Succeeding with your literature review : a handbook for students / Paul Oliver.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"An excellent and accessible text that will help all students and scholars to develop a strong review and enable them to outline and analyse the key ideas for their study. The structure of the book is really well thought out and the chapters are written in a way which readers will find helpful and easy to understand. I would highly recommend this book to research students."
Professor Mark Brundrett, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

This step-by-step handbook provides comprehensive and practical guidance on the process of researching a range of relevant literature on a subject, as well as planning and writing a literature review. The book takes a student friendly approach to offer complete novices a simple review of a process which is often central to producing a research study.

Succeeding with your Literature Review will enable you to:

Design a literature review which is related to the main facets of a research project Conduct a logically-planned search for relevant literature Determine which literature is most suited to inclusion in your study Analyse the literature, drawing comparisons and connections where appropriate Appraise the strengths and weaknesses of relevant literature Write logically and rationally about the key features of literature Write a literature review in a sound academic style Understand how to relate a literature review to other elements of your study or dissertation Written by an author with extensive experience of supervising and examining undergraduate, Masters and doctoral dissertations, this book covers the latest trends, such as: RSS feeds, wikis, grey literature, blogs and forms of open access publishing. The book also includes examples of common pitfalls, good practice, key terms and questions to reinforce student learning and reflection.

Succeeding with your Literature Review is relevant in all subject areas and is essential reading for third year undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 1)
• 1 The nature and purpose of a literature review (p. 4)
• Summary (p. 4)
• Learning outcomes (p. 4)
• The nature of a literature review (p. 5)
• Identifying the main subject and themes (p. 7)
• Reviewing previous research (p. 8)
• Emphasizing leading research articles (p. 10)
• Exploring trends in the literature (p. 18)
• Summarizing key ideas in a subject area (p. 19)
• Key terms (p. 20)
• Key questions (p. 20)
• Key reading (p. 21)
• 2 The content of a literature review (p. 22)
• Summary (p. 22)
• Learning outcomes (p. 22)
• The categories of literature to include (p. 23)
• Denning the range of the review (p. 26)
• Selecting areas related to the subject of the dissertation or research study (p. 29)
• Credibility of journals (p. 32)
• Relating the content of your review to the research aims (p. 34)
• Areas of contention (p. 35)
• Key terms (p. 37)
• Key questions (p. 37)
• Key reading (p. 37)
• 3 Doing a literature search (p. 39)
• Summary (p. 39)
• Learning outcomes (p. 39)
• Preliminary survey (p. 40)
• The age of the literature (p. 43)
• University repositories (p. 45)
• Wikis, blogs and RSS (p. 48)
• Using referencing and bibliographic software (p. 51)
• Library catalogues (p. 53)
• Journal indexes and abstracting databases (p. 55)
• Key terms (p. 55)
• Key questions (p. 57)
• Key reading (p. 57)
• 4 How to select literature for inclusion (p. 58)
• Summary (p. 58)
• Learning outcomes (p. 58)
• Criteria for inclusion (p. 59)
• Which literature contributes most to the field? (p. 65)
• Methodology of the article (p. 66)
• Writing style (p. 68)
• Recency (p. 70)
• Validity of arguments (p. 71)
• Objectivity of research (p. 71)
• Is the author a noted scholar? (p. 73)
• Key terms (p. 74)
• Key questions (p. 74)
• Key reading (p. 74)
• 5 Analyzing and categorizing the literature critically (p. 75)
• Summary (p. 75)
• Learning outcomes (p. 75)
• Checklist of criteria (p. 76)
• Methodology (p. 75)
• Criteria (p. 80)
• Key questions (p. 91)
• Key reading (p. 91)
• 6 The structure of a literature review (p. 93)
• Summary (p. 93)
• Learning outcomes (p. 93)
• Subdivisions according to criteria (p. 94)
• Headings and sub-headings (p. 95)
• Theoretical perspectives used (p. 97)
• Type of methodology (p. 100)
• Findings (p. 104)
• Chronology (p. 107)
• Ideological position (p. 109)
• Selection of significant works (p. 110)
• Key terms (p. 111)
• Key questions (p. 112)
• Key reading (p. 112)
• 7 Writing the review (p. 113)
• Summary (p. 113)
• Learning outcomes (p. 113)
• Placing themes in order (p. 114)
• Compare literature which reaches different conclusions (p. 115)
• Being critical of inadequacies (p. 117)
• Prose style (p. 118)
• Standard approaches to referencing (p. 120)
• Citing electronic sources (p. 124)
• Calculating the number of quotations to include (p. 126)
• Devote more space to discussing significant literature (p. 128)
• Key terms (p. 129)
• Key questions (p. 129)
• Key reading (p. 130)
• 8 Relating the review to the rest of the dissertation (p. 131)
• Summary (p. 131)
• Learning outcomes (p. 132)
• Questions for further research (p. 132)
• Demonstrating how your study is connected with previous studies (p. 134)
• Relate literature to research questions and aims (p. 135)
• Linking findings and results with the literature review (p. 138)
• Relating primary data of research to the literature review (p. 139)
• Types of methodology used in previous research (p. 143)
• Recent developments in the subject area (p. 145)
• Key terms (p. 146)
• Key questions (p. 146)
• Key reading (p. 147)
• References (p. 148)
• Index (p. 151)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Dr Paul Oliver is a former Principal Lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Development, at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He was course leader for the Doctor of Education programme, and also taught widely on the MA programme in education.