NOTES: Plan & Write a Literature Review (3.11-3.12)

You will need to provide a list of references of all the material you have drawn on at the end of your proposal. The quality of the material you have discussed is just as important as the quantity.

demonstrate that you have a fair sense of current trends in the area.

show that you can think your way through the literature, synthesise a range of work, indicate where there are debates, and ground your own ideas in an existing tradition (which can include showing how your work challenges or is set against a given tradition)

 convince the reader that you are creative thinker, who is not simply reproducing what has been done before, but someone actively wishing to participate in moving scholarly work forward in a chosen or specific area

STRUCTURE = storyline

HEADLINE: the problem to be addressed [succinct, forceful]
present your research problem clearly, grounded in the literature

INTRODUCE THE LITERATURE
  • Only discuss literature and research context that are directly relevant to your research questions. 
  • Describe the key approaches and indicate how your proposed work relates to them. 
  • Focus on particular concepts and findings and draw them together to frame the problem. 
  • Be very focused in what you use from an individual paper or book – you do not need to summarise everything it says, just take the key points that relate to what you aim/would like to do. 
  • Make sure your discussion is woven around a key thread or set of ideas. 
  • You are building an argument, not offering a textbook-style overview.
HIGHLIGHTS = 'plot twists'

e.g.
  • identification of a gap in the literature,
  • relating two or more ideas or concepts in a different or unexpected way, 
Convince the readers that you have thought about what you have read.

RESOLUTION/CONCLUSION = set of research questions

must be 
  • clearly be grounded in the framework you have developed with the research

  • meaningful in relation to the literature or context that you have discussed

  • the means by which you establish how the problem you set up at the start could be addressed. 

[Revise/refine the RQs developed last week, if/as needed, to ensure they meet these criteria.]


the diverse skills required to prepare a PhD proposal and then undertake doctoral research = ‘academic literacy’ 

may include a combination of: 
    • academic writing; 
    • critical thinking and reflection; 
    • doing research; 
    • independent learning; 
    • information literacy; 
    • mobile learning; 
    • note making; 
    • numeracy, maths and statistics; 
    • personal development planning; 
    • reading; 
    • referencing; and 
    • time management. 

= the ability to research, read and write on a subject matter for an academic purpose whilst understanding the academic social context (Koutsantoni 2006)*.



*Koutsantoni, D. (2006) Rhetorical Strategies in Engineering Research Articles and Research Theses: Advanced Academic Literacy and Relations of Power’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5(1): 19-36.



ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

  • Is the research problem presented first in a succinct yet compelling way? How ‘accessible’ is the research problem? Are the questions clear?
  • Is the literature discussed directly related to the stated research question?
  • Has the review built a focused argument and identified an appropriate research context?

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