ADP Dissertation Workshop Week Three

1. ADP Dissertation Workshop Week Three Reviewing the Literature

2. The past week Spend a few minutes catching up with each other’s dissertation news from the last week: • What’s gone well? • What hasn’t? • What needs to be done next?

3. Common Concerns Read through the comments made last week which were mainly about: • Data: collection, analysis • Refining the topic

4. Reviewing the Literature

5. Thinking & Reading • What specific questions do I want to explore? • Who are the key writers in this area? • What are the main issues amongst writers on the topic? • What’s my view? Where is my evidence? • Is my reading sufficiently focussed? If not , why not? • How does it relate to the topic? • Is it sufficiently recent (this does not mean that all references have to be ) • In what ways is my research different to what has already been studied?

6. RIAL • What do you recall from the RIAL session about literature reviews?

7. What is the literature review for? It allows you to analyse and evaluate what others have done, drawing together different aspects and strands which relate to your work.

8. Specifically , it helps you to: • refine, refocus or even change the topic* • clarify the current state of knowledge • identify areas which still need to be explored • provide a context and justify the research and inform and support: • your methodological decisions • interpretation and analysis • conclusions (and recommendations)

9. The key features of literature reviews • relevant and focussed • organised thematically • up to date • the research gap is identified • the organisation and contents are signposted in an introductory paragraph • the different themes are drawn together in a conclusion. • critical (see slide 12)

10. How can a literature review be organised? in one separate chapter or across several and should be the basis for your study, not separate from it.

11. Types of Literature • Previous research in your field or area of interest • Research methodology literature, if this is seen as an important aspect of your dissertation • Theoretical literature e.g. ‘Big Ideas’: Postmodernism, Critical Discourse Analysis, Literacy Studies

12. What does critical mean? • Showing an aptitude of preparedness to evaluate and assess rather than blind acceptance or dismissal • At least … [note] and preferably question the assumptions and bias in [their] argument and the argument of writers [they] draw on • Not accepting standard arguments or received opinions at face value, but probing and dissecting them, and testing them against available evidence • Going beyond the information given and seeing things from a different angle • Being aware of the main claims in your own and others’ writing • Evaluating the arguments of those who have written on a subject, rather than repeating them parrot-fashion (Neal 2003)

13. SO BEING CRITICAL NOT ONLY MEANS EVALUATING THE WORK OF OTHERS BUT IT MEANS EVALUATING YOUR OWN IDEAS, METHODS AND OBSERVATIONS

14. Learning from past dissertations Read the abstract of the dissertation entitled, EAP Insruction, Critical Analysis and Four Asian Postgraduate Students: The Case Agaisntt Deterministica Thinking, then the contents pageto ensure you understand the purpose of the dissertation Where would you expect literature to be reviewed?

15. Key features of a literature review • Group One: read chapter 2 • Group 2 read chapter 4 Note where the key features of literature reviews are present (slide 9)

16. How does he show that he has critically engaged with the literature? Chapter 2 He shows his position by attitudinal signals and hedging: • Assumed effects • Argues cogently • Have generally been welcomed • Have also tended to … • Are often characterised…

17. Chapter 4 Note that the literature reviewed in this chapter relates precisely to the methodology and its specific application: 1. How does he justify his use of an ethnographic approach(p12); convenience sampling 2. What’s his response regarding interviewing as a method of data collection? (p13) 3. What other weaknesses in his methodology does he identify?(p19) 4. What’s his justification for analysing short texts? (p16) 5. In what way does he apply Fairclough’s dialogicality?(p17) 6. Does he recognise the limitations of his study?

18. Themes Note that the review of the literature is arranged according to themes: • Cultural influences on writing practices • Critical Analysis • Ethnography • Critical Discourse Analysis

19. The importance of organising the LR thematically • This provides you with a structure to shape the dissertation and ensures that you will foreground the ideas that are shared or developed by different writers rather than simply list what he or she said

20. My own dissertation • What are the themes I can use to organise my reading/review?

21. References Central Queensland University www.library.cqu.edu.au/tutorials/litreviewpages/ writing.htm Coley & Lewcowicz (2003) Dissertation Writing in Practice. Hong Kong: HKUP Neal R (2003) EAP Instruction, Critical Analysis and Four Asian Postgraduate Students: The Case Against Deterministic Thinking. Lancaster University MA Dissertation (unpublished)