Writing a critical literature review

QB5503 Research Practice

Literature review

A literature review is: an important part of any research work,

‘where its purpose is to provide the background to and
justification for the research undertaken’ (Bruce, 1994, p. 218).

A critical literature review is a constructively critical analysis of

extant literature that develops a clear argument about what is
known and not known about your research in the existing
literature (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2016).
The literature review process
TheThe
purpose
purposeofofthe literature
a critical review
literature review
Ideally the literature review will be able to answer the
following questions, helping you find out where you make
your contribution to knowledge:
1. What do you know about the research area?
2. What are the relationships between key ideas, dynamics and
variables?
3. What are the strength and weaknesses of existing research
and their relevance to your study?
4. What are the theories, concepts, trends and themes in extant
literature that are relevant to your research?
5.What are the inconsistencies, implications and
shortcomings of previous studies?
Maier (2013, p.4). 6. What needs further investigation because evidence is
lacking, inconclusive, contradictory and/or limited?
7. What methodological approaches have been taken and why?
Are the methodological approaches justified?
8. Why does this area of research need to be studied further?
9. What contribution will your work make to the current debate?
Writing a literature review: A step-by-step guide

1. Decide on an area of research

2. Search for the literature

3. Find relevant excerpts and quotations

4. Code the literature

5. Decide about the important themes and sections in your

review

6. Begin to write a literature review

Step 1: Decide on an area of research

Start broad by picking a general

topic of interest

Read, discuss with colleagues,

classmates, customers, etc.,
reflect, read further

Narrow topic emerges, and aims

and objectives are shaped
Box 3.11 Focus on student research – Searching using online databases
 Focus on student research – Undertaking an online search using a general
Box 3.12
search engine
 Focus on student research – Assessing the utility of an article using the
Box 3.13
abstract
Source: Saunders et al. (2014). Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.hmt?issn=2046–
9012&volume=38&issue=1&articleid=17103591&show=html). Reproduced by permission of the publisher
Step 1: I have already decided about
the broad topic for you!

Group 1: Entrepreneurship education and

career intentions
Group 2: Electronic word of mouth
Group 3: Ethical branding
Group 4: Sharing economy
Group 5: Social media screening
Group 6: Corporate governance
Group 7: Managing technology and innovation
Group 8: Resource management and
sustainable development
Step 2: Search for the literature
I have done this too…
 Conduct a comprehensive
bibliographic search of books and
articles

 Read the abstracts online

 Download and/or print relevant articles

 Find relevant books in library

 Set a time frame for how long you wil

search
Step 2: Search for the literature

❖ There are a number of potential sources and their relative

value in the order of:

 Scholarly empirical articles, dissertations, and books (not textbooks).

 Scholarly, non-empirical articles and essays.

 Textbooks, encyclopaedias, and dictionaries.

 Articles in Trade journals (e.g. Food and Drink Technology).

 Nationally and internationally recognised and credible

newsmagazines.
Step 3: Find relevant excerpts
and quotations

 For each article, book chapter, or

book look for:
1. Claims, conclusions, findings
2. Definitions and concepts
3. Calls for more research studies
4. Gaps in our knowledge
5. Disagreements

 Type the relevant excerpts that

relate to these issues in a Word
document

 Note the author, publication and

page number of the excerpt
Step 4: Code the literature

 Copy and paste each excerpt into a Word file

 Sort these into similar topics

 Work out the main themes and concepts in each topic

 Insert each excerpt under a theme (see next slide)

 Note: Some excerpts may be difficult to categorise, some

might fit into more than one category
Using a relevance tree
Code the literature

Themes/concepts
Themes &
Excerpts Topics illustrated with
concepts
excerpts
 Example

ILLUSTRATED
THEMES/CONCEPTS:

EXCERPT TOPIC THEMES & Care responsibilities:

CONCEPTS:
“This study showed Constraints on
that career breaks women’s Care
for caring responsibilities In his study of
progression due to Australian HE
responsibilities
caring Or Institutions, Smith
slowed down
women’s progress in commitments for (Constraints on) (2010, p.16) argued
the labour market” children and that ‘career breaks
women’s career for caring
(Smith, 2010, p. 16) elderly parents development responsibilities
slowed down
women’s progress in
the labour market’.
Step 5: Create themes and section

 Create a table with columns being your themes, and

with rows being the different excerpts from your sources.
Example:
Caring Mentoring Organisational
responsibilities culture
‘….’(Smith, 2010, p. 6) ‘…’(Smith, 2010, p.19) ‘…’(Smith, 2010, p.17)
‘…’ (Black, 2015, p.4) ‘…’ (Black, 2015, p.1) ‘…’(Black, 2015, p.10)
‘…’ (Holden and ‘…’ (Holden and ‘…’ (Holden and
Grange, 2013, p.2) Grange, 2013, p.9) Grange, 2013, p.3)
‘ …’ (Gabriel, 2012, ‘ …’ (Gabriel, 2012, ‘ …’ (Gabriel, 2012,
p.101) p.99) p.91)
 Step 5: Create a themes and sections

 Are there themes that go together or that are in dialogue with each other?
For example, are mentoring and organisational culture closely related?

 Are there themes that contradict each other, and help you form arguments
and counter arguments?

 Play with the themes until you find a way of organising them that 1) makes
sense, and 2) can serve your purpose of reviewing literature

 Is there a theme that is too broad and you should break it down to other
more specific themes?

 Decide about themes that are related to each other and together serve to
create sections of your literature review

 This is an iterative process: apply the changes, combine, break down, label
sections, reflect upon, review, go back to literature, does it make sense? Do
you want to review your themes and sections?
Step 6: Begin to write
 Write each section by putting
excerpts into dialogue with each
other, making arguments and
counter arguments. This is an
iterative task too!
 Remember: Don’t sit on the
fence! You should make a
decision, which side of the
argument you support
Machi and McEvoy (2009,p.130).
 The combination of your
sections should be a coherent
piece which can, among all,
demonstrate the gap you want
to address
 Write a conclusion to highlight
the gap(s) that emerge after
considering the sources as a
whole.
 Finally, don’t forget to write a
short introduction for your
literature review that provides
an overview of the focus and
objectives of the reviews
Once you complete these six
steps, you will have a complete
draft of your literature review!
Group Exercise:
Writing your literature review
 This exercise builds on your preparatory work from the
Preparation Week in which you read and familiarized
yourselves with 5 articles around a particular topic

 This work will help towards shaping the literature review of

your Group Presentation, which is Assessment 1
Preparation Week assignments:
Reminder

 Article 1: identify up to three key ideas and summarise

them in three bullet points

 Article 2: write a short 200 word summary of the article

 Article 3: do a mind map

 Article 4: identify and describe in 200 words the methods

that were used to conduct the study that the article
reports on

 Article 5: identify and describe in 200 words the key

concepts and theories that inform the article
 Group Exercise

 In your group choose two articles to work on together today to

carry out the third step in building a literature review:

➢ Finding relevant excerpts and quotations that relate to:

❑ Definitions and concepts

❑ Key ideas and themes

❑ Claims, findings and conclusions

❑ Calls for more research studies

❑ Gaps in our knowledge

❑ Disagreements