research

• A review of the existing research and literature related to a particular topic or research question

  Literature review
• Value of related literature

  • Provides information about past research studies
  • Presents the gaps in the field of study
  • Affords confidence and authority to the researchers
  • Gives information about the methods used in similar studies
  • Enumerates findings from previous studies that may support those of the present study
  • Provides ideas on how implications may be drawn out of analysis and interpretation of data
• Types of sources for related literature

  • Primary sources (academic and research journals published by universities and learned scholars)
  • Secondary sources (meta-analysis of studies, textbooks, single-authored books, books edited by different authors)
  • Tertiary sources (manuals, dictionaries, encyclopedias, guide books, directories)
• Writing the review of related literature

  1. Introduction (discusses briefly the research problem and the significance of the study)

  2. Body (contains the narrative of relevant ideas and findings found in the reports of other researchers that support the present problem)

  3. Synthesis (ties together the main ideas revealed in the review of related literature)

  4. Bibliography (full bibliographic information of all sources mentioned in the review)
• Organizing your literature review

  • Chronological (arranged for the usual timeline of development)
  • Conceptual (set in clear and interrelated concepts)
  • Stated hypotheses (several hypotheses in a given study)
  • Thematic (identifying, analyzing, and synthesizing common themes or patterns across a body of literature or research studies)
• Steps in organizing thematic literature review format

  1. Define your research question

  2. Identify relevant literature

  3. Read and summarize

  4. Identify themes

  5. Categorize and synthesize

  6. Analyze and compare

  7. Write your review

  8. Discuss implications

  9. Revise and edit

  10. Cite sources
• Plagiarism is an act of claiming another's work or copying a portion of someone else's writing
• Self-plagiarism is defined when the researchers reuse their own work or data in a 'new" written product without letting the readers know that the manuscript already appeared in another literature
• Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects certain sorts of original creative work, including academic articles
• research question is a general question that guides your investigation
• hypothesis is a testable statement about how two or more variables are related