Tag Archives: literature review

not all literature ‘reviews’ are the same

Posted on May 23, 2013 by

I was trying to explain to a doctoral researcher the other day that the literature work that you do at the beginning of the doctorate is not the same as the literature work for the actual, final thesis that is … Continue reading →

Posted in literature mapping, literature review, literature themes, systematic review, traditional review | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

a lit review thinking tool – christmas present two

Posted on December 10, 2012 by

Working with literatures is a complex task. It is one of the places where doctoral and early career researchers come unstuck. One of the very many reasons that it’s problematic is, in my view, because there is not sufficient discussion … Continue reading →

Posted in literature mapping, literature review, literature themes, note-taking, scholarly primitives, thinking tool, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

focusing in on blogging literatures part two – #acwrimo work in progress

Posted on November 25, 2012 by

This is the sixth post about the literature review I am doing about academic blogging for a paper/project with Thesis Whisperer. I’m working to a short time frame, and using a three-stage approach – scoping, mapping and focusing in. I … Continue reading →

Posted in academic blogging, acwrimo, blogging, blogging taxonomy, focusing in, interpretation, scoping | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

stepping back to focus in – literature review stage three. #acwrimo work in progress

Posted on November 19, 2012 by

The title of this post – and of this stage of the literature review – might sound confusing. How can you both step back and focus in? Well I want you to imagine that you’re in an art gallery. If … Continue reading →

Posted in academic blogging, blogging, debates in the field, focusing in, history of the field, key figures in the field, literature review | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

mapping the literatures, step two. #acwrimo work in progress

Posted on November 14, 2012 by

I left off the last post on literature work at the point of having a base set of literatures about blogging that I had drawn from peer-reviewed journals. I’d skimmed all of the abstracts once, in order to weed out … Continue reading →

Posted in academic blogging, literature mapping, literature review, literature themes | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

literature review step one, scoping. #acwrimo work in progress

Posted on November 11, 2012 by

One of the things that we all have to do when starting a piece of research is to find out what else has been said about our topic. This is usually called the literature review, although I prefer to think … Continue reading →

Posted in academic blogging, disciplines, journal, literature review, scoping, search | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

is there a format for a thesis?

Posted on October 19, 2012 by

There is a format for the thesis and it goes like this – Introduction, Literature review, Methods, Report of research findings, Discussion and conclusion. This is known as ILMRaD. Many theses follow this structure and it does ‘work’ – it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in chapter, default, ILMRaD, literature review, methods chapter, PhD, thesis | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

doing the literature review – thinking about patterns and groups

Posted on March 9, 2012 by

If you’ve ever watched small children playing then you’ll know that one of the things that they do is to sort things into groups. A bunch of coloured pens, pencils and markers can be sorted by type, colour, size, shape, … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, grouping and patterning, literature review, meta-commentary, signposts, thematisation | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

beginning the literature review – taking notes

Posted on March 3, 2012 by

The purpose of the literature review shapes the way that noting is done. And the purpose is to situate your study in the field – that is, to establish a space for the work you are going to do – … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, literature review, note-taking, reading | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

beginning the literature review: the art of scan-reading

Posted on February 26, 2012 by

It’s important at the start of a piece of research to try to get a sense of the field – to establish the kinds of articles and books that are going to be useful. This is often a particularly hard … Continue reading →

Posted in coherence, literature review, reading, scan-reading | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments