets and in other countries.
Consider: If you were Colchester a doctor and wanted to know whether a medicine would be effective for your patients, would you only consider medical studies that ran tests on Colchester residents, or would you consider more general national and international investigations?
You should aim to read and cite peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals. (Journals in other fields such as Finance, Marketing and Political Science may also be useful.) These papers have a certain credibility as they have been checked by several referees and one or more editors before being published. (In fact, the publication process in Economics is extremely lengthy and difficult.)
Which journals are “reputable”? Economists spend a lot of time thinking about how to rank and compare journals (there are so many papers written about this topic that they someone could start a “Journal of Ranking Economics Journals”. For example, “ REPEC ” has one ranking, and SCIMAGO/SCOPUS has another one. You may want to focus on journals ranked in the top 100 or top 200 of these rankings. If you find it very interesting and relevant paper published somewhere that is ranked below this, is okay to cite it, but you may want to be a bit more skeptical of its findings.
Any journal you find on JSTOR is respectable, and if you look in the back of your textbooks, there will be references to articles in journals, most of which are decent.
You may also find unpublished “working papers”; these may also be useful as references. However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of these, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing.
You may also find unpublished “working papers” or ‘mimeos’; these may also be useful as references. In fact, the publication process in Economics is so slow (six years from first working paper to publication is not uncommon) that not consulting working papers often means not being current.
However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of this ‘grey literature’, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing. Some working paper series are vetted, such as NBER; in terms of credibility, these might be seen as something in between a working paper and a publication.
Which of the following are “peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals”? Which of the following may be appropriate to cite in your literature review and in your final project? 8
Klein, G, J. (2011) “Cartel Destabilization and Leniency Programs – Empirical Evidence.” ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 10-107
Spencer, B. and Brander, J.A. (1983) “International R&D Rivalry and Industrial Strategy”, Review of Economic Studies Vol. 50, 707-722
Troisi, Jordan D., Andrew N. Christopher, and Pam Marek. “Materialism and money spending disposition as predictors of economic and personality variables.” North American Journal of Psychology 8.3 (2006): 421.
The Economist,. ‘Good, Bad And Ugly’. Web. 11 Apr. 2015. [accessed on…]
Mecaj, Arjola, and María Isabel González Bravo. “CSR Actions and Financial Distress: Do Firms Change Their CSR Behavior When Signals of Financial Distress Are Identified?.” Modern Economy 2014 (2014).
Universities, U. K. “Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in driving the UK’s creative economy.” London Universities UK (2010).
You should be able to find and access all the relevant articles online. Leafing through bound volumes and photocopying should not be neededs. (Having been a student in the late 90’s and 2000’s, I wish I could get those hours back.)
Figure 4.3: The old way!
Good online tools include Jstor (jstor.org) and Google Scholar (scholar.google.co.uk). Your university should have access to Jstor, and Google is accessible to all (although the linked articles may require special access). You will usually have the ‘most access’ when logged into your university or library computing system.If you cannot access a paper, you may want to consult a reference librarian.
It is also ok, if you cannot access the journal article itself, to use the last working paper version (on Google scholar find this in the tab that says “all X versions”, where X is some number, and look for a PDF). However, authors do not always put up the most polished versions, although they should do to promote open-access. As a very last resort, you can e-mail the author and ask him or her to send you the paper.
When looking for references, try to find ones published in respected refereed economics journals (see above ).
A “survey article” is a good place to start; this is a paper that is largely a categorization and discussion of previous work on a particular topic. You can often find such papers in journals such as
These will be useful as a “catalog” of papers to read and considers citing. They are also typically very readable and offer a decent introduction to the issue or the field.
It is also helpful to consult module (course) notes and syllabi from the relevant field. Do not only limit yourself to the ones at your own university; many of universities make their course materials publicly accessible online. These will not only typically contain reading lists with well-respected and useful references, they may also contain slides and other material that will help you better understand your topic and the relevant issues.
However, be careful not to take material from course notes without properly citing it. (Better yet, try to find the original paper that the course notes are referring to.)
Textbooks serve as another extremely useful jumping off point. Look through your own textbooks and other textbooks in the right fields. Textbooks draw from, and cite a range of relevant articles and papers. (You may also want to go back to textbooks when you are finding the articles you are reading too difficult. Textbooks may present a simpler version of the material presented in an article, and explain the concepts better.)
