explains
indicates
notes
describes
Most of us have favourite verbs that we default to almost unconsciously when we are writing—reports, argues, describes, studies, explains, asserts—but these verbs are not interchangeable. They each inscribe a slightly different stance towards the knowledge—not only the writer’s stance, but also the stance of the researcher who created the knowledge. It is critical to get the original stance right in your critical summary. Nothing irritates me more than seeing my stance mispresented in someone else’s literature review. For example, if I wrote a paragraph offering tentative reflections on a new idea, I don’t want to see that summarized in someone’s literature review as ‘Lingard argues’, when more accurate would be ‘Lingard suggests’ or ‘Lingard explored’.
Writers need to extend their library of citation verbs to allow themselves to accurately and persuasively position knowledge claims published by authors in their field. You can find many online resources to help extend your vocabulary: Tab. 2 , adapted from one such online source [ 4 ], provides some suggestions. Tables like these should be thought of as tools, not rules—keep in mind that words have flexible meanings depending on context and purpose. This is why one word, such as suggest or conclude , can appear in more than one list.
Verbs to represent the nature and strength of an author’s contributions to the literature
Verbs to report what an author DID | Verbs to report what an author SAID | Verbs to report an author’s OPINION | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
analyse, assess, , discover, describe, demonstrate, examine, explore, establish, find, identify, inquire, prove, observe, study, show | Weaker | Stronger | Weaker | Stronger |
comment, describe, note, remark, add, offer, | affirm, emphasize, stress, maintain, stipulate, explain, , identify, insist | accept, believe, consider, think, , suspect, speculate | argue, assert, claim, contend, deny, recommend, reject, advocate, maintain |
Knowledge is a social construction and it accumulates as researchers debate, extend and refine one another’s contributions. To avoid your literature review reading like a laundry list of disconnected ‘facts’, reporting verbs are an important resource. Tab. 3 offers a selection of verbs organized to reflect different relationships among authors in the field of knowledge being reviewed.
Verbs to express relations among authors in the field
Depicting similar positions | Depicting contrasting positions | Depicting relating/responding positions |
---|---|---|
Taylor Jackson’s claim that … | Taylor Jackson’s claim that … | Taylor to Jackson’s claim that … |
affirms, agrees, confirms, concurs, aligns, shares, echoes, supports, verifies, concedes, accepts | argues, disagrees, questions, dismisses, refuses, rejects, challenges contradicts, criticizes, opposes, counters, disputes | extends, elaborates, refines, builds on, reconsiders, draws upon, advances, repositions, addresses |
Finally, although we have focused on citation verbs in this article, adverbs (e. g., similarly, consequently) and prepositional phrases (e. g., by contrast, in addition) are also important for expressing similar, contrasting or responding relations among knowledge claims and their authors in the field being reviewed.
In summary, an effective literature review not only summarizes existing knowledge, it also critically presents that knowledge to depict an evolving conversation and understanding in a particular domain of study. As writers we need to know when we are summarizing and when we are critically summarizing—summary alone makes for a literature review that reads like a laundry list of undigested ‘facts-in-the-world’. Finally, writers need to attend to the subtle power of citation verbs to position themselves and the authors they are citing in relation to the knowledge being reviewed. Broadening our catalogue of ‘go-to’ verbs is an important step in enlivening and strengthening our writing.
Thanks to Mark Goldszmidt for his feedback on an early version of this manuscript.
PhD, is director of the Centre for Education Research & Innovation at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and professor for the Department of Medicine at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada.
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Citation generators are online tools which facilitate the creation of works cited and bibliographies. Citation creators use web forms to take bibiographic information retrieved from information supporting your research and output the information according to guidelines and standards, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Assoication(APA) The Chicago Manual of Style(CMS), Turabian, etc.,
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1. How should a student begin the research process for a paper?
Assignments will vary from teacher to teacher, but it is never a bad idea to start in reference for an overview of the topic. Then the student should progress to the catalog to search for additional books and the online databases to search for articles. Librarians are happy to assist with any research needs.
2. What is the difference between searching an online database and searching on the Internet?
When searching online databases, students will find articles that can be considered as respected, verifiable research sources. Typically students will find articles from magazines, scholarly journals, and reference books in these databases and can be assured that the sources are appropriate for academic writing.
When searching the Internet, students may find good information, but extra steps are needed in verifying the validity/accuracy of such information. In addition, most Internet sources are typically not considered academic/scholarly and may be disallowed by many teachers. The library staff is happy to answer any questions about evaluating Internet sources.
