What is a literature review?

An essay to describe critically all the published research in a particular field up to the present time.

Why do we write a literature review?

- so that students will have something to do

- so that students will know existing research in the area

- so that the direction of research can be more productive

- so that the results of research can be compared with others’ work

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How do I go about writing a literature review?

Discuss with project supervisorWhat does he/she want you to review?Can he/she give a lead reference?

Look for articles – Pubmed, Google

Too many, too few

Read articles to get the main points

Reflect critically on the resultsHow does your FYP fit into the gaps?

Internalise the contents – summarise if necessary

Tell the history of the research up to nowPreferably in a logical sequence (not chronological sequence)

The AD barrier

Topic is too specific/Topic is too unspecific

When should we do a literature review?

- At the beginning of my FYP- At the beginning and of my FYP- Throughout my FYP

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How many journal papers should be reviewed in a literature review?

- Only recent revelant papers in the last 5 years- Only the most recent 5 relevant papers- All relevant papers

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How do I know which papers are relevant?

- all papers with the keyword in pubmed- all papers which my supervisor gives me- no fixed answer, can only tell by reading the paper

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Which other sources other than journal papers are considered “published research”?

- website- conference proceedings- books- review articles

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Generally – you should use research articles becausethese are primary sourcesUse reviews and books as starting points

XX Generally no because conference proceedings are not peer-reviewedX X

Common pitfalls of literature reviews (in order of importance)

1. Plagiarism2. Review is just a series of summaries of articles – no link3. No attempt made to harmonise data/terminology4. Citation format not consistent5. Unnecessary information6. Not comprehensive enough7. Not critical enough

Class Exercise

Plagiarism is pretending that certain ideas or results are your own.

Unintentional plagiarism – is still plagiarism and shows a lazy minde.g. forgetting to cite referencese.g. imitating words and phrases

Is it serious? -In the literature review section – if you cut-and-paste facts – perhapsslightly more excusable (bec of the context)

-If you cut-and-paste opinions – BAD !! – because you are passing other people’s opinions as your own.

Student B:At high pH, zanamavir, like all alcohols, is likely to be deprotonated and hence has a very short retention time as a charged ion will have little affinity for the non-polar stationary phase.

Original Article text: from Zul et al 2010

“Zanamavir has a very short retention time as, at the alkaline pH of the mobile phase, it (Fig 1) is likely to be deprotonated"

Student A:At high pH levels, zanamavir probably loses a proton and hence has a very short retention time.

Possible plagiarism – because although the exact words are not used(and hence will not be caught by SafeAssign) but the ideas are a faithfulcopy of the original text – the words are just substituted in a one-to-one fashion

Not plagiarism – because although the exact words are used (and hencewill be picked up by SafeAssign) but the student shows that he/she has comeup with this sentence through his/her application of facts which are ‘widely known’.i.e. ‘like all alcohols’ and ‘little affinity….”

Original Article text: from Zul et al 2010

“Zanamavir has a very short retention time as, at the alkaline pH of the mobile phase, it (Fig 1) is likely to be deprotonated"

Student C:At alkaline pH, zanamavir is likely to be deprotonated hence has a very short retention time.[Zul et al, 2010]

Possible plagiarism – in the eyes of many people this would be plagiarismbecause it is a direct copy even if acknowledged.

Even for those who do not consider this serious plagiarism – student Cwould score low marks because shows no orginality, laziness and possibly little understanding.

Student EZanamavir cannot be separated well if an alkaline mobile phase is used. [Zul et al 2010]

Original Article text: from Zul et al 2010

“Zanamavir has a very short retention time as, at the alkaline pH of the mobile phase, it (Fig 1) is likely to be deprotonated"

Student D:“Zanamavir has a very short retention time At high pH, zanamavir is likely to be deprotonated” [Zul et al 2010]

Same as C– this is the correct way to cite but….

Student D would score low marks because shows no originality of thought, laziness and possibly little understanding.

Not plagiarism – and shows that the student understands the mainImplication of the original text and has expressed it not only in his/her ownwords (even though some words are re-used) but re-cast it in his own ideas.The extra fact (in this case) about deprotonation is not mentioned beche/she does not feel it relevant to his/her review.

Clonal propagation of orchids (in vitro)There are two major groups of orchids namely sympodials and monopodials, which can be clonally propagated. Sympodials has multi-branching rhizome characteristic that can supply an abundance of axillary shoots for use as explants. Monopodials has a single un-branched axis that has only a few axillary shoots for use as explants. Different morphologies hence require different approaches to explants selection and culturing. Meristem culture began in 1960, and one method is to initiate explant and cultivating it into an undifferentiated callus or protocorm-like body (PLB). PLBs are tissues masses that are in the early stage of orchid embryo development. When undergo proliferation, PLBs can differentiate into plantlets. Another method reduces the role of callus, stimulating the culture to differentiate into plantlets early in the process. Proliferation is achieved by axillary branching of shoots derived from the original explants.Kueh et al (1974) reported ……..…..Chai et al (1982) found that …….….Goh et al (1988) reported that

Literature review should not be a disjointed series of summaries of papers

It should tell a storyThere should be a link between paragraphs

2. Review is just a series of summaries of articles – no link

3. No attempt made to harmonise data/terminology

e.g. Same but different units: mM, mol dm-3, mol L, % w/v, ppmor O.D. vs A.U.

