Conducting Literature Review

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Conducting Literature Review

• By
• M R Selamat

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By this session you should be able to

• Distinguish plagiarism from contribution.
• Find literature associated with your topic.
• Quote literature from within your thesis.
• List reference material at end of thesis.
• Realize severe consequences of plagiarism.

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What is Plagiarism

• Using someones script without quoting.
• Using someones script as if your own.
• Cutting and pasting internet materials.
• Using someones result without permission
• Using someones figure or table without quoting

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Finding/Reviewing Literature

• Literature review -
• is account of work by others.
• forms a chapter in your thesis.
• convey what knowledge has been established.
• tell strengths/weaknesses of current knowledge.
• describe objective, problem, issue, or arguments
• is not list of material available
• Is not a set of summaries

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A Good Literature Review is

• Focused and narrow.
• Concise and economically.
• Logical and progressing smoothly from one idea to
  the next.
• Developed and leave no story half told.
• Integrative and telling how the ideas are
  related.
• Discerning and telling how some studies
  different than others.
• Current and dwell on work being done .ss

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Literature review lets you gain and demonstrate
skills in two areas

• information seeking
• critical appraisal

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A literature review must be

• Organized around and related directly to thesis
• A summary of what is and is not known
• A report of controversy in the literature
• A set of questions that need further research

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Ask yourself questions

• How good was my information seeking? Has my
  search been wide enough?
• Has it been narrow enough? Is the number of
  sources appropriate for the length of my paper?
• Have I critically analyzed the literature?
• Instead of just listing and summarizing items, do
  I assess them, discussing strengths and
  weaknesses?
• Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my
  perspective?
• Will the reader find my literature review
  relevant, appropriate, and useful?

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Ask yourself questions like these about each text
book or article you include

• Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
• Is it clearly defined? Is its significance
  (scope, severity, relevance) clearly established?
  
• Could the problem have been approached more
  effectively from another perspective?
• What is the author's research orientation (e.g.,
  interpretive, critical science, combination)?

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Ask yourself questions like these about each book
or article you include

• Is the author psychological, developmental, or
  feminist?
• Has the author evaluated the literature relevant
  to the problem/issue?
• Does the author include literature he or she does
  not agree with?
• How accurate and valid are the measurements?
• Are the conclusions validly based upon the data
  and analysis?

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Ask yourself questions like these about each book
or article you include

• Does the author use appeals, emotion, one-sided
  examples, rhetorically-charged language, or good
  reasoning and sound argument?
• Does the book or article contribute to your
  understanding of the problem.
• How does the book or article relate to the story
  you are developing?
• In short ask yourself a lot of questions!

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So what is a literature review?

• A literature review is a piece of discursive
  prose, not a list describing or summarizing one
  piece of literature after another. Organize the
  literature review into sections that present
  themes or identify trends, including relevant
  theory. You are not trying to list all the
  material published, but to synthesize and
  evaluate it according to the guiding concept of
  your thesis or research question.

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So what is a literature review?

• A literature review is not rewriting of the
  literature but critical review of content of the
  literature.
• A literature review is an introduction to your
  own intellectual romance by quoting others as you
  see them.
• A literature review is about how you see the
  world how a literate man/woman like yourself is
  seeing the world.

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Now you can start writing

• DECIDE ON A TOPIC
• NARROW YOUR TOPIC
•  CREATE AN INTRODUCTION FOR YOUR LITERATURE
  REVIEW
•  ORGANIZE THE BODY OF YOUR PAPER
•   Scan each article to get an overview of each
  one.
• Group the articles by
  categories.
• Read each article
  carefully, taking notes on each one.
• WRITE THE BODY OF YOUR PAPER 
• Make the structure and organization of your
  write-up explicit.
• Integrate the studies you summarize in your
  paper.
• At the end of each section wrap up studies in a
  paragraph that tells the reader how the studies
  relate and address your topic.
• Make sure you take note of key terms and
  definitions.
• Identify landmark studies in your write-up
• Identify major trends across the studies you are
  reading.
• WRAP THE PAPER UP
• Present your conclusions.
• Present implications.
• Present suggestions for future research.  