3. What is an annotated bibliography?
An annotated bibliography is just like a standard bibliography with the addition of a summary of each source. Information on annotated bibliographies can be found by visiting “How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography” (courtesy of Cornell University Library).
Information on MLA style can be found by visiting “MLA Style,” (courtesy of Williams College Libraries).
4. How can a student avoid plagiarism?
Plagiarism is a serious offense and cannot be fully addressed in a short answer. Generally, you always give credit to ideas you are quoting or paraphrasing. For more specific information, ask your teacher, ask a librarian, or visit the very detailed plagiarism handout created by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) .
Reference management. Clean and simple.
How to write a literature review, 1. determine the purpose of your literature review, 2. do an extensive search, 3. evaluate and select literature, 4. analyze the literature, 5. plan the structure of your literature review, 6. write your literature review, other resources to help you write a successful literature review, frequently asked questions about writing a literature review, related articles.
A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.
A good literature review does not just summarize sources. It analyzes the state of the field on a given topic and creates a scholarly foundation for you to make your own intervention. It demonstrates to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.
In a thesis, a literature review is part of the introduction, but it can also be a separate section. In research papers, a literature review may have its own section or it may be integrated into the introduction, depending on the field.
➡️ Our guide on what is a literature review covers additional basics about literature reviews.
In this section, we review each step of the process of creating a literature review.
In the first step, make sure you know specifically what the assignment is and what form your literature review should take. Read your assignment carefully and seek clarification from your professor or instructor if needed. You should be able to answer the following questions:
In addition to that, be aware that the narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good overview of the topic.
Now you need to find out what has been written on the topic and search for literature related to your research topic. Make sure to select appropriate source material, which means using academic or scholarly sources , including books, reports, journal articles , government documents and web resources.
➡️ If you’re unsure about how to tell if a source is scholarly, take a look at our guide on how to identify a scholarly source .
Come up with a list of relevant keywords and then start your search with your institution's library catalog, and extend it to other useful databases and academic search engines like:
➡️ Our guide on how to collect data for your thesis might be helpful at this stage of your research as well as the top list of academic search engines .
Once you find a useful article, check out the reference list. It should provide you with even more relevant sources. Also, keep a note of the:
Keeping track of the bibliographic information for each source will save you time when you’re ready to create citations. You could also use a reference manager like Paperpile to automatically save, manage, and cite your references.
Read the literature. You will most likely not be able to read absolutely everything that is out there on the topic. Therefore, read the abstract first to determine whether the rest of the source is worth your time. If the source is relevant for your topic:
Now you are ready to analyze the literature you have gathered. While your are working on your analysis, you should ask the following questions:
Tip: Decide on the structure of your literature review before you start writing.
There are various ways to organize your literature review:
Regardless of the structure you chose, a review should always include the following three sections:
➡️ If your literature review is part of a longer paper, visit our guide on what is a research paper for additional tips.
➡️ UNC writing center: Literature reviews
➡️ How to write a literature review in 3 steps
➡️ How to write a literature review in 30 minutes or less
The goal of a literature review is to asses the state of the field on a given topic in preparation for making an intervention.
A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where it can be found, and address this section as “Literature Review.”
There is no set amount of words for a literature review; the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.
Most research papers include a literature review. By assessing the available sources in your field of research, you will be able to make a more confident argument about the topic.
Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.
4 literature review and citations/references.
Figure 4.1: Literature reviews and references
Your may have done a literature survey as part of your proposal. This will be incorporated into your dissertation, not left as separate stand-alone. Most economics papers include a literature review section, which may be a separate section, or incorporated into the paper’s introduction. (See organising for a standard format.)
Some disambiguation:
A ‘Literature survey’ paper: Some academic papers are called ‘literature surveys’. These try to summarise and discuss the existing work that has been done on a particular topic, and can be very useful. See, for example, works in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Journal of Economic Literature, the “Handbook of [XXX] Economics”
Many student projects and undergraduate dissertations are mainly literature surveys.
Your literature review should explain:
what has been done already to address your topic and related questions, putting your work in perspective, and
what techniques others have used, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and how might they be relevant tools for your own analysis.
Figure 4.2: Take notes on this as you read, and write them up.
Focus on literature that is relevant to your topic only.
But do not focus only on articles about your exact topic ! For example, if your paper is about the relative price of cars in the UK, you might cite papers (i) about the global automobile market, (ii) about the theory and evidence on competition in markets with similar features and (iii) using econometric techniques such as “hedonic regression” to estimate “price premia” in other markets and in other countries.
