Research Methods: Doing a literature review

Eira Patterson | View as single page | Feedback/Impact
Doing a literature review: How to find and make sense of published research
Evidence
Key ideas
Searching in an organised way
How to read and organise information effectively
Telling a story
References
Why carry out a literature review
Identifying key terms
Selecting relevant literature
Starting to analyse
Further reading
What is a systematic literature review
Electronic searches
Finding information in texts
Structuring your ideas: Creating a literature map
Sources of research reports
Search engines
Questions to help you identify themes in your literature review
Useful links to help you create a literature map
Solving common problems related to searching for sources
Organising information
Application of ideas: Constructing your own literature map
Examples of databases
Taking notes
Case study: Identifying the 'trouble' in a story
Identifying themes to structure your literature review
How to reference
Writing your literature review
Strength of Evidence
Transferability
Areas for further research
Editor's Comments
Online Communities

Taking notes

The purpose of taking notes is to record the key ideas from sources, possibly also direct quotations that are of particular relevance. When taking notes it is very important to ensure full and accurate referencing. Notes can either be recorded in a paper based form, such as on index cards or else electronically. Electronic note taking is useful because it allows you to easily search your notes for key terms and also you can copy and paste your notes directly into your literature review.

A tabular format could be used to support note taking and engagement with journal articles. Download a Word document of this table here.

Reference of the journal article: (author(s), date of publication, title of article, journal, issue, page numbers)

Research focus of the article:

Sections of the article

Details

Your evaluation / ideas

Research questions

  

Are the questions clearly focussed?

Research approach

  • -qualitative / quantitative / mixed methods

  • case study / action research / ethnographic study / experimental design etc

  

Does the research approach fit with the questions being researched?

Research methods

  

Have appropriate methods been chosen to answer the research questions?

Details of how the research was implemented:

  • Details of participants and sample size

  • Context where the research was carried out

  • Timeframe

  • Details of the researcher(s)

  

Consider impact of the research design on credibility and applicability of the data.

Key findings

  

What insights does this research give you?

How do the findings of this research relate to your experience / findings from other related research?

Implications for practice

  

What is the potential impact of this research:

  • on the participants of the project

  • on practice generally within this field?

How could the findings of this study be used in your setting?

 

Tags: