08/26/2020
Your Literature Review
All schools have different requirements, so you need to read the rubric specific to your school and what your committee and university expect of you. I know all of you are GCU, so this may look familiar in some areas, but I thought it might help some folks. I give this to my learners.
These are merely my thoughts (and what I LOOK FOR) when I am editing and reading through a dissertation’s review of the literature.
Your literature review is your justification for why you are proposing what you are proposing in your dissertation. You are literally walking the reader through the empirical literature relevant to your proposed study and setting the stage for why your research matters.
If your review is incomplete, incoherent, poorly explained, or not analyzed, or otherwise limited in its information, you are not only telling the reader you did not do your due diligence, you are telling them you are not familiar with the research, and thereby not qualified to do your study.
Here is the format I look for specifically.
First, I recommend taking one article at a time and detailing each one (this generally can be done in about two paragraphs.
· What was the nature of the study (what was their purpose of the study?)
· What type of methods/design were used (qualitative or quantitative)?
· What design was used (based on the chosen methodology of the study you are reviewing)
o Example: Qualitative Descriptive or Quantitative Casual Comparative
· What was the sample?
· What data source(s) did they use?
· What were the outcome(s)/findings(s)?
· What were the limitations of the study?
· What were the authors’ recommendations for future research?
· You should also have a transition sentence from one study to another. Just starting a new paragraph with a new study leaves the flow choppy and broken and you aren’t making connections for your reader.
You should do this for each article that supports the theme you are exploring.
In the last paragraph for each theme section in your review of the literature, you should provide a conclusion that compares and contrasts the studies discussed within that theme.
· What do we know?
· What do we need to know?
· How is YOUR proposed study going to address what we don’t know?
So, really, a theme in format might look like this:
1. Introduction paragraph with a transition sentence to the first theme – YOU NEED THIS for each theme. In the introduction you should explain why the particular topic or theme was explored relative to the overall dissertation topic. -1 PARAGRAPH
2. First article for that theme (all the above detailed), close with a transition to the next study. 1-2 PARAGRAPHS
3. Second article for that theme, close with a transition to the next study. 1-2 PARAGRAPHS
4. Third article for that theme, close with a transition to the next study. 1-2 PARAGRAPHS
5. Your summary paragraph -1 PARAGRAPH
So, this might be anywhere from 5 – 8 paragraphs – PER THEME.
You are thinking, GHEESH! That is a LOT of information. Yes. Yes, it is. Surprisingly, you can usually get a theme explained as described above in about three pages if you are taking the most relevant articles to your proposed research. Personally, I recommend about three articles per theme in which you explain the relevance to your study. Some themes may require more, others might only require two. Detailing ONE study in a theme of a review of the literature is much too scarce, and quite frankly, I’ll tag it with a note to try to help you, but I won’t really read it until it’s fleshed out more.
Some schools require a set number of pages for the literature review, and that can seem daunting, but in large part, most doctoral students that do a complete and thorough review of the literature, often have more than required – easily.
The hard part with a literature review is not to get sucked down the proverbial rabbit hole. Lots of themes and topics are intermingled and are related to one another. Don’t follow Alice down the rabbit hole – pick your articles that are MOST relevant to what YOUR STUDY is about and use those! I am a LONG-WINDED writer (you can’t tell can you?), so I am preaching this to you as much as I am myself. I always have someone NOT academically inclined to read my writing. It helps with grammar, mechanics, clarity, and flow with my paper. If I give it to someone and they don’t get it, I need to draft it out again and look how to improve my clarity, or explanations.
Tips for Success!
1. Make an outline – I am talking about an old-fashioned 9th grade outline. It WILL help you stay on track.
2. Organize your articles. I am a color coder. If I have six themes, I color code the article with a highlighter in the top right-hand corner of the article I PRINTED (yes, invest in paper and ink). If an article is pertinent to more than one theme, that’s OK, just make sure you use the appropriate colors.
3. After I have my piles, I use a spreadsheet to help me keep track (if you want it, let me know, I will get it to you)
4. I then get an accordion folder and place them in there by theme and I put the folder UNDER MY DESK. I only pull the articles for ONE theme at a time and put it away, so I am not there being distracted by a giant pile of literature and making myself overwhelmed.
5. Literature surfaces ALL. THE. TIME. Thus, I try and do a weekly (at a minimum) search for new lit related to my topic. You can even make alerts on databases for specific topics, and when new works are published, you can get alerted by email.
6. TAKE BREAKS – Do not, sit at the computer and try to hammer out three themes in one day. You are going to kill your eyesight and make yourself insane. I recommend a theme per day, MAYBE two depending on how well you write, and if you get in a state of “flow.” I have students fuss at me on this and say they don’t have the time. YES, YOU DO. It will get done, but if you don’t take breaks and make reasonable goals you are going to do MORE iterations, and it will cost you more in the long-run, in both money and your precious sleep and sanity.
7. Do not get cranky with your committee – Feedback is not personal. We are trying to make you a better researcher, and often, like everyone else, we get distracted reading. This is especially true when you have grammar and mechanical issues in your paper. These mistakes are extremely distracting so we might miss something on an iteration and notice it on the next go around. For example, if I am overrun in a paper with grammar, writing, and clarity issues, I tend to note that first because I cannot get through the document. I send it back, they fix it, and I move on. When I have it the second time, NOW, I am starting to notice if elements like introduction and summary paragraphs are not correct/missing, or if they have not detailed something like they should. I promise you; it is not that we are not reading the paper, it is that we have to take it like you do - we must take it in chunks. If I have a chapter two and chapter two has 6 sections, one of those is the literature review (more than 30 pages), it will take me a minimum of four days to review. I am not about to sit there and try to read through the entire thing. I am going to get tired, possibly frustrated, and I will not give you the feedback you deserve, or worse, I get frustrated.
8. Most importantly, ASK FOR HELP! This is why you have a committee!
If you need assistance or guidance, please let me know and I will do what I can to help you!