When you find a useful paper, look for its “family.” You may want to go back to earlier, more fundamental references, by looking at the articles that this paper cited. See what is listed as “keywords” (these are usually given at the top of the paper), and “JEL codes”. Check what papers this paper cites, and check what other papers cited this paper. On Google scholar you can follow this with a link “Cited by…” below the listed article. “Related articles” is also a useful link.
Keep track of all references and citations
You may find it helpful to use software to help you manage your citations
A storage “database” of citations (e.g., Jabref, Zotero, Endnote, Mendeley); these interface well with Google Scholar and Jstor
An automatic “insert citation” and “insert bibliography” in your word processing software
Use a tool like Endnote to manage and insert the bibliographies, or use a bibliography manager software such as Zotero or Jabref,
Further discussion: Citation management tools
Put your list of references in alphabetical order by author’s last name (surname).
Include all articles and works that you cite in your paper; do not include any that you don’t cite.
Here is a definition of plagiarism
The main point is that you need to cite everything that is not your own work. Furthermore, be clear to distinguish what is your own work and your own language and what is from somewhere/someone else.
Why cite? Not just to give credit to others but to make it clear that the remaining uncited content is your own.
Here are some basic rules:
(Rephrased from University of Essex material, as seen in Department of Economics, EC100 Economics for Business Handbook 2017-18, https://www1.essex.ac.uk/economics/documents/EC100-Booklet_2017.pdf accessed on 20 July 2019, pp. 15-16)
Do not submit anything that is not your own work.
Never copy from friends.
Do not copy your own work or previously submitted work. (Caveat: If you are submitting a draft or a ‘literature review and project plan’ at an earlier stage, this can be incorporated into your final submission.
Don’t copy text directly into your work, unless:
It is not sufficient merely to add a citation for the source of copied material following the copied material (typically the end of a paragraph). You must include the copied material in quotation marks. … Ignorance … is no defence.’ (ibid, pp. 15 )
(‘Ibid’ means ‘same as the previous citation’.)
Your university may use sophisticated plagiarism-detection software. Markers may also report if the paper looks suspect
Before final submission, they may ask you to go over your draft and sign that you understand the contents and you have demonstrated that the work is your own.
Not being in touch with your supervisor may put you under suspicion.
Your university may give a Viva Voce oral exam if your work is under suspicion. It is a cool-sounding word but probably something you want to avoid.
Your university may store your work in its our database, and can pursue disciplinary action, even after you have graduated.
Penalties may be severe, including failure with no opportunity to retake the module (course). You may even risk your degree!
Comprehension questions; answers in footnotes
True or false: “If you do not directly quote a paper you do not need to cite it” 9
You should read and cite a paper (choose all that are correct)… 10
Use the right terminology.
“Johnson et al. (2000) provide an analytical framework that sheds substantial doubt on that belief. When trying to obtain a correlation between institutional efficiency and wealth per capita, they are left with largely inconclusive results.”
They are not trying to “obtain a correlation”; they are trying to measure the relationship and test hypotheses.
Don’t take everything that is in print (or written online) as gospel truth. Be skeptical and carefully evaluate the arguments and evidence presented. Try to really survey what has been written, to consider the range of opinions and the preponderance of the evidence. You also need to be careful to distinguish between “real research” and propaganda or press releases.
The returns to higher education in Atlantis are extremely high. For the majority of Atlanian students a university degree has increased their lifetime income by over 50%, as reported in the “Benefits of Higher Education” report put out by the Association of Atlantian Universities (2016).
But don’t be harsh without explanation:
Smith (2014) found a return to education in Atlantis exceeding 50%. This result is unlikely to be true because the study was not a very good one.
A theoretical economic model can not really prove anything about the real world; they typically rely on strong simplifying assumptions.
Through their economic model, they prove that as long as elites have incentives to invest in de facto power, through lobbying or corruption for example, they will invest as much as possible in order to gain favourable conditions in the future for their businesses.
In their two period model, which assumes \[details of key assumptions here\] , they find that when an elite Agent has an incentive to invest in de facto power, he invests a strictly positive amount, up to the point where marginal benefit equals marginal cost”
Empirical work does not “prove” anything (nor does it claim to).
It relies on statistical inference under specific assumptions, and an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.
“As Smith et al (1999) proved using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange, equity prices always increase in response to reductions in corporate tax rates.”
“Smith et al (199) estimated a VAR regression for a dynamic CAP model using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange. They found a strongly statistically significant negative coefficient on corporate tax rates. This suggests that such taxes may have a negative effect on publicly traded securities. However, as their data was from a limited period with several simultaneous changes in policy, and their results are not robust to \[something here\] , further evidence is needed on this question.”
