doing a literature review - part 3

Literature Survey, Literature Comprehension, & Literature Review

Literature Comprehension

Literature Comprehension

The literature comprehension is the process of reading and understanding the research found in the survey process.

Literature Comprehension

You’ve found 50 papers, now what are you going to do with them ?

Literature Comprehension

You’ve found 50 papers, now what are you going to do with them ?

The first thing to do is to divide them into piles based on sub-topics within your research, so some papers might be about the overall themes and others might be about specific issues.

Literature Comprehension

Now start to read them, I suggest ten sittings, reading five papers in each sitting.

Literature Comprehension

You will be freaked out after reading the first five papers, you will be deluged with new terminology, models and approaches.

The important thing is to hang in there, don’t get overwhelmed by it all, just read them, and make a note of all new terms, models and approaches…

Literature Comprehension

…in your notebook

Literature Comprehension

Don’t get overwhelmed by it all, the more papers you read, the less new terms you will be encountering, the more of an expert you will become.

You are also adding to your keyword search list.

Literature Comprehension

The first ten papers are the worst, once you are over that hurdle, you will find the rest much easier.

Also in your notebook write down any nice phrases used in the papers, any interesting approaches to the experiments and any nice display of results.

Literature Comprehension

Also don’t be afraid to ask for help – from your supervisor or other people.

The process of reading and trying to understand complex research can sometimes be a discouraging one, but a systematic approach to tackling this is best.

Literature Comprehension

Part of the process might be that you have to do a simple replica of an experiment described in the research to fully understand it.

That’s alright, because with all the simulation and prototyping software now available, that’s not as hard as it used to be.

Literature Comprehension

Active Reading: It is very important to read new research in an active

manner, you shouldn’t just skim read the material, but understand what you are reading, as you are reading it.

It may be necessary to re-read a sentence, one phrase at a time, or one word at a time until the meaning is evident.

It may be the case that you will have to consult some reference source to confirm the meaning of terminology, this being the case, it is only logical to keep reference material close to hand (textbooks, the internet, dictionaries, etc.)

Literature Comprehension

To help you in this process, I’ve created a checksheet with some friends that have questions you should consider after reading a paper:

http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/CheckSheets/ScienceArticleCheckSheet.doc

Literature Comprehension THE QUESTIONS ARE: What type of article is it? What is the main issue/problem being discussed? Skim read – what could your dissertation gain by including this article? What is the article’s contribution to knowledge? How can this information be integrated into your review? Compare and contrast to similar articles – for or against/ or an extension

of the literature? Are there recommendations for further research? Where is the article placed in your field? Famous author? Is the article well written, interesting and easy to read? Is there a clear research question – can it be tested? What methods are used to carry out research Is the design appropriate for testing the stated hypothesis? What are the limitations of the design/research methods? Are there aspects of the design that could be applied to your work? Are the results well displayed and clear? Are the results in keeping with the design? Are the implications of the study clear? Have the results been appropriately discussed?

Literature Review

ResearchQuestion

ExperimentResults

Literature Comprehension

A typical research paper (from a conference or journal) consists of the following parts; Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methodology, Results and Bibliography.

Literature Comprehension

Literature Map You are going to have to put some structure on the

literature, one suggestion is to create a literature map.

Write the title of your research on top, and the main topics relevant to your research underneath, now associate the papers you are reading with each of the topics.

Literature Map

Literature Map