Consider: If you were Colchester a doctor and wanted to know whether a medicine would be effective for your patients, would you only consider medical studies that ran tests on Colchester residents, or would you consider more general national and international investigations?
You should aim to read and cite peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals. (Journals in other fields such as Finance, Marketing and Political Science may also be useful.) These papers have a certain credibility as they have been checked by several referees and one or more editors before being published. (In fact, the publication process in Economics is extremely lengthy and difficult.)
Which journals are “reputable”? Economists spend a lot of time thinking about how to rank and compare journals (there are so many papers written about this topic that they someone could start a “Journal of Ranking Economics Journals”. For example, “ REPEC ” has one ranking, and SCIMAGO/SCOPUS has another one. You may want to focus on journals ranked in the top 100 or top 200 of these rankings. If you find it very interesting and relevant paper published somewhere that is ranked below this, is okay to cite it, but you may want to be a bit more skeptical of its findings.
Any journal you find on JSTOR is respectable, and if you look in the back of your textbooks, there will be references to articles in journals, most of which are decent.
You may also find unpublished “working papers”; these may also be useful as references. However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of these, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing.
You may also find unpublished “working papers” or ‘mimeos’; these may also be useful as references. In fact, the publication process in Economics is so slow (six years from first working paper to publication is not uncommon) that not consulting working papers often means not being current.
However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of this ‘grey literature’, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing. Some working paper series are vetted, such as NBER; in terms of credibility, these might be seen as something in between a working paper and a publication.
Which of the following are “peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals”? Which of the following may be appropriate to cite in your literature review and in your final project? 8
Klein, G, J. (2011) “Cartel Destabilization and Leniency Programs – Empirical Evidence.” ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 10-107
Spencer, B. and Brander, J.A. (1983) “International R&D Rivalry and Industrial Strategy”, Review of Economic Studies Vol. 50, 707-722
Troisi, Jordan D., Andrew N. Christopher, and Pam Marek. “Materialism and money spending disposition as predictors of economic and personality variables.” North American Journal of Psychology 8.3 (2006): 421.
The Economist,. ‘Good, Bad And Ugly’. Web. 11 Apr. 2015. [accessed on…]
Mecaj, Arjola, and María Isabel González Bravo. “CSR Actions and Financial Distress: Do Firms Change Their CSR Behavior When Signals of Financial Distress Are Identified?.” Modern Economy 2014 (2014).
Universities, U. K. “Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in driving the UK’s creative economy.” London Universities UK (2010).
You should be able to find and access all the relevant articles online. Leafing through bound volumes and photocopying should not be neededs. (Having been a student in the late 90’s and 2000’s, I wish I could get those hours back.)
Figure 4.3: The old way!
Good online tools include Jstor (jstor.org) and Google Scholar (scholar.google.co.uk). Your university should have access to Jstor, and Google is accessible to all (although the linked articles may require special access). You will usually have the ‘most access’ when logged into your university or library computing system.If you cannot access a paper, you may want to consult a reference librarian.
It is also ok, if you cannot access the journal article itself, to use the last working paper version (on Google scholar find this in the tab that says “all X versions”, where X is some number, and look for a PDF). However, authors do not always put up the most polished versions, although they should do to promote open-access. As a very last resort, you can e-mail the author and ask him or her to send you the paper.
When looking for references, try to find ones published in respected refereed economics journals (see above ).
A “survey article” is a good place to start; this is a paper that is largely a categorization and discussion of previous work on a particular topic. You can often find such papers in journals such as
These will be useful as a “catalog” of papers to read and considers citing. They are also typically very readable and offer a decent introduction to the issue or the field.
It is also helpful to consult module (course) notes and syllabi from the relevant field. Do not only limit yourself to the ones at your own university; many of universities make their course materials publicly accessible online. These will not only typically contain reading lists with well-respected and useful references, they may also contain slides and other material that will help you better understand your topic and the relevant issues.
However, be careful not to take material from course notes without properly citing it. (Better yet, try to find the original paper that the course notes are referring to.)
Textbooks serve as another extremely useful jumping off point. Look through your own textbooks and other textbooks in the right fields. Textbooks draw from, and cite a range of relevant articles and papers. (You may also want to go back to textbooks when you are finding the articles you are reading too difficult. Textbooks may present a simpler version of the material presented in an article, and explain the concepts better.)
When you find a useful paper, look for its “family.” You may want to go back to earlier, more fundamental references, by looking at the articles that this paper cited. See what is listed as “keywords” (these are usually given at the top of the paper), and “JEL codes”. Check what papers this paper cites, and check what other papers cited this paper. On Google scholar you can follow this with a link “Cited by…” below the listed article. “Related articles” is also a useful link.
