CHAPTER 3-
CRITICALLY
REVIEWING THE
LITERATURE
Group 2 : Bui Thị Thu Hương
Lan Anh
Nguyễn Mai Phương
Khánh Huyền
Outline
3.5 : Conducting your literature search
3.6 : Obtaining and evaluating the literature
3.7 : Recording the literature
3.8 : Plagiarism
3.5 Conducting Your
Literature Search
Searching using tertiary literature sources
Obtaining relevant literature referenced in books and
journal articles
Scanning and browsing secondary literature in your
library
Searching using the Internet
1. TERTIARY LITERATURE
SOURCES
• Most of tertiary literature publications are called indexes and
abstracts. It is very tempting with easy access to the Internet to start
your literature search with an Internet search engine.
• An index: index articles from a range of journals and sometimes
books, chapters from books, reports, theses, conferences and
research.
- The information provided will be sufficient to locate the item
Eg for journal articles:
Date of publication;
Title of the article;
Title of the journal;
Author or authors of the article;
Volume and part number of the journal issue;
Page numbers of the article.
• An abstract: provides the same information as an index but also includes a summary of the
article.
- This abstract can help you to assess the content and relevance of an article to your research
before obtaining a copy.
• Indexes and abstracts : are produced as online databases.
- An increasing number of online databases contain full-text articles .
*Benefits:
This has helped both to simplify literature searching and to
make it a more seamless process, with the searching and
retrieval of the full text available from the same source.
Most of these online databases will allow you to print, save or
email your results.
2. SEARCHING USING TERTIARY LITERATURE
Search appropriate printed and database sources;
Note precise details, including the search strings used, of the actual
searches you have undertaken for each database;
Note the full reference of each item found; this can normally be done by
cutting and pasting the references.
DATABASES
• Some databases will also have a ‘thesaurus’ which links words in the controlled
index language to other terms.
- Your searches may still be unsuccessful.
The most frequent causes of failure are summarised in below example as a
checklist:
Minimising problems with your key words:
✔ Is the spelling incorrect? Behaviour is spelt with a ‘u’ in the UK but without in
the USA.
✔ Is the language incorrect? Chemists in the UK but drug stores in the USA.
✔ Are you using incorrect terminology? In recent years some terms have been
replaced by others, such as ‘redundancy’ being replaced by ‘downsizing’.
DATABASES
- Subsequent searches
normally use a combination
of key words linked using
Boolean logic.
- Boolean logic is known as
search strings and enable
you to combine, limit or
widen the variety of items
found using ‘link terms’
(Table 3.3).
Scanning and browsing
*Why do you need to browse tertiary literature?
New publications such as journals are unlikely to be indexed immediately in tertiary
literature, so you will need to browse these publications to gain an idea of their
content.
- Scanning involve you going through individual items such as a journal article to pick
out points that relate to your own research.
->It is particularly important that you browse and scan trade and professional journals.
*To make browsing and scanning easier you should:
identify when those journals that are the most relevant are published and regularly
browse them;
browse new book displays in libraries;
scan new book reviews in journals and newspapers;
scan publishers’ new book catalogues where available;
discuss your research with your project tutor and librarians, who may be aware of
other relevant literature.
Scanning and browsing
Many publishers make the contents pages of their journals available without charge on the web (Table 3.4) and may offer an
article alert service where they will provide a regular email update of articles in your area of interest.
c. Searching the Internet
• The development of the Internet will You can use websites that is regularly update dedicated
provide you with access to resources that to providing support information on searching the
may be of use either for your literature Internet. Eg:
review or as secondary data. + [Link] -provided by Phil Bradley, an
information expert.
• However, these resources may be difficult to
+ [Link] -This contains an excellent
locate and the quality of the material is
directory of business-related websites
highly variable.
- Keep full details of the Internet searches ,making a note
of:
• the search engine used;
• the precise search undertaken;
• the date when the search was
undertaken;
• the total number of items retrieved.
Homepages
• -Addresses of Internet sites or home pages can be the quickest and
most direct method of accessing these resources.
• -Addresses can be obtained from many sources, the most frequently
used of which are guidebooks ,newspaper reviews, articles in
journals, librarians and lecturers.
• -Home pages, which can have multiple linked pages and hypertext
links whereby pointing and clicking on the screen takes you to
another website, are similar to a title or contents page.
Search tools
• Search tool will have its own address
• Most search tools search by key words or subject trees. A subject tree is similar to a contents
page or index.