Use the language of classical 11 statistics:
Hypothesis testing, statistical significance, robustness checks, magnitudes of effects, confidence intervals.
Note that generalisation outside the data depends on an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.
This policy was explained by Smith and Johnson (2002) in their research on subsidies and redistribution in higher education. Their results showed that people with higher degree have higher salaries and so pay higher taxes. Thus subsidizing higher education leads to a large social gain.
The results the student discusses seem to show an association between higher degrees and higher salaries. The student seems to imply that the education itself led to higher salaries. This has not been shown by the cited paper. Perhaps people who were able to get into higher education would earn higher salaries anyway. There are ways economists used to try to identify a “causal effect” (by the way, this widely used term is redundant as all effects must have a cause), but a mere association between two variables is not enough
As inflation was systematically lower during periods of recession, we see that too low a level of inflation increases unemployment.
Economists have long debated the nature of this “Phillips curve” relationship. There is much work trying to determine whether the association (to the extent it exists) is a causal one. We could not rule out reverse causality, or third factor that might cause changes in both variables.
Don’t write: “I accept the null hypothesis.”
Do write: “The results fail to reject the null hypothesis, in spite of a large sample size and an estimate with small standard errors” (if this is the case)
Note: The question of what to infer from acceptance/rejection of null hypotheses is a complex difficult one in Classical (as opposed to Bayesian) statistics. This difficulty is in part philosophical: classical hypothesis testing is deductive , while inference is necessarily inductive.
You need to read this paper more clearly; it is not clear what they conclude nor what their evidence is.
A common marking comment:
These papers seem to be discussed in random order – you need some structure organising these papers thematically, by finding, by technique, or chronologically perhaps.
How should you organise it? In what order?
Thematically (usually better)
By method, by theoretical framework, by results or assumptions, by field
Chronologically (perhaps within themes)
Exercise: Compare how the literature review section is organized in papers you are reading.
Figure 4.4: Organising a set of references
Q: What sort of structure am I using in the above outline?
It may also be helpful to make a ‘table’ of the relevant literature, as in the figure below. This will help you get a sense of the methods and results, and how the papers relate, and how to assess the evidence. You may end up putting this in the actual paper.
Figure 4.5: Organisational table from Reinstein and Riener, 2012b
Consult a survey paper, textbook, or lecture notes that discuss this paper and this topic
Try to find an easier related paper
Ask your supervisor for help; if he or she can
Try to understand what you can; do not try to “fake it”
Do not cite irrelevant literature.
Do not merely list all the papers you could find.
Discuss them, and their relevance to your paper.
What are their strengths and weaknesses? What techniques do they use, and what assumptions do they rely on? How do they relate to each other?
Use correct citation formats.
Try to find original sources (don’t just cite a web link).
Don’t just cut and paste from other sources. And make sure to attribute every source and every quote. Be clear: which part of your paper is your own work and what is cited from others? The penalties for plagiarism can be severe!
How to discuss empirical results: “Causal” estimation, e.g., with Instrumental Variables
Which is the best way to state it? 12
“As I prove in table 2, more lawyers lead to slower growth (as demonstrated by the regression analysis evidence).”
“Table 2 provides evidence that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population leads to slower growth.”
3.“Table 2 shows that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population is correlated with slower growth.”
Which is better? 13
Stating empirical results: descriptive
“Using the US data from 1850-1950, I find that inflation is lower during periods of recession. This is statistically significant in a t-test [or whatever test] at the 99% level, and the difference is economically meaningful. This is consistent with the theory of …, which predicts that lower inflation increases unemployment. However, other explanations are possible, including reverse causality, and unmeasured covarying lags and trends.”
“I find a significantly lower level of inflation during periods of recession, and the difference is economically meaningful. This relationship is statistically significant and the data is accurately measured. Thus I find that inflation increases unemployment.”
Some tips on writing a good paper– relevant to literature reviews
Answer: only b is a ‘peer reviewed article in a reputable economics journal’. All of these might be useful to cite, however. ↩
False. You need to cite any content and ideas that are not your own. ↩
Answers: 1, 5, and 6. Note that 2 and 3 are too narrow criteria, and 4 is too broad. ↩
or Bayesian if you like ↩
The second one; if this is really causal evidence. ↩
The first one. There is no ‘correct regression’. It is also not really correct in classical statistics to ‘find no effect’. ↩
Graduate student research support.