Keep track of all references and citations
You may find it helpful to use software to help you manage your citations
A storage “database” of citations (e.g., Jabref, Zotero, Endnote, Mendeley); these interface well with Google Scholar and Jstor
An automatic “insert citation” and “insert bibliography” in your word processing software
Use a tool like Endnote to manage and insert the bibliographies, or use a bibliography manager software such as Zotero or Jabref,
Further discussion: Citation management tools
Put your list of references in alphabetical order by author’s last name (surname).
Include all articles and works that you cite in your paper; do not include any that you don’t cite.
Here is a definition of plagiarism
The main point is that you need to cite everything that is not your own work. Furthermore, be clear to distinguish what is your own work and your own language and what is from somewhere/someone else.
Why cite? Not just to give credit to others but to make it clear that the remaining uncited content is your own.
Here are some basic rules:
(Rephrased from University of Essex material, as seen in Department of Economics, EC100 Economics for Business Handbook 2017-18, https://www1.essex.ac.uk/economics/documents/EC100-Booklet_2017.pdf accessed on 20 July 2019, pp. 15-16)
Do not submit anything that is not your own work.
Never copy from friends.
Do not copy your own work or previously submitted work. (Caveat: If you are submitting a draft or a ‘literature review and project plan’ at an earlier stage, this can be incorporated into your final submission.
Don’t copy text directly into your work, unless:
It is not sufficient merely to add a citation for the source of copied material following the copied material (typically the end of a paragraph). You must include the copied material in quotation marks. … Ignorance … is no defence.’ (ibid, pp. 15 )
(‘Ibid’ means ‘same as the previous citation’.)
Your university may use sophisticated plagiarism-detection software. Markers may also report if the paper looks suspect
Before final submission, they may ask you to go over your draft and sign that you understand the contents and you have demonstrated that the work is your own.
Not being in touch with your supervisor may put you under suspicion.
Your university may give a Viva Voce oral exam if your work is under suspicion. It is a cool-sounding word but probably something you want to avoid.
Your university may store your work in its our database, and can pursue disciplinary action, even after you have graduated.
Penalties may be severe, including failure with no opportunity to retake the module (course). You may even risk your degree!
Comprehension questions; answers in footnotes
True or false: “If you do not directly quote a paper you do not need to cite it” 9
You should read and cite a paper (choose all that are correct)… 10
Use the right terminology.
“Johnson et al. (2000) provide an analytical framework that sheds substantial doubt on that belief. When trying to obtain a correlation between institutional efficiency and wealth per capita, they are left with largely inconclusive results.”
They are not trying to “obtain a correlation”; they are trying to measure the relationship and test hypotheses.
Don’t take everything that is in print (or written online) as gospel truth. Be skeptical and carefully evaluate the arguments and evidence presented. Try to really survey what has been written, to consider the range of opinions and the preponderance of the evidence. You also need to be careful to distinguish between “real research” and propaganda or press releases.
The returns to higher education in Atlantis are extremely high. For the majority of Atlanian students a university degree has increased their lifetime income by over 50%, as reported in the “Benefits of Higher Education” report put out by the Association of Atlantian Universities (2016).
But don’t be harsh without explanation:
Smith (2014) found a return to education in Atlantis exceeding 50%. This result is unlikely to be true because the study was not a very good one.
A theoretical economic model can not really prove anything about the real world; they typically rely on strong simplifying assumptions.
Through their economic model, they prove that as long as elites have incentives to invest in de facto power, through lobbying or corruption for example, they will invest as much as possible in order to gain favourable conditions in the future for their businesses.
In their two period model, which assumes \[details of key assumptions here\] , they find that when an elite Agent has an incentive to invest in de facto power, he invests a strictly positive amount, up to the point where marginal benefit equals marginal cost”
Empirical work does not “prove” anything (nor does it claim to).
It relies on statistical inference under specific assumptions, and an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.
“As Smith et al (1999) proved using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange, equity prices always increase in response to reductions in corporate tax rates.”
“Smith et al (199) estimated a VAR regression for a dynamic CAP model using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange. They found a strongly statistically significant negative coefficient on corporate tax rates. This suggests that such taxes may have a negative effect on publicly traded securities. However, as their data was from a limited period with several simultaneous changes in policy, and their results are not robust to \[something here\] , further evidence is needed on this question.”
Use the language of classical 11 statistics:
Hypothesis testing, statistical significance, robustness checks, magnitudes of effects, confidence intervals.
