Reviewing & Reading the Literature

Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

Announcements

Don’t forget to do your library assignment! It is due in labs next week, but I strongly suggest that you do

the assignment as soon as you can while the info is still fresh in your mind.

Also for next week’s lab, make sure that you download and read the Raz, Kirsch, Polard, & Nitkin-Kaner,

(2006) before coming to lab.

Reviewing the literature

Why do a review of the literature? What is the literature? How do you search the literature?

Guest lecturer: Bruce Stoffel, psychology librarian

Why review the literature

What are the underlying motivations for doing a review of the literature? Getting ideas. What has been done, what hasn’t been done? Understanding the relevant theories. What variables are important? Avoid past mistakes.

Tips for conducting a literature review

What is the literature?

Primary Sources - essentially reading the original report Journal articles Edited books (sometimes) Professional meetings Electronic publishing (fairly new, pluses and minuses) Faculty members & other personal communications

Secondary Sources - reading a report of the report Literature Reviews

Psychological Bulletin, Annual Review of Psychology Text books Citations in books and articles

What is the literature?

Secondary Sources: Advantages:

• Good starting place• Often reviews a lot of relevant literature• Relatively brief descriptions

Disadvantages:• Somebody else’s description

• May be incorrect • May be biased

• Not enough detail

Guest lecture

Turn it over to Bruce Stoffel http://www.library.ilstu.edu/

Next time

Download Raz, Kirsch, Polard, & Nitkin-Kaner, (2006)

(full text available at library) and read the article for lab next week.

Quiz 2 is due Wednesday before class (1 week from today)

Have a good Labor Day See you on Wednesday