What are the best sources to use for a literature review?
A literature review is a critical analysis of existing research on a topic, usually done as part of a larger project or paper. It helps you identify gaps, inconsistencies, and controversies in the literature, as well as synthesize and evaluate the evidence and arguments. To conduct a high-quality literature review, you need to use the best sources available, but how do you find them? Here are some tips to help you select and assess the sources for your literature review.
Before you start searching for sources, you need to define the scope and criteria of your literature review. What is the main question or problem you are addressing? What are the key concepts and terms related to your topic? What are the inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting sources? For example, you may want to limit your sources by date, language, discipline, methodology, or type of publication. You also need to consider the quality and relevance of the sources, as well as their availability and accessibility.
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For a comprehensive literature review, we have to consider academic journals, books, theses, government reports, conference proceedings, online databases like PubMed and JSTOR, reputable organization websites. We should assess these sources for credibility and relevance, ensuring a well-rounded understanding of bases of such resources and the topic.
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For a comprehensive literature review, utilize various reputable sources including scholarly journals, academic books, conference proceedings, and reputable websites. Academic databases like PubMed, JSTOR, and Google Scholar offer access to peer-reviewed articles across disciplines. Libraries often provide access to electronic databases and catalogs for finding relevant books and publications. Additionally, consider government reports, white papers, and industry publications for current information and data. Ensure to critically evaluate each source for credibility, relevance, and reliability to maintain the integrity of your literature review.
To find the most relevant and comprehensive sources for your literature review, you need to use multiple databases and search strategies. Databases are online collections of academic publications, such as journals, books, dissertations, and reports. Different databases cover different fields and topics, so you need to choose the ones that match your discipline and scope. You can use library guides, subject experts, or database descriptions to help you select the appropriate databases. You also need to use different search strategies, such as keywords, Boolean operators, filters, and advanced options, to refine your results and find the most relevant sources.
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Cross-referencing with multiple databases is key to a proper literature review. If you're looking for specific recommendations, I recommend the following: 1. The MLA periodical - Accessible through the Modern Language Association and through many universities. 2. JSTOR - A wide range of literary publications, accessible online. These are just two databases that I've used in the past for literature reviews an creative writing research articles. There are many others. And of course, you want to use many search strategies. I recommend taking a short workshop/course at your local or school library to learn "Database Search" strategies.
Once you have a list of potential sources for your literature review, you need to evaluate them critically and decide which ones to include. You need to assess the quality, credibility, and validity of the sources, as well as their relevance and contribution to your topic. You can use various criteria to evaluate the sources, such as the author's credentials, the publication's reputation, the source's purpose, scope, and audience, the source's methodology, findings, and implications, and the source's citations and references. You also need to compare and contrast the sources, and identify their strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and biases.
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In grad school, learning how to do a literature review was my first major assignment. I learned that it is important to recognize what sources are truly scholarly, which ones are reputable but not scholarly, and which ones are more questionable and probably shouldn't be used. If you are writing a scholarly work, the vast majority of your sources need to be from peer-reviewed journals. And you want at least some to be from A ranked journals. For non-academic writing, reputable but non-scholarly sources are fine. Media sources might include The Wall Street Journal or Reuters. Sources that tend to be unbiased and well-researched. Media Bias Fact Check is a good resource to turn to.
After you have selected the sources for your literature review, you need to organize and synthesize them according to your purpose and argument. You need to group the sources by themes, categories, or subtopics, and show how they relate to each other and to your main question or problem. You also need to synthesize the sources, which means summarizing, analyzing, and integrating their key points and perspectives. You need to highlight the similarities and differences, the agreements and disagreements, and the gaps and controversies among the sources. You also need to show how the sources support or challenge your argument, and how they contribute to the existing knowledge on your topic.
Finally, you need to cite and reference the sources correctly in your literature review. You need to follow the citation and referencing style that is required by your discipline, journal, or institution, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, or Harvard. You need to cite the sources in the text, using parentheses, footnotes, or endnotes, to acknowledge their authors and ideas, and to avoid plagiarism. You also need to reference the sources in a list at the end of your literature review, providing the full bibliographic information for each source, such as the author, title, date, and publisher. You can use citation and referencing tools, such as Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley, to help you format and manage your sources.
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