Useful books, citational justice / citation inclusivity.
There are a few strategies you can employ when writing a literature review. Depending on your research question and scope, you may organize your literature review chronologically, critically examining the evolution of a topic over time. Or you may organize it topically because there are several areas off which your research builds.
I like to use a Building a House metaphor. Your literature review is the foundation upon which you will construct your own analysis, and that foundation must be strong. You may need a few different rooms (sub-sections/topics) that examine related scholarship. And depending on the conclusions you form from your own empirical research, that foundation may need to be modified to incorporate the scholarship connected to your conclusions.
Our colleagues at the University of Arizona Libraries made this citational justice tutorial , which includes the video below. The video addresses how we, as scholars, can work to incorporate historically marginalized perspectives in our research.
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Take a look at our Literature Review Guide for more information.
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What is a literature review.
A literature review is an overview of the available research for a specific scholarly topic. Literature reviews summarize existing research to answer a review question, provide context for new research, or identify important gaps in the existing body of literature.
An incredible amount of academic literature is published each year; by some estimates nearly three million articles .
Sorting through and reviewing that literature can be complicated, so this Research Guide provides a structured approach to make the process more manageable.
A literature search is a systematic search of the scholarly sources in a particular discipline. A literature review is the analysis, critical evaluation and synthesis of the results of that search. During this process you will move from a review of the literature to a review for your research. Your synthesis of the literature is your unique contribution to research.
— those new to reviewing the literature
— those that need a refresher or a deeper understanding of writing literature reviews
You may need to do a literature review as a part of a course assignment, a capstone project, a master's thesis, a dissertation, or as part of a journal article. No matter the context, a literature review is an essential part of the research process.
What is the purpose of a literature review.
A literature review is typically performed for a specific reason. Even when assigned as an assignment, the goal of the literature review will be one or more of the following:
Reviewing the literature helps you understand a research topic and develop your own perspective.
Thanks to Librarian Jamie Niehof at the University of Michigan for providing permission to reuse and remix this Literature Reviews guide.
What is a citation?
A citation is a reference to a source used in your research. It is how you give credit to the author for their creative and intellectual works that you referenced as support for your research. Generally, citations should include author’s name, date, publisher information, journal information and/or DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
What are citation styles?
Citation styles are the formal way that citation information is formatted. It dictates what information is included, how it is ordered as well as punctuation and other formatting. There are many different styles and each mandate order of appearance of information (such as publication date, title, and page numbers following the author name etc), conventions of punctuation, use of italics (and underlining for emphasis) that are particular to their style.
How do I choose a citation style?
There are many different ways of citing resources from your research. The citation style sometimes depends on the academic discipline involved and sometimes depends on the publisher/ place of publishing. For example:
REMEMBER : Ultimately your professor will decide which citation style will be used, remember to consult with your professor to determine what is required in your assignment.
The Library has created a Plagiarism Prevention LibGuide that can help you to avoid accidental plagiarism mistakes. Remember you could be expelled or suspended if found guilty of plagiarism.
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
Don't let plagiarism errors spoil your paper, consider your source's credibility. ask these questions:, contributor/author.
Help | Advanced Search
Title: blockchain based information security and privacy protection: challenges and future directions using computational literature review.
Abstract: Blockchain technology is an emerging digital innovation that has gained immense popularity in enhancing individual security and privacy within Information Systems (IS). This surge in interest is reflected in the exponential increase in research articles published on blockchain technology, highlighting its growing significance in the digital landscape. However, the rapid proliferation of published research presents significant challenges for manual analysis and synthesis due to the vast volume of information. The complexity and breadth of topics, combined with the inherent limitations of human data processing capabilities, make it difficult to comprehensively analyze and draw meaningful insights from the literature. To this end, we adopted the Computational Literature Review (CLR) to analyze pertinent literature impact and topic modelling using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) technique. We identified 10 topics related to security and privacy and provided a detailed description of each topic. From the critical analysis, we have observed several limitations, and several future directions are provided as an outcome of this review.
Comments: | 10 pages, 8 figures and 1 table |
Subjects: | Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) |
Cite as: | [cs.CR] |
(or [cs.CR] for this version) | |
Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite |
Access paper:.
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Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
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COMMENTS
Writing a Literature Review. A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and ...
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
Step 4: Write. Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review. Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review. Synthesize your sources.
Learn how to write a literature review and cite sources in APA style with this guide from GGC Kaufman Library. Find examples, tips and resources.
When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply: be thorough, use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and. look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.