Note that generalisation outside the data depends on an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.
This policy was explained by Smith and Johnson (2002) in their research on subsidies and redistribution in higher education. Their results showed that people with higher degree have higher salaries and so pay higher taxes. Thus subsidizing higher education leads to a large social gain.
The results the student discusses seem to show an association between higher degrees and higher salaries. The student seems to imply that the education itself led to higher salaries. This has not been shown by the cited paper. Perhaps people who were able to get into higher education would earn higher salaries anyway. There are ways economists used to try to identify a “causal effect” (by the way, this widely used term is redundant as all effects must have a cause), but a mere association between two variables is not enough
As inflation was systematically lower during periods of recession, we see that too low a level of inflation increases unemployment.
Economists have long debated the nature of this “Phillips curve” relationship. There is much work trying to determine whether the association (to the extent it exists) is a causal one. We could not rule out reverse causality, or third factor that might cause changes in both variables.
Don’t write: “I accept the null hypothesis.”
Do write: “The results fail to reject the null hypothesis, in spite of a large sample size and an estimate with small standard errors” (if this is the case)
Note: The question of what to infer from acceptance/rejection of null hypotheses is a complex difficult one in Classical (as opposed to Bayesian) statistics. This difficulty is in part philosophical: classical hypothesis testing is deductive , while inference is necessarily inductive.
You need to read this paper more clearly; it is not clear what they conclude nor what their evidence is.
A common marking comment:
These papers seem to be discussed in random order – you need some structure organising these papers thematically, by finding, by technique, or chronologically perhaps.
How should you organise it? In what order?
Thematically (usually better)
By method, by theoretical framework, by results or assumptions, by field
Chronologically (perhaps within themes)
Exercise: Compare how the literature review section is organized in papers you are reading.
Figure 4.4: Organising a set of references
Q: What sort of structure am I using in the above outline?
It may also be helpful to make a ‘table’ of the relevant literature, as in the figure below. This will help you get a sense of the methods and results, and how the papers relate, and how to assess the evidence. You may end up putting this in the actual paper.
Figure 4.5: Organisational table from Reinstein and Riener, 2012b
Consult a survey paper, textbook, or lecture notes that discuss this paper and this topic
Try to find an easier related paper
Ask your supervisor for help; if he or she can
Try to understand what you can; do not try to “fake it”
Do not cite irrelevant literature.
Do not merely list all the papers you could find.
Discuss them, and their relevance to your paper.
What are their strengths and weaknesses? What techniques do they use, and what assumptions do they rely on? How do they relate to each other?
Use correct citation formats.
Try to find original sources (don’t just cite a web link).
Don’t just cut and paste from other sources. And make sure to attribute every source and every quote. Be clear: which part of your paper is your own work and what is cited from others? The penalties for plagiarism can be severe!
How to discuss empirical results: “Causal” estimation, e.g., with Instrumental Variables
Which is the best way to state it? 12
“As I prove in table 2, more lawyers lead to slower growth (as demonstrated by the regression analysis evidence).”
“Table 2 provides evidence that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population leads to slower growth.”
3.“Table 2 shows that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population is correlated with slower growth.”
Which is better? 13
Stating empirical results: descriptive
“Using the US data from 1850-1950, I find that inflation is lower during periods of recession. This is statistically significant in a t-test [or whatever test] at the 99% level, and the difference is economically meaningful. This is consistent with the theory of …, which predicts that lower inflation increases unemployment. However, other explanations are possible, including reverse causality, and unmeasured covarying lags and trends.”
“I find a significantly lower level of inflation during periods of recession, and the difference is economically meaningful. This relationship is statistically significant and the data is accurately measured. Thus I find that inflation increases unemployment.”
Some tips on writing a good paper– relevant to literature reviews
Answer: only b is a ‘peer reviewed article in a reputable economics journal’. All of these might be useful to cite, however. ↩
False. You need to cite any content and ideas that are not your own. ↩
Answers: 1, 5, and 6. Note that 2 and 3 are too narrow criteria, and 4 is too broad. ↩
or Bayesian if you like ↩
The second one; if this is really causal evidence. ↩
The first one. There is no ‘correct regression’. It is also not really correct in classical statistics to ‘find no effect’. ↩
Determine your purpose.
Work out what you need to address in the literature review. What are you being asked to do in your literature review? What are you searching the literature to discover? Check your assignment question and your criteria sheet to know what to focus on.
Find out what has been written on the topic.
