Evaluating the Literature

After students have found a number of articles or books related to a topic,

they will evaluate them to determine which ones seem to make the most
important contributions to the scholarship on the topic. For undergraduate
students, this step is often difficult since they are not experts and are just
beginning to learn about major themes and debates within a field.
Nonetheless, by asking some of the questions below, student writers can
make a pretty well educated assessment about whether or not an article
contributes something significant to the relevant area of scholarship. In
addition, evaluating articles with these questions will be helpful in figuring
out how to organize the material later when composing the essay.

Does the article have a clear thesis statement? Is that thesis supported by
a well-organized argument that uses convincing evidence?
What strategies or methodologies does the author use in the article?
Was the article published in a respected academic journal?
Is the author someone who seems reliable? Might the author have some
sort of agenda or ideological motivation that might affect the way the
argument is presented? (A Google search can be useful.)
How recently was the article published? In rapidly changing fields,
research can become dated quickly, so it is generally preferable to use
articles published within the past five years or so. You may also consider
using older articles with newer ones to trace how ideas and debates have
changed over time.
What original contribution does the article make to the discussion about
the topic?

In general:
There are many types of literature that you could include in a review, but as
far as possible you should use primary sources. i.e. you should refer to
original works, rather than using secondary sources in which you read
someone elses opinion of a work. Remember that you are talking about what
other people have written about a topic, so the topic itself is your main focus,
rather than the writer. Everything should always relate clearly to your own
research question.
You should explain clearly why you have chosen to review certain pieces of
literature and not others. Are the writings you have chosen the main works in
this area, for example, or do they exemplify a particular methodology which
you will use in your own research project? In general, you should only include
academic sources. It can be hard to tell whether a piece of writing is
academic or not, especially if you find it on the Internet.

Source
Yes
Is the article peer reviewed/refereed? i.e. Have other scholars
in the field
recommended that it be published? Journals and conference
proceedings will usually state whether their articles are peer
reviewed.
Is there a reference list/bibliography, with matching in-text
references?
Who is the author? Are they linked to a university or a
research institute, or
possibly a government department (such as the Malaysian
Statistics Department)?
Does the text look academic? An academic website will
usually only have
advertisements to academic products such as books or
dictionaries, rather than to, say, holiday websites
Is the text written in formal language?
Does the text use paragraphs and headings?
Who is the publisher? Are they academic (e.g. xxx University
Press)?
If you are using a website, is there an author and a copyright
date (often at the bottom of the page)?
(Adapted from Monash University, 2011)

No

Conducting the Literature Review

1. Select your topic related to the select project title
2. Put your topic into a context. What background needs to be included?
Where does your topic fit
into the wider context of research in the area?
3. Search for relevant information:
Examine the keywords of your question/topic: exactly what do you
need to know?
Identify themes in your topic
Isolate keywords for these themes together with their synonyms
Decide which types of literature best address your themes
Organizing a Literature Review
A successful literature review should have three parts that break down in the
following way:
A. INTRODUCTION

1. Defines and identifies the topic and establishes the reason for the
literature review.
2. Points to general trends in what has been published about the topic.
3. Explains the criteria used in analyzing and comparing articles.
B. BODY OF THE REVIEW
1. Groups articles into thematic clusters, or subtopics. Clusters may be
grouped together chronologically,
2. thematically, or methodologically (see below for more on this).
3. Proceeds in a logical order from cluster to cluster.
4. Emphasizes the main findings or arguments of the articles in the students
own words. Keeps quotations from sources to an absolute minimum.
C. CONCLUSION
1. Summarizes the major themes that emerged in the review and identifies
areas of controversy in the
literature.
2. Pinpoints strengths and weaknesses among the articles (innovative
methods used, gaps in research, problems with theoretical frameworks,
etc.).
3. Concludes by formulating questions that need further research within the
topic, and provides some insight into the relationship between that topic
and the larger field of study or discipline.
How to evaluate the literature
Things to consider
Content
Is the article easy to understand?
Does it use good arguments?
Is evidence given for any claims made?
Does the article make clear any
limitations?
(This is a good thing for an article to do.)
Is the writing biased?
Context
in Is this one of the key articles in the
discipline
discipline?
Does the writer agree with other writers?
Does the writer disagree with other
writers?
Methodology
Is the methodology appropriate for the
study?
Is enough information given for another
researcher to replicate the study?
Was the sample size adequate?

Yes

No

Author
Relevance

Is this a reputable, academic author?

Does the writer refer to other literature to
support some of their claims?
Is the research recent?
Is the purpose of the research similar to
your own?
Was the study conducted under similar
circumstances to your own subject?
Can you draw on the research for your
own work?

Creating Clusters or Subtopics

As with any piece of writing, your literature review should include an
introduction and a conclusion. After that, it is up to you how you group your
literature. Remember, your focus should usually be on the topic you are
reviewing, rather than on individual writers. That means that you can group
the pieces of literature in order to make particular points, and you can refer
to individual writers more than once in the review.
The choices are limitless, but here are a few ideas. You could group by:
main themes
methodology
theories
types of study
main writers in the field
chronology (i.e. development of theories over the years)
(based on Cone & Foster 1993, p. 108, and Leedy & Ormrod 2005, p. 79)
Chronological Groupings: With this method, you can group material
according to when it was published or the time period the material
addresses. For example, for a literature review about post-1965 immigration
to New York City, you might group the material that addresses the 1960s and
1970s in one section, and the 1980s and 1990s in another. This method
works well in essays that trace the evolution of a certain theme or idea over
time, but can be less coherent in other contexts.
Thematic Groupings: In this approach, sections might be organized around
particular subthemes within the essays topic. For example, post-1965
immigration essay mentioned above, you might organize separate sections
on literature dealing with different ethnic groups: Asians, Eastern Europeans,
Mexicans, etc.
Methodological Groupings: A methodological approach differs from the two
above in that it does not focus so much on the content, but the methods of

the researcher or writer. In the above example, authors who interpret

demographic data from the census might be put in one group, while another
group might be formed around work that uses ethnographic approaches.
Remember to state your goals clearly in the introduction, and address them
again in the conclusion. Above all, always relate your research to the
literature under discussion