Literature Reviews

What is a Literature Review?

● A literature review is not a book report in which you give your “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on a particular publication. Rather, a literature review is a survey of published work in a specific field or subfield, often with the purpose of setting an agenda for future research.

● The review should describe, summarize, evaluate and clarify this literature.

● A literature review is not a random listing of previous work, but rather assesses previous work for the purposes of suggesting further work.

Why write a literature review:

1. To discover what has been written about a topic already 2. To determine what each source contributes to the topic 3. To understand the relationship between the various contributions, identify and

(if possible) resolve contradictions, and determine gaps or unanswered questions

*In the case of our assignment, you would use it to justify a future opinion piece task, rather than launch your investigation.

Why (Part 2):

“The Criminological Coffee Cup”

Vs.

Formulating an opinion

Distinguishing the following:

Book Review Annotated Bibliography

Literature Review

Analyzes and evaluates a particular book.

Summarizes relevant sources and explains the significance of that source to the research question.

Surveys all relevant literature to determine what is known and not known about a particular topic.

Your Mini-Literature Review Task (sections)

1. An introduction

2. The review of sources; your literature review must use specific

references from (totalling four resources minimum, don’t go beyond five)

3. A conclusion

● I will walk you through each section

Literature Sections and Example

“Myths of violence and the stigma of mental illness” is the example I will use throughout

Introduction

The introduction should:

- Defines, identifies and explains your topic- Evaluates what your sources will have in common (trends)- A goal or research topic that you will explore (remember to frame this as a goal, not a

English style thesis - your own research and study may end up proving you wrong)

If your literature review is part of a larger work, explain the importance of the review to your research question

● in the case of your mini-assignment, the purpose of the literature review is to explore previous research that relates to your research question.

Introduction Example

Body ParagraphsThe body of your literature review should summarize the findings of studies that have been conducted on your topic.

For each study you should:

- Briefly explain its purpose- Procedure for data collection and major findings (if applicable). - In some cases, you may have to summarize what the author based his work on instead (what

literature did they review).- The source’s findings or conclusions; how does this source help to understand your research

question.

This is the section where you will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of particular studies. Emphasize the main findings or arguments of the articles in your own words. Keep quotations from sources to a minimum.

Body Paragraphs - how to organize1. Group articles into thematic clusters, or subtopics. Clusters may be grouped together

chronologically, thematically, or methodologically (see below for more on this). a. Chronological Groupings: With this method, you can group material according

to when it was published or the time period the material addresses. b. Thematic Groupings: In this approach, sections might be organized around

particular sub-themes within the essay’s topic. c. Methodological Groupings: A methodological approach differs from the two

above in that it does not focus so much on the content, but the “methods” of the researcher or writer.

Body Paragraph Example

Alexander and Link (2003), any contact with the mentally ill is associated with reduced fear and rejection. However, since this study was observational in nature, we cannot know if contact reduces fear or having lower fear increased contact.

Conclusion

The conclusion should provide a summary of YOUR findings from the literature review.

1. Explain what your analysis of the material leads you to conclude about the overall state of the literature, what it provides and where it is lacking.

2. You can also provide suggestions for future research or explain how your future research will fill the gaps in the existing body of work on that topic.

● For your mini-literature review, discuss how the information impacted your own analysis of the question you formulated; has your opinion changed, or has it been supported?

Stigmatization of the mentally ill is caused by the public’s belief in myths about the dangerousness of the mentally ill and exposing those myths can reduce stigmatization. At least one-third of the people sampled in one study said that they would both reject socially and fear violence from someone displaying behaviors associated with different mentally illnesses. Other research discovered that this rejection is associated to lack of contact with the mentally ill and that as contact increased, fear of the mentally ill decreased. The direction of the relationship between fear and rejection seems to be that fear (possibly based upon myths about mental illness) causes rejection. Taken as a whole, it appears that exposing these myths as myths increases the acceptance of the mentally ill and that staged contact with a mentally person to expose myths has an even more powerful effect. Caution must be advised, though; Martin et al.’s (2002) and Alexander and Link’s (2003) studies and the first study of Corrigan et al. (2002) were based upon paper and pencil methodologies. And while Corrigan et al.’s (2002) second study involved staged presentations, it was conducted in a college setting with a college sample. Future research should replicate these findings in more natural settings with different populations.

Sources:Ashton, William. (Unknown) Writing a Short Literature Review. York College. Date accessed: October 3rd 2016

Boote, D.N. & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: On the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher 34/6, 3-15.

Kirby, S., Greaves, L. & Reid, C. (2006). Searching the Literature. In Experience research social change: Methods beyond the mainstream (pp. 101- 117). Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. Education Library Q180.55 M4 K5 2006t

Feldman, A. and Rolf Norgaard, R. (Unknown). Writing a Mini-Literature-Review. University of Colorado at Boulder Date accessed: October 3rd 2016

Skene, Allyson. (Unknown). Writing a Literature Review. The Writing Centre, University of Toronto at Scarborough. Date accessed: October 3rd 2016