Education Resource Guide

Basically, a literature review discusses the larger scholarly conversation about your topic. Think of it like this:

You walk into a party full of people you have not seen in a long time (maybe your high school reunion) (this is your topic)

The party is already started and you have to figure out what is going on based on listening to the conversations around you. The people at the party are not going to stop their conversation and clue you in on what's happening, they will assume you already are familiar with the information (this is the 'literature').

Now, you have been at the party for a while and have figured out what is going on in the various groups at the party (reading the literature).

Someone else has just arrived at the same party but they haven't seen the people for a while either - you know the person and decide to help them out by giving them the lowdown on the conversations at the party (this is a literature review).

Expert descriptions are below

"A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Occasionally you will be asked to write one as a separate assignment, ..., but more often it is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries."

- Taylor, D. (n.d). The literature review: A few tips on conducting it. Retrieved from http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

- Baumeister, R.F. & Leary, M.R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews. Review of General Psychology, 1(3), 311-320.

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Systematic review- "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139)

- Nelson, L.K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing.

Meta-analysis- "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing resarch findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occured in different studies." (p. 197)

-Roberts, M.C. & Ilardi, S.S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Meta-synthesis- " Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312)

-Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 53(3), 311-318. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.03721.x

From University of Connecticut Library

Traditional or Narrative

•     Provides background for understanding current knowledge
•     Critiques, summarizes and draws conclusions from a body of knowledge
•     Identifies gaps or inconsistencies to be filled or corrected through further research and study
•     Helps to refine the topic and research question
•     Carries the flaw of becoming less useful as more information becomes available

Systematic

•     Identifies, appraises and synthesizes available evidence in order to answer a specified research question
•     Applies a more rigorous approach that details the time frame of selected literature and method of critique and analysis
•     Uses explicit and well-defined methods in order to minimize bias and increase reliability
•     Includes as comprehensive an amount of studies as possible that includes both published and unpublished findings, such as "grey literature"

Meta-Analysis

•     Systematically locates, appraises and synthesizes data from a large body of findings using statistical analysis and techniques
•     Similar to a systematic review in that it integrates the findings of a large body of knowledge
•     Attempts to correct flaws of traditional or narrative reviews by allowing researchers to synthesize a greater amount of studies
•     Integrates and draws conclusions on research findings and seeks to detect broad patterns and relationships between studies

Meta-Synthesis

•     Attempts to bring together, juxtapose, re-analyze and combine findings from multiple qualitiative studies using non-statistical techniques
•     Seeks to discover or provide new interpretations, conceptions or theoretical developments
•     Combines multiple studies to identify common key themes and elements
•     May use findings from phenomenological, grounded theory or ethnographic studies

Sources

• Borenstein, M.H., Viggins, L.V. & Julian, P.T. (2009). Introduction to Meta-Analysis. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley
• Cronin, P., Ryan, F. & Coughlan, M. (2008). Undertaking a literature review: A step-by-step approach. British Journal of Nursing, 17(1), 38-43.
• Glasziou, P. (2001). Systematic Reviews in Health Care : A Practical Guide. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Mays, C., Popay, N. & Jennie (2007).  Synthesising Qualitative and Quantitative Health Research: A Guide to Methods. Great Britain: Open University Press.

From Bow Valley College Library