SID/MA Second-Year Projects Workshop March, 2014

1. Doing a Literature ReviewBased on “Preparing Literature Reviews: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches,” by M. Ling Pan. Published in 2008 by Pyrczak Publishing: Glendale, A. SID/MA Second-Year Projects Workshop March, 2014

2. A Literature Review The story of how ideas concerning your topic have evolved. While you are citing literature by authors, you are exploring ideas or concepts.

3. Literature Review • Synthesis of ideas from the literature • Not a summary of what one author says but a comparison of ideas

4. What makes a good literature review? • It clearly delimits the subject matter to be reviewed • It covers all important relevant literature • It is up-to-date

5. A good literature review: • provides an insightful analysis of the ideas and conclusions in the literature • points out similarities and differences, strengths and weaknesses in the literature • identifies trends and gaps in the literature for future research • identifies the context for which the literature is important.

6. Preparations • Identify your topic • Locate, skim and evaluate literature • Read and analyze the literature • Synthesize

7. Too much or too little literature? Consider narrowing a broad topic or broadening a narrow topic if you have trouble finding or limiting the literature.

8. For your first draft • Introduce the topic and define key terms • Establish the importance of the topic • Identify consistent findings across studies • Point out gaps in the literature • Discuss implications for future work

9. Revise Read and Revise again and Read and Revise again

10. Use databases to search for sources in peer reviewed journals • SID Research Guide http://brandeis.libguides.com/sidor myHeller • Also use the citations in the literature you have found to identify other sources. • Citation management

11. Using the Web • Advantage of being up to date • Disadvantage of being challenging to evaluate • Evaluate the sources thoroughly • State and government records can be a useful source • Original reports better than those interpreted by an organization • Be aware of materials from organizations that have interests

12. Plagiarism “Plagiarism is the failure to distinguish the student’s own words and ideas from those of a source the student has consulted. Ideas derived from another whether presented as exact words, a paraphrase, a summary, or quoted phrase, must always be appropriately referenced to the source, whether the source is printed, electronic, or spoken, Whenever exact words are used, quotation [marks] must be used, together with the proper citation , , ,” (Harris as cited in Lin Pan 2008, p 37).

13. Avoiding Unintentional Plagiarism • Never copy anything without putting it in quotation marks and indicating the source (Since you are supposed to be synthesizing, quotes are not necessary for a literature review) • Construct a table or a chart • When in doubt, cite!!!!!

14. Avoiding unintentional plagiarismwhile taking notes • Always indicate when and from where you are copying or quoting in your notes • Label your notes with markers or other tags • Arrange them chronologically • Develop a methodology for identifying your sources like the surname of the author • Groups sources into categories • By method, source (government, NGO, researchers), theories

15. Questions you need to answer in your literature review: 1. What are the main ideas and contributions of the literature? 2. Have there been controversies and how have they been resolved? 3. What are the current weaknesses and unresolved issues as you see them?

16. Suggested lit rev outline • Identify the topic and establish its importance • Include definitions of key terms • Describe the strategies you used for locating the literature and evaluate the extent and nature of the literature • A lot? Not much? Only in other languages, etc. • Describe the objectives and organization of the lit rev • Summarize at ends of sections • End with your development problem

17. Outline, con’t • Tell the story of how your question came to be • Write a logical essay or develop an argument that moves from one point to the next • Locate it in a theoretical tradition or in a context of related research

18. Additional points • Do not write an annotated bibliography • You can cite two or more sources for a single idea but if it is a large number consider breaking it up • Use quotes sparingly • Technical definitions

19. More tips • Provide topic sentences at the beginning of paragraphs and summary sentences at the end of sections to help the reader understand what the main issues are. • Support statements that a topic is timely • If citing a position from a 1990 source don’t identify it as recently • Don’t be afraid to identify weaknesses as well as strengths of your sources • Point out positions that are consistently reported, and ones where there are inconsistencies and contradictions

20. Final Tips • Identify gaps • Use language that differentiates between the results of studies and speculation • Speculated, proposed, suggested • Indicate the degree of certainty in the conclusions: • x leads to the conclusion, evidence from major findings overwhelmingly indicates, some evidence suggests • Suggestions for future research should be specific

21. Good web sites on literature reviews http://www.duluth.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/researching/litreview.html By Helen Mongan-Rallis of the Education Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

22. Matrices,tutorials and links to models  http://guides.library.vcu.edu/lit-review By Virginia Commonwealth University

23. My Pet Peeves • Using the term mention • Sampath (2014) mentioned that development ethics needed to . . .

24. Starting most sentences with an authors name Sampath (2013) described how ethics a system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is good for individuals and society. Howard (2014) added that most people learn ethical norms at home, at school or in church.

25. Citing the author Ethics are a system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is good for individuals and society (Sampath, 2013). Most people learn ethical norms at home, at school, in church or in other social settings (Howard, 2014).