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Quoting reference into your writing

• Quoting (Author, Year)
• Quoting Author (Year)
• Quoting (Author1 and Author2, Year)
• Quoting Author1 and Author2 (Year)
• Quoting (Author1 et al., Year)
• Quoting Author1 et al. (Year)
• Quoting (Author, Year1, Year2, Year3, Year4)
• Quoting (Author1, Year1 and Author2, Year2)
• Quoting (Author1, Year1 Author2, Year2 and
  Author3, Year3)

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Quoting reference into your writing

• Ground motion was first incorporated into slope
  stability analyses to study the effects from
  earthquakes (Sarma 1973). This paper will not go
  much into the matters on pseudo-static and
  permanent displacement concepts as discussed by
  Newmark (1965), Chang et al. (1983), Lin and
  Whitman (1986), Kobayashi et al. (1990), Yegian
  et al. (1991), Leshchinsky and San (1994), and
  Kramer and Smith (1997). Instead, it will refer
  to works by Sarma (1973, 1975, 1979), Sarma and
  Bhave (1974), Kjartannsson (1979), Hoek (1987),
  Dowding and Gilbert (1988), Kavetski et al.
  (1990), Ashford and Sitar (2002), and the authors
  own earlier publications (Selamat 1999, Selamat
  and Chitombo 2003), on how ground accelerations
  were computed into forces that were used in the
  pseudo-static or permanent displacement ideas.

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Quoting reference into your writing

• This discussion highlights the relevance of
  Sarmas method on the emerging interest in the
  country in some areas of earthquake engineering
  (Adnan et al., 2005). This discussion will refer
  to works by Sarma (1973, 1975, 1979), Sarma and
  Bhave (1974), Kjartannsson (1979), Hoek (1987),
  Dowding and Gilbert (1988), Kavetski et al.
  (1990), Ashford and Sitar (2002), and the authors
  own earlier publications (Selamat 1999, Selamat
  and Chitombo 2003), on how ground accelerations
  were computed into forces that were used in the
  pseudo-static or permanent displacement ideas.

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Quoting actual script into your writing

• Dowding (1996) writes .too little experience
  from .earthquake engineering has spilled into
  .blasting vibrations.

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Quoting actual script into your writing

• The trend as indicated in Fig. 10 is currently
  happening.

Fig. 10 Growth in Waste Recycling Activity.
(After Aziz, 2004)
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Listing your reference

• Author (Year). Title of Paper/Article. Name of
  Journal/Bulletin. Vol. No. pp.
• Author1, Author2, Author3, Author4 (Year). Title
  of Paper/Article. Name of Journal. Vol. No. pp.
• Author (Year). Title of Book. Publisher. Place.
  pp.
• Author (Year). Title of Paper/Article. Name of
  Proceeding of Conference. Place. pp.
• Author (Year). Title of Paper/Article. Name of
  Report. Name of Organization. Place. pp.
• Http//www1.eng.usm.my/awam/servis

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Listing your reference

• Adnan A., Abas M. R., and Hendriawan (2005)
  Earthquake Induced Energy Sources and Hazard
  Analysis For Structural Earthquake Resistant
  Design in Peninsular Malaysia The Ingenieur,
  Board of Engineers, Malaysia, Vol. 26, pp. 21-25

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What is Plagiarism

• Rewriting someones script not quoting source.
• Rewriting someones script as if it is your own.
• Cutting and Pasting internet materials.
• Publishing someones result without permission
• Reproducing someone elses figure or table
  without quoting source (as after Author, year)

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By now you should be able to

• Distinguish plagiarism from contribution.
• Find literature associated with your topic.
• Quote literature from within your thesis.
• List reference material at end of thesis.
• Realize severe consequences of plagiarism.

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Thank You