Holy Rosary College of Santa Rosa Laguna, Inc.

Tagapo, City of Santa Rosa, Laguna

Practical Research 1
Grade 11
Third Quarter / Second Semester
Week3
Mary Rose T. Cervantes
rose.cervantes@hrcsrl.edu.ph

Chapter2. Reviewing Related Literature

Lesson3. Review of Related Literature

Lesson Description:
The lesson will let the students understand the following:
1. Taking Notes and Documenting Sources Properly
2. Ethical Standards in Writing
Lesson Objectives:
After this lesson, the students will be able to learn how to do the following:
1. Understand the concept of review of related literature
2. Appreciate both print and online sources of information
3. Determine reliable materials or sources of information
4. Acquire the skill of note taking

A review of related literature (RRL) is a detailed review of existing literature related to the
topic of a thesis or dissertation. In an RRL, you talk about knowledge and findings from existing
literature relevant to your topic. If you find gaps or conflicts in existing literature, you can also
discuss these in your review, and if applicable, how you plan to address these gaps or resolve
these conflicts through your study.
To undertake an RRL, therefore, you
first need to identify relevant literature.
You can do this through various sources,
online and offline. Ensure you are
saving all applicable resources because
you will need to mention them in your
paper. When going through the
resources make notes and identify key
concepts of each resource to describe in
the review.
Before starting the review, determine
how you want to organize the review,
that is, whether you wish to discuss the
resources by themes, dates, extent of
relevance, and so on.
When writing the review, begin by
providing the background and purpose
of the review. Then, begin discussing
each of the identified resources
according to the way you decided to
organize them. For each, you can
mention the title, author, publication, and date before describing the key concept and points.

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 Holy Rosary College of Santa Rosa Laguna, Inc.
Tagapo, City of Santa Rosa, Laguna

In documenting, there are several things you need to watch out for. These are:
1. Identifying the main idea of the material.
2. Choosing the relevant ideas for your study.
3. Developing a system of note taking that works for you
4. Putting your own ideas and insights in bullets.
5. Putting information in your own words
6. Using verbatim sparingly
7. Recording the author’s or the researcher’s bibliographic information
Strategies in Note-taking
 Selective
 Systematic
 Identify the purpose and function of a text
 Identify how the information is organized
 Include your thoughts
Techniques to Note Taking
1. Summary- to give a condensed and objective account of the main.
2. Précis- reduces the original text.
3. Paraphrase- restatement of a text or passage without any attempt at reducing the original
material.
4. Verbatim- the simplest and easiest because it is using exactly the same words as the original
text.
Ethical Standards in Writing
Documentation is important in our review of literature.
A general principle underlying ethical writing is the notion that the written work of an author is a
manuscript for a magazine or scientific journal, a research paper submitted for a course, or a
grant proposal submitted to a funding agency, represents an implicit contract between the author
and the readers. 
PLAGIARISM
"Taking over the ideas, methods, or written words of another, without acknowledgment and with
the intention that they be taken as the work of the deceiver." American Association of University
Professors (September/October, 1989). 
As the above quotation states, plagiarism has been traditionally defined as the taking of words,
images, ideas, etc. from an author and presenting them as one’s own. It is often associated with
phrases, such as kidnapping of words, kidnapping of ideas, fraud, and literary theft.  Plagiarism
can manifest itself in a variety of ways and it is not just confined to student papers or published
articles or books.

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 Holy Rosary College of Santa Rosa Laguna, Inc.
Tagapo, City of Santa Rosa, Laguna

In sum, plagiarism can be a very serious form of ethical misconduct.  For this reason, the concept
of plagiarism is universally addressed in all scholarly, artistic, and scientific disciplines.  In the
humanities and the sciences, for example, there are a plethora of writing guides for students and
professionals whose purpose, in part, is to provide guidance to authors on discipline-specific
procedures for acknowledging the contributions of others.  Curiously, when it comes to the topic
of plagiarism, many professional writing guides appear to assume that the user is already familiar
with the concept.  In fact, while instruction on attribution, a key concept in avoiding plagiarism,
is almost always provided, some of the most widely used writing guides do not appear to offer
specific sections on plagiarism.  Moreover, those that provide coverage often fail to go beyond
the most basic generalities about this type of transgression.
Acknowledging the source of our ideas
Guideline 1:  An ethical writer ALWAYS acknowledges the contributions of others and the
source of his/her ideas.
Guideline 2: Any verbatim text taken from another author must be enclosed in quotation marks.
Guideline 3: We must always acknowledge every source that we use in our writing; whether we
paraphrase it, summarize it, or enclose it quotations.
Guideline 4: When we summarize, we condense, in our own words, a substantial amount of
material into a short paragraph or perhaps even into a sentence.
Guideline 5: Whether we are paraphrasing or summarizing we must always identify the source of
your information.

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