Select appropriate source material: Use a variety of academic or scholarly sources that are relevant, current and authoritative. An extensive review of relevant material will include — books, journal articles, reports, government documents, conference proceedings and web resources. The Library would be the best place to search for your sources.
The number of sources that you will be required to review will depend on what the literature review is for and how advanced you are in your studies. It could be from five sources at first year undergraduate level to more than fifty for a thesis. Your lecturer will advise you on these details.
Keep a note of the publication title, date, authors’ names, page numbers and publishers. These details will save you time later.
In order for your writing to reflect strong critical analysis, you need to evaluate the sources. For each source you are reviewing ask yourself these questions:
Your introduction should give an outline of:
Each body paragraph should deal with a different theme that is relevant to your topic. You will need to synthesise several of your reviewed readings into each paragraph, so that there is a clear connection between the various sources. You will need to critically analyse each source for how they contribute to the themes you are researching.
The body could include paragraphs on:
Your conclusion should give a summary of:
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Synthesize your findings. Your findings are your evaluation of the literature reviewed: what you consider the strengths and weakness of the studies reviewed; the comparison you did between studies; research trends and gaps in the research that you found while researching your topic, etc...
Across the articles that you read, pay attention to what are the:
The majority of these sites focus on literature reviews in the social sciences unless otherwise noted. For systematic literature reviews, we recommend you to contact directly your subject librarian for help.
Welcome! Here we'll discuss citation trails: what they are, how to locate them, and how to use them to improve your research. Sometimes the act of following a citation trail is called "citation chaining" or "citation mining."
After reading this guide and doing the included activity, you should:
A citation trail is a link from an article or book to a second article or book, connected in some way to the first article. If you find an article that is important or relevant to your work, you should follow the citation trails to find similarly important or relevant articles .
The number of citations an article gets may indicate the relative importance of that article in the field or discipline. Generally, the higher the list of citations, the more that article has been used as a resource for subsequent research, which would suggest that the article's research and conclusions are sound. However, if an article is very recently published (within the last two or three years), it may not have many citations regardless of its value.
Use an article's citations trails to find more information related to your research. This video will show you how to locate an article's citation trails in Web of Science, Google Scholar, and UC Library Search. (3 min.)
Writing a scientific paper.
Guides from other schools, citation styles & writing guides, "literature cited checklist" from: how to write a good scientific paper. chris a. mack. spie. 2018..
This is the last section of the paper. Here you should provide an alphabetical listing of all the published work you cited in the text of the paper. This does not mean every article you found in your research; only include the works you actually cited in the text of your paper. A standard format is used both to cite literature in the text and to list these studies in the Literature Cited section. Hypothetical examples of the format used in the journal Ecology are below: Djorjevic, M., D.W. Gabriel and B.G. Rolfe. 1987. Rhizobium: Refined parasite of legumes. Annual Review of Phytopathology 25: 145-168. Jones, I. J. and B. J. Green. 1963. Inhibitory agents in walnut trees. Plant Physiology 70:101-152. MacArthur, R.H. and E.O. Wilson. 1967. The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. Smith, E. A. 1949. Allelopathy in walnuts. American Journal of Botany 35:1066-1071. Here is a dissection of the first entry, in the format for Ecology : Firstauthor, M., D.W. Secondauthor and B.G. Thirdauthor. Year. Article title with only the first letter capitalized. Journal Article Title with Important Words in Caps volume#(issue# if there is one): firstpage-lastpage. Notice some of the following details: - the list is alphabetized; - no first or middle names are listed (the author's first and middle initials are used instead); - only the first word in the title of the journal article (except for proper nouns) is capitalized; - different journals use different styles for Literature Cited sections. You should pay careful attention to details of formatting when you write your own Literature Cited section. For papers published in journals you must provide the date, title, journal name, volume number, and page numbers. For books you need the publication date, title, publisher, and place of publication.
biased citations (references added or omitted for reasons other than meeting the above goals of citations); excessive self-cites (citations to one’s own work).
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Evaluating information -- who, why, when, where, how and what, writing a literature review, systematic review guide, harvard referencing, apa referencing, citation management tools, digital tutorials, google for research, help - online orientation course for new students.
Sooner or later in your academic path, you will be required to compose a literature review. So, it’s important to approach this task well-prepared and understand how to write a literature review inside out.
Are you interested in how to write lit review projects correctly and cover the subject comprehensively, from all angles? This article will explore the concept of review of literature , dwell on how to write a literature review in line with your professor’s expectations, and share a universal literature review template for your usage.
