eBOOK

ELECTRONICALLY
ORGANISING YOUR
LITERATURE REVIEW USING
EXCEL
Dr Chloe Sharp

Introduction
Thank you for taking the time to read this ebook that will help you organise your literature using
Excel. This ebook will provide you an outline of the structure of the Excel spreadsheet template and
a full explanation of how to use it. The Excel spreadsheet can capture all types of references from
journal articles to radio shows not just PDFs.
When I did my PhD, I was amazed at the volume of books, book chapters, conference proceedings,
journal articles, theses I read and podcasts and radio shows I listened to. What was important to me
was a quick retrieval of these references and a way of tracking what I had and had not read. I
devised this excel spreadsheet that you can use as a central part of your daily research. The key is to
update it as you go along and not to think that you'll do it later!
January 2017

1.

The Spreadsheet

The Excel spreadsheet has 8 tabs:

Book and book chapters

Journal articles
Theses
Websites
Reports and working papers
Conference
Journalistic articles
TV programmes

I will work through each one of these in turn. I used a traffic light system whereby green referred to
me having the item and having read it; orange referred to having the item but not reading it and
read meant I did not have the item and had not read it yet.
Please bear in mind that the reference system used was Harvard and you may have to adapt your
Excel spreadsheet to the reference system you are using.
1.1

Book and Book Chapters

I read many books and book chapters and often found snippets of these online available through
Google books but I had to request the books through the university library. This spreadsheet
captures the entire reference but also the progress of books requested as it is very easy to lose track.
The columns in this spreadsheet are:

Area of research
Author
Year
Book Chapter Title
Edited Book Author
Book Title
Country of Print
Weblink
Library Update

Each column captures part of the reference and is in the order that it is written as a Harvard
reference as follows:
Aldridge, A. (2007) Religion in the Contemporary World. Cambridge. Polity Press
For a book chapter it is as follows:
White, A. (2009) Family migration from small-town Poland: A livelihood strategy approach. In:
Burrell, K. (ed) Polish Migration in the UK in the New European Union: After 2004. Aldershot: Ashgate

By having these tabs, it is easy to search for the author in case you wanted to read more of their
work. It is simple to search for areas of research. These are themes that you are reading around and
for me these included research methodology, religion and Polish migration. Keeping these as broad
as possible is more helpful.
1.2 Journal Articles
Many books were read but even more journal articles were read. It would have been impossible to
keep track and index the journal articles I had read non-electronically.
The columns for this sheet are:

Area of research (this is a recurring theme)

Journal Author
Year
Article title
Journal Title
Volume
Page Numbers
Weblink
Library Update

This works in the same way as the library books in that the columns relate to the Harvard
referencing system:
Banks, S.K. (1979) Gift-giving: A review and interactive paradigm, Advances in Consumer Research, 6
(1), 319-324
There is a weblink as abstracts are easily available and means that one can quickly search the main
aspects of the article. Journal articles can be requested through the library and there was a column
for the progress of a requested article as the library website had no way of tracking this.
As a sidenote, Id suggest saving journal articles in PDF form by the title so it is easy to do a search on
your computer when wanting to retrieve the document at a later date.
1.3

Theses

It is useful to read other peoples' theses; not only to look at their layout and writing style but they
give a snapshot of up-to-date research in your area. I didn't read many of these but a tab is still
worth being made for these. Most the theses read were downloaded through the British Library's
website.
The columns for this sheet are:

Area of research
Thesis author
Year
Thesis title
University

The reference for a thesis that I used was as follows:

Ali, N. (1999) Community and individual identity in the Kashmiri community: A case study of Luton,
unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Luton
1.4 Websites
Websites are very useful to keep track for many reasons including changing terminology, policy and
research.
The columns are as follows:

Area of Research
Author
Year
Webpage Name
Weblink
Date accessed

The reference for a website is as follows:

Office for National Statistics. Polish People in the UK Half a million Polish residents, 2011. Available
at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migration1/migration-statistics-quarterly-report/august2011/polish-people-in-the-uk.html (Accessed 17 February 2014)
It is imperative that the websites referred to in your PhD are reputable. For books and journals,
although a weblink is part of your referencing log on the Excel spreadsheet, information such as the
weblink and when it was last accessed is not required as these details are captured in the references
in a different way, i.e. as a book rather than a website.
1.5

Reports and Working Papers

This section is for policy documents, research papers undertaken by non-academic organisations and
reports.
The tabs are:

Area of research
Author
Year
Report Title
Publication Details
Weblink
Date Accessed

The reference for a report is as follows:

NHSBT (2009) Transplant activity in the UK 2008-2009,
www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/downloads/pdfs/temp/report.pdf [last accessed 29 March, 2012]

A working paper:
Nowicka, M. (2010) Transcultural encounters of diversity towards a research agenda: The case of
Polish presence in the UK. Working papers WP 10-04
1.6 Conference
Conference proceedings can be difficult to track down. However, if you attended a conference you
can include this in your PhD.
The columns are:

Area of research
Author
Date
Title of Conference Paper
Location of Conference

The reference is as follows:

Rudge, C.J., Johnson, R.J., O'Neill, J., Fuggle, S.V. & Forsythe, J.L.R. (2004) Renal transplantation for
patients from ethnic minorities (Poster), British Transplantation Society, 7th Annual Congress,
Birmingham, UK 28-30 April
When you attend any conferences ensure that your notes are very detailed so you can refer to them
later.
1.7 Journalistic Articles
You may need to refer to journalistic type articles in your PhD. If you do, the columns are:

Area of research
Author
Year
Article Title
Newspaper/Magazine
Weblink
Date Accessed

The reference is:

Pidd, A. (2011) Poland: Immigration to UK is back for good life despite economic crisis, 27 May, The
Guardian Online, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/27/poland-immigration-ukeconomic-crisis

1.8 TV and Radio Programmes

I found listening to radio shows and podcasts and watching some relevant TV programmes helped
me. Although I didn't necessarily refer to them in my PhD officially, they helped me understand
certain arguments better. You may need to reference these. The columns are:

Area of research
TV or radio programme
Year
Broadcaster
Episode
Weblink
Date Accessed

I hope that you found this ebook useful and it makes your life easier. Please get in touch if you think
I can make improvements to this system.