• Search tools can be divided into four distinct categories:
• general search engines;
• meta search engines;
• specialised search engines and information gateways;
• subject directories.
• - General search engine ( such as google )uses an automated computer process to index and
search, often resulting in a very large number of sites being found.
*drawback: As people have not evaluated these sites, many are usually inappropriate or
unreliable.
• -Meta search engines allow you to search using a selection of search engines
at the same time, using the same interface.*Benefit: searching easier, faster.
*Drawback: it generates more inappropriate or unreliable sites than general
search engines.
• -Specialised search engines cater for specific subject areas. To use these it is
necessary to define your general subject area prior to your search
• -Information gateways also require you to define your subject area.
*Drawback: the number of websites obtained is fewer. *Benefit: can be far
more relevant.
• Subject directories are hierarchically organised indexes categorised into
subject areas, and are useful for searching for broad topics.
*Drawback: the number of sites retrieved is fewer. *Benefit: they usually
provide material that is more appropriate.
Bookmarking
⁃Bookmarking: Once you have found a useful Internet
site, you can note its address electronically. This process
is termed ‘bookmarking’.
⁃It uses the software to note the Internet address, and
means that you will be able to access it again directly.
⁃The vast amount of resources available, and the fact that
resources, home pages and sites can be added and
deleted by their producers . Therefore, it is vital to keep a
record of the addresses and a note of the date you
accessed it.
3.6 Obtaining and evaluating the literature.
• Obtaining the literature.
Collect documents to serve that research through newspapers
and books
1. Find out if the library is right for what you are looking for, such as books, newspapers, or provide access
via internet.
2. (For information available on the internet or in the library) and check its location, find out it is worth
reading. With the articles , make a reasonable assessment of relevant using the abstract.
3. (For items not available on the library or in the internet) and borrow at other libraries.
Evaluating the literature
- You should read all documents closely
related to your research. For a new
How to
field of research, without a lot of
evaluate
relevant literature, you have to=>
documents?
look broader. For research has been
going on for some years, question
have to focus more closely.
Assessing relevance and
value
The research
materials you collect
must be relevant to
research, relate to
research questions
and objectives
- Therefor, you need to assess document relevance. In contrast, the evaluation of document value
relates to your research.
- Make notes about the relevance of each item as you read it and why came to your conclusion.
Assessing sufficiency
Your assessment of
whether you have read a
sufficient amount.
You need to be sure that your critical review discusses what
research has already been undertaken and positioned your
research project in the wider context.
3.7 Recording the literature
• The literature search, is a vital part of your research project.
You will invest a great deal of time and effort to do it and
contributes to your research question(s) , objectives , make
notes with this focus.
make notes
The process of note making will help you to
think through the ideas in the literature in
relation to your research.
Download and print copies of articles or
photocopy articles and pages from books to
ensure that they have all the material.
even if you print or photocopy, you still need
to make notes.
Identify three sets of information you
need to record.
Bibliographic It is usually found at the end of a book, article or
research paper
details And include all the relevant items you consulted
for your project, includ-ing those not referred to
A brief summary of the content of each item in your reference
Brief summary directly in the text
database will help you to locate the relevant items and facilitate
reference to your notes and photocopies
Supplementary As well as recording the details discussed earlier, other
information may also be worth recording. These items can be
information
anything you feel will be of value.
3.8 Plagiarism
• In recent years, plagiarism has become an important topic in
educational institutions.
Reason Largely as a result of the ease with which material can be copied from the
Internet and passed of as the work of the individual student
Consequen
The consequences of plagiarism can be serious, as for example in Box 3.18 ce
Presenting the work and ideas of other people and passing them off as
Definition your own, without acknowl- edging the original source of the ideas used’.
•List of four common forms of plagiarism in universities:
1. Stealing material from another source and passing it off
as your own.
[Link] a paper written bysomeone else (e.g. a peer or
relative) and passing it off as your own.
[Link] sections of material from one or more source texts, supplying
proper docu- mentation (including the full reference) but leaving out
quotation marks, thus giving the impression that the material has been
paraphrased rather than directly quoted.
Paraphrasing material from one or more source texts without
supplying appropriate documentation.
•Solution:
• -All universities have ample guidance for students on
the topic of pla- giarism and will emphasise that it
the responsibility of the individual student to
become aware of the university’s regulations
surrounding its conduct.
• -In addition, an increasing number of universities
ask students to check their own work using
plagiarism detection software.