A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories.A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that ...
A formal literature review is an evidence-based, in-depth analysis of a subject. There are many reasons for writing one and these will influence the length and style of your review, but in essence a literature review is a critical appraisal of the current collective knowledge on a subject. Rather than just being an exhaustive list of all that ...
A literature review requires the writer to perform extensive research on published work in one's field in order to explain how one's own work fits into the larger conversation regarding a particular topic. This task requires the writer to spend time reading, managing, and conveying information; the complexity of literature reviews can make ...
A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment. ... Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help. Review the literature. Some questions to help you analyze the research:
A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it ...
This Writer's Craft instalment is the second in a two-part series that offers strategies for effectively presenting the literature review section of a research manuscript. This piece argues that citation is not just a technical practice but also a rhetorical one, and offers writers an expanded vocabulary for using citation to maximal effect.
Organizing Your Literature Review. An APA style paper is organized in the author-date style. This means you cite the author's name and year of publication within the text with an in-text citation. You also include the page number, if appropriate. You then include the full information of that source in a reference list at the end of your paper.
A literature review provides a thorough background of the topic by giving your reader a guided overview of major findings and current gaps in what is known so far about the topic. The literature review is not a list (like an annotated bibliography) -- it is a narrative helping your reader understand the topic and where you will "stand" in the ...
A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing ...
This page is designed to assist you in writing an annotated bibliography
They will include in-text citations, e.g. (Engel 1899) or (Garcia Marquez 55), formatted depending on the citation style used by the author, e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago, etc. Another place you will find literature review is as part of a dissertation , as a dedicated chapter , or as part of the introduction .
Library Print Resources. Ask a library employee for help in locating these print books. MLA Handbook (9th ed.) by The Modern Language Association of America. Call Number: LB2369 .M52 2021 (Click title to see locations) ISBN: 9781603293518. Publication Date: 2021. MLA Handbook (8th ed.) by The Modern Language Association of America.
Figure 4.1: Literature reviews and references. Your may have done a literature survey as part of your proposal. This will be incorporated into your dissertation, not left as separate stand-alone. Most economics papers include a literature review section, which may be a separate section, or incorporated into the paper's introduction.
Your literature review is the foundation upon which you will construct your own analysis, and that foundation must be strong. You may need a few different rooms (sub-sections/topics) that examine related scholarship. ... Citational justice / Citation inclusivity. Our colleagues at the University of Arizona Libraries made this citational justice ...
What purpose does a literature review serve? The literature review informs the reader of the researcher's knowledge of the relevant research already conducted on the topic under discussion, and places the author's current study in context of previous studies. As part of a senior project, the literature review points out the current issues and ...
Write and Cite. This guide offers information on writing resources, citation style guides, and academic writing expectations and best practices, as well as information on resources related to copyright, fair use, permissions, and open access. This page is not currently available due to visibility settings. Last Updated: Sep 5, 2024 7:21 PM.
A literature review is an overview of the available research for a specific scholarly topic. Literature reviews summarize existing research to answer a review question, provide context for new research, or identify important gaps in the existing body of literature.. An incredible amount of academic literature is published each year; by some estimates nearly three million articles.
Citation styles are the formal way that citation information is formatted. It dictates what information is included, how it is ordered as well as punctuation and other formatting. There are many different styles and each mandate order of appearance of information (such as publication date, title, and page numbers following the author name etc ...
Our Literature Review Generator is an AI-powered tool that streamlines and simplifies the creation of literature reviews by automatically collecting, analyzing, summarizing, and synthesizing all the relevant academic sources on a specific topic within the parameters you define. ... In addition to all this, it should have features like citation ...
Scan your paper for plagiarism mistakes. Get help for 7,000+ citation styles including APA 7. Check for 400+ advanced grammar errors. Create in-text citations and save them. Free 3-day trial. Cancel anytime.*️. Try Citation Machine® Plus! *See Terms and Conditions. Consider your source's credibility.
Psychology has traditionally neglected the specific needs of rural communities. This chapter reviews the situation of psychology in rural areas and discusses the need for a rural psychology. An open Internet review using Google search engine and "rural psychology" as key word was conducted, as well as an academic literature review. Results show that psychology tends to be framed in urban ...
Blockchain technology is an emerging digital innovation that has gained immense popularity in enhancing individual security and privacy within Information Systems (IS). This surge in interest is reflected in the exponential increase in research articles published on blockchain technology, highlighting its growing significance in the digital landscape. However, the rapid proliferation of ...