To understand what should be included in a literature review , you need to understand its purpose and value in a larger work. A well-researched and written lit review usually addresses the following objectives:
These purposes lay the foundation for understanding how to write a literature review that will attain all academic goals. You simply need to use this list as your checklist for structuring an impactful lit review and including all vital data in it.
Now, we come to the main topic of this article – how to write a good literature review for dissertation projects, research papers, and other works. Follow the steps we’ve covered below to arrive at a consistent, logical piece of lit review .
Any literature review writing starts with academic research. You should look for sources that explore your topic from various angles and provide valuable literature review findings to expand your knowledge on the subject. It’s best to look for subject-specific books first and then go through academic databases that publish journal articles. This way, you will start with the evidence of the highest reliability level and move on to expand your literature review dataset conveniently.
The best solution on how to write a literature review without challenges is to rely on high-quality evidence. Your task is to research extensively in reliable academic databases to find peer-reviewed academic journals and books written by experts in your field. Don’t over-rely on online sources in your literature review, like blogs or opinion pieces, because they rarely possess the needed degree of credibility for an academic review. By choosing only industry-approved sources from qualified professionals, you can build a solid foundation for your writing and impress the audience.
How to write a literature review of value for your readers? One of the best approaches is to go beyond mere summarization of what other researchers have found on the subject and to apply critical thinking and data categorization. This way, you will manage to uncover existing patterns and trends and examine those dependencies in your literature review. A systematic, critical approach is always evaluated much higher than a simple outline of what people say on your subject.
Now, it’s time to compose an outline for a literature review . The outline should include the main concepts you’re planning to cover in the literature review text and should structure the narrative consistently. By means of composing an outline before the actual writing process, you give yourself a hands-on roadmap for composing a logically flowing piece. As a result of using an outline, you will write the literature review faster and will avoid the risk of going off-topic.
With a good and detailed outline, you should have no more problems or concerns about how to write a literature review . The writing process should go quickly and smoothly when you have all your evidence at your fingertips, categorized by themes and requiring only proper summarization in the text.
We recommend starting with a broad introduction to the topic and concepts related to it. You should give definitions and explain the topic’s features and components that require attention in the research process. After that, you may briefly outline the main sections of your review and then proceed to the exploration of each section in depth.
At times, your professor will give you a specific structure for review writing – such as the general introduction, coverage of theories, and then coverage of empirical evidence. At times, it may be a review of the data search strategy and a report on the identified resources that follow. In any case, you should follow the tutor’s prompt closely to ensure compliance with the task.
Looking for a universal, ready-to-use literature review template ? Here is an effective literature review template that everyone can apply with minor tweaks to produce a high-quality review of literature .
LITERATURE REVIEW TEMPLATE
Introduction
Body of the literature review
Conclusion
Use this literature review template to pump your writing muscle and get ready for new literature review challenges.
If you’re still unsure about how to do a literature review with excellence, these pro tips may improve your understanding of this task type.
With these recommendations at your disposal, you’re sure to become much more proficient in how to do a lit review . If you need more help with a literature review project, welcome to use our professional and quick literature review writing service . Our experts know everything about how to write a literature review , so they will handle your literature review task with ease within the timeframe you set for them.
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Writing a Literature Review. A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels ...
Step 4: Write. Be selective. Highlight only the most important and relevant points from a source in your review. Use quotes sparingly. Short quotes can help to emphasize a point, but thorough analysis of language from each source is generally unnecessary in a literature review. Synthesize your sources.
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
APA Style Citation Guide 7th Edition. APA Guidance. APA 7th Style Manual; APA 7th Resources, Formats & Examples ... Also known as 'narrative literature review'. " Key takeaways from the Psi Chi webinar So You Need to Write a Literature Review via APA Style.org. Examples of Literature Reviews. Financial socialization: A decade in review (2021) ...
The following are guidelines to follow when writing in-text citations: Ensure that the spelling of author names and the publication dates in reference list entries match those in the corresponding in-text citations. Cite only works that you have read and ideas that you have incorporated into your writing. The works you cite may provide key ...
How to Write a Literature Review: Writing a Literature Review in APA Format. Home; ... Chicago/Turabian Citation Style ; Guide to Writing a Research Paper Toggle Dropdown. Primary and Secondary Sources ; Basic Research Strategies ; Evaluating Sources ; Finding Journal Articles Toggle Dropdown. Using the Library's Ebooks ; Using the Library's ...
A literature review provides a thorough background of the topic by giving your reader a guided overview of major findings and current gaps in what is known so far about the topic. The literature review is not a list (like an annotated bibliography) -- it is a narrative helping your reader understand the topic and where you will "stand" in the ...
