NOTES: Organising notes as you're reviewing literature (3.10)

  • What is the main research problem for the authors and why is it an issue?
  • How have they chosen to frame the problem? Might there be other ways to do this?
  • What literature do they point to in developing their research questions? How do these questions relate to what other people have done?
  • What are the research questions posed? How clear are they to you?
  • If there is an empirical component, then what kinds of methods do they adopt? Are there other alternatives?
  • What are their key findings? And just as importantly, what did they not find? What is absent?
  • What conclusions do they draw from the findings? Do these appear to be valid?
  • Overall, what might you think is the contribution of the paper to the research literature? (This last one is not easy at this stage – after all, you are only just starting out and so cannot easily say if a paper is right and what its full contribution or value might be – thus think about whether the ideas or arguments convince you).

BASED ON THE NOTES YOU TAKE ON THE ABOVE ISSUES: 

is the literature/material useful for:

  • building theoretical or conceptual framework?
  • suggesting a method?
  • guiding you towards a set of RQs that's meaningful on context of what is (a) already known, and (b) not yet known, in the area you want to study?
  • representing what you do NOT want to do? maybe it's a failure in adequately addressing a problem, or not asking certain questions - does that present a gap for you?

https://thesiswhisperer.com/2012/12/12/turn-your-notes-into-writing-using-the-cornell-method/

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