Failure to harmonise shows no digestion of material Also strongly suggests plagiarism

Short form in one para and long form in another e.g. PBS vsphosphate-buffered saline

Slightly different terminology: carbapenemase, beta-lactamase, penicillinase

An example:

There was a decrease in the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) levels, from an average influent level of 13 579 ppm to average effluent level of 2036 ppm. The reduction in COD represents an 85% purification level, comparing to previous years, 75%, with the aid of the oxygen injection system. [A]

In paper B, the activated sludge membrane bioreactor, MBR has been proven to have some advantage for processing and reclamation of domestic water. They have come up with a theory that some microbes can improve the efficiency of the system. These microbes will be selected based on their abilities to decompose chemical components of raw sewage.

The result, with eMBR, the average values of effluent quality were, chemical oxygen demand (COD), 40 mg/l (average efficiency of removal 90.0%); and NH4 + –N, 0.66 mg/l(average efficiency of removal 99.4%). From this experiment, they found out that the effluent qualities met the standard. Besides that, the effluent qualities were steady throughout the study. COD removal rate was 91.7% (activated sludge MBR) and the NH4 +–N removal (94.8%) was less than the eMBR. Start-up time for the eMBR was only 24 to 48 hours. This time is much shorter than the 7 to 8 days required to kick off function of the standard MBR.

General Piece of Advice: Look at “Introduction” sections of research papers as a guide.

Note the flow of the language - even though 7 different articlesare reviewed.

Note how the researchers’ work isrelated to previous work ishinted here (IMPORTANT!)

Notice review looks at thebig picture

Traces historyand recent developments

General Piece of Advice: Look at “Introduction” sections of research papers as a guide.

Notice review looks at thebig picture

How the researchers’ work isrelated to previous work ishinted here.

Note the flow of the language - even though different articlesare reviewed.

Traces historyand recent developments

• See “Guidelines on referencing” in MeL under Course Documents>Literature Review

• Software for referencing

4. Citation format not consistent

Authors, Year. Title. Journal, Volume, pages

Common errors

• References cited in the text are not found in the References Section

• References found in the References Section are not referred to in the text

• References are not complete– Missing authors names, year of publication,

title, journal, volume

Common Errors

• Inconsistent referencing– Mixture of abbreviations and full citations– Use the Harvard style of referencing as given in your

handout

• References in text of review should be in sequence• Cheating

– Abstracts only are read but the full reference is indicated as read

– Citations are taken from scientific papers but not read

MORE CITATIONS MORE MARKS OR MORE LEARNING

5. Unnecessary information6. Not comprehensive enough7. Not critical enough

Particularly common for BMS students – too much ‘medical’ backgroundwhich is irrelevant to FYP – also introduces terminology which authorsmay not know the meaning of

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium in the Enterobacteriaceae family (Ho et al, 2011). It is commonly found in the environment, and on mucosal surfaces in mammals, such as the nasopharynx (Podschun and Ullmann, 1998). It is also part of the microflora in the human gastrointestinal tract (Wu et al, 2008). In addition, it is an opportunistic pathogen that can cause wound infections, urinary tract infections (UTI) and pneumonia (Pan et al, 2011). The infections it has caused are both nosocomial and community-acquired (Yu et al, 2006),

Ideally, a literature review should compare and evaluate the existing researchCritical criticising… however for 3rd year poly students….

Article 1 – S. Zaman & Rio E. , Journal of LSCT, 2012, 1, 20-29

Article 2 – D. R. Sujit & Teo K. T., LSCT Confessions, 2013, 2, 13-20

Article 3 – Liew B. S. & New J. Y. , BMS Reviews, 2012, 4, 20-39

“…The concentration of chloride ions in Sungei Pandan was determined by titration with AgCl to be 0.01 mol/L while the level of nitrates was found to be 0.3 mol/L using a commercial kit for aquaria (Nutrafin)……

FYP Topic: Chemical analysis of the waters of Singapore

“…samples extracted from Sungei Buloh were collected acid-washed plastic bottles and stored at 4 C before analysis. The samples were loaded by electrostatic injection onto a Agilent CE 7100 instrument and separated on underivatised capillaries. uing the manufacturer’s conditions. The results are shown below:

Nitrite 0.001 mg/LNitrate 0.2 mg/LPhosphate 0.3 mg/L

“… we have analysed the waters of the Singapore River collected at low tide by ICP-OESPb <0.002 ppbSn 0.03 ppmCd 0.05 ppb

Your Assignment – individual work required

• PART A (Individual) -20%• PART B (Individual) – 40%• PART C (Submitted as a group) – 40%

See Literature Review Assignment in 4PROJ in mel

Part A (20 marks) - Individual• This should be completed and submitted to your

supervisor by Thursday 5 pm is held. • Any student who is absent from the seminar without

a valid reason will not receive any marks for this part of the assignment.

• The assignment will assess students on their ability to follow the Harvard style of citation. The Harvard style is the recommended style to be used for the final year report.

Part B (40 marks) - individual• Due 7 days after the day of the seminar. • Submit via e-mail or as a hard copy to your (NP) supervisor!!• Attach a copy of the references that you have used.• Description

– Prepare a short literature review that introduces the main elements of your project.

– Use the Harvard referencing system when citing literature– State what your project is about– Each group member must review 5 different relevant peer reviewed

papers – Your review must not contain any www references. – Don’t just summarise– Compare and contrast where appropriate– Conclude the review with your project proposal

Part C (20 marks) – group work

• After discussion with your internal supervisor, – Submit to your (NP) supervisor, a single integrated

literature review – Due 10 days after the day of the seminar – Must be submitted through Mel via SafeAssign. – Any student or group found to have plagiarized will

receive 0 marks for the assignment and may face disciplinary action according the rules of the polytechnic.