The Literature Review: Organising & analysing

Organise your sources?

 

Now you have found your literature it's time to start reviewing....

Some options to keep track of your sources:

Analyse your Sources Critically

 

First, look at all your sources using critical thinking.

Stay open but be sceptical

Then move onto critical appraisal. This is a more structured assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a paper.

Group by theme or concept

 

Arrange your sources to make more sense. Common ways include:

Identify gaps and trends

 

  • is there a consensus or debate over the topic?
  • can you see a trend develop across the literature
  • are there any gaps in what has been studied?

Record your search

 

It is good practice to keep a record of your search results, methodology and strategy, to save yourself time and effort and to allow other people to follow-up on your sources.

For literature reviews you should record:

  • where you searched (eg which databases or websites)
  • when you searched
  • what keywords and subject headings you used.
  • how you combined search terms (e.g. AND / OR / NOT)
  • any filters used on the results
  • you may want to include the numbers of results found.

For coursework check your assessment rubric as to how much detail you should record.

For systematic reviews the search must be reported in sufficient detail that it can be fully replicated.

Include:

  • inclusion and exclusion criteria
  • search strategy for each database (usually as an appendix)
  • the search strategy in full

Note. Most databases have functions to save and export search strategies.