5 STEPS TO WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW . 2 STEP ONE: DEFINE THE SCOPE Look for relevant models in journals in your field (e.g., a target journal for publication) and papers, ... How many papers they cite 2. Length 3. What type of information they cover They will also be good guides for establishing the rhetorical moves that
Write literature review; APA Overview. For a quick overview of how to cite your sources following APA Style, watch the video APA Style. Watch the APA 7th Edition Overview 00:03:02 . Source: American Psychological Association. (2020).
Step 2: Identify the literature. Start by searching broadly. Literature for your review will typically be acquired through scholarly books, journal articles, and/or dissertations. Develop an understanding of what is out there, what terms are accurate and helpful, etc., and keep track of all of it with citation management tools.
When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply: be thorough, use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and. look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.
In short, citation is how we artfully tell the story of what the field knows, how it came to that knowledge, and where we stand in relation to it as we write the literature review section to frame our own work. Seen this way, citation is a sophisticated task, requiring in-depth knowledge of the literature in a domain.
Shows how to cite in APA style using a variety of sources, including: books, journal articles, other electronic resources, videos, and face-to-face interviews. A separate section also focuses on proper formatting for in-text citations.
3. Evaluate and select literature. 4. Analyze the literature. 5. Plan the structure of your literature review. 6. Write your literature review. Other resources to help you write a successful literature review.
Figure 4.1: Literature reviews and references. Your may have done a literature survey as part of your proposal. This will be incorporated into your dissertation, not left as separate stand-alone. Most economics papers include a literature review section, which may be a separate section, or incorporated into the paper's introduction.
Write the review. Start by writing your thesis statement. This is an important introductory sentence that will tell your reader what the topic is and the overall perspective or argument you will be presenting. Like essays, a literature review must have an introduction, a body and a conclusion.
Write and Cite. This guide offers information on writing resources, citation style guides, and academic writing expectations and best practices, as well as information on resources related to copyright, fair use, permissions, and open access. This page is not currently available due to visibility settings. Last Updated: Jun 24, 2024 11:19 AM ...
A formal literature review is an evidence-based, in-depth analysis of a subject. There are many reasons for writing one and these will influence the length and style of your review, but in essence a literature review is a critical appraisal of the current collective knowledge on a subject. Rather than just being an exhaustive list of all that ...
When writing a literature review, consider first what it is you want to write about. Your topic summarized in one sentence is your thesis. Next you should think about how you want to organize your material. ... Citation is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the action of citing or quoting any words or written passage, quotation ...
Keep this in mind when writing your literature review: Do not over-quote: If you only quote from every single author you found, then you are not showing any original thinking or analysis. Use quotes judiciously. ... Check the specific citation style you are using for the appropriate in-text citation format).
genres of writing. All disciplines use literature reviews. Most commonly, the literature review is a part of a research paper, article, book, thesis or dissertation. Sometimes your instructor may ask you to simply write a literature review as a stand-alone document. This handout will consider the literature review as a section of a larger ...
Library Print Resources. Ask a library employee for help in locating these print books. MLA Handbook (9th ed.) by The Modern Language Association of America. Call Number: LB2369 .M52 2021 (Click title to see locations) ISBN: 9781603293518. Publication Date: 2021. MLA Handbook (8th ed.) by The Modern Language Association of America.
A citation trail is a link from an article or book to a second article or book, connected in some way to the first article.If you find an article that is important or relevant to your work, you should follow the citation trails to find similarly important or relevant articles.. A forward citation trail links from the first article to subsequent articles that use information from the first ...
Literature Cited Section. This is the last section of the paper. Here you should provide an alphabetical listing of all the published work you cited in the text of the paper. This does not mean every article you found in your research; only include the works you actually cited in the text of your paper. A standard format is used both to cite ...
Writing a Literature Review. Writing a Literature Review. A short guide that covers: - Starting your literature review ... - Using Cite While You Write. Citation Management Tools. Citation Management Tools. Information on citation managers incl: - EndNote 20 - EndNote Online - Mendeley
Use this literature review template to pump your writing muscle and get ready for new literature review challenges. More Pro Tips for Writing a Literature Review If you're still unsure about how to do a literature review with excellence, these pro tips may improve your understanding of this task type. Mind the audience.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations-citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the ...
Literature review. How diverse is the primary national curriculum for history? ... This was so I could complete an in-depth analysis of their writing. Robson and McCartan (Citation 2016) note that the purpose of document analysis is to obtain a picture of what might have been missed in an observation. Studying the learners' written work from ...