Literature Reviews
COMM 390: Lit Review
What is a literature review?
A literature review is not research, it is a review of the research that has been done on your topic.
A literature review is NOT just a summary, but a conceptually organized synthesis of the results of your search. It must
- organize information and relate it to the thesis or research question you are developing
- synthesize and critically analyze the results comparing and contrasting their findings
- identify controversy and themes that appear in the literature
A literature review is a piece of discursive prose, not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It's usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question. (From Univ. of Toronto)
Check out these sites for more help understanding literature reviews
- How to ... Write a Literature Review, UC Santa Cruz Library
- The Literature Review: A few tips on conducting it, University of Toronto
- How to do a Literature Review, North Carolina A&T State University
Tips on conducting research for a literature review
- Use bibliographies and reference pages of articles to direct your research. You may start to see some trends with the people who are writing about your topic. Check the bibliography for more articles about your topic.
- Use the authors who you have found to be writing on your topic as starting points. Look for additional articles, and rebuttals, retractions or responses to their research
Use this chart to track articles you read for your literature review:
comm 390 articles for lit review
Comm 390 Literature Review In-class Activity
Article 1:
Article 2:
Article 3:
Identifying Scholarly Articles
what is a scholarly article (aec)
What is a scholarly article?
A scholarly article is how researchers (scholars) communicate the findings and analysis of their research. Scholarly articles:
- Provide original research and analysis - these articles are based on studies or experiements, or analyze an artifact or event. Every scholarly article presents something new about the world we didn't know before.
- Are written by scholars - scholars tend to hold PhDs, or other advanced degrees and are professors at universities.
- Are published in peer-reviewed journals - you won't find these floating about on the internet, they have to be published in a journal. Most times you'll find them in the library databases.
- Might be hard to read - they act as the primary conversation between scholars about a field of study. Since they are written by scholars, for scholars, they contain specialized language that might be hard for the lay person to understand.
Qualitative v. Quantitative Methods
qual quant
Researchers use different types of methodologies based on their research question, or area of study. How can you tell what kind of methodology they've chosen?
| Qualitative Methods | Quantitative Methods |
|
Methods include focus groups, in-depth interviews, reviews of documents or literature themes, and observations |
Surveys, controlled experiments, and reviews of records or documents for numeric information |
| More subjective: describes a problem or condition from the point of view of those experiencing it | More objective: provides observed effects (interpreted by researchers) of a program on a problem or condition |
| Text-based | Number-based |
| More in-depth information on a few cases | Less in-depth but more breadth of information across a large number of cases |
| No (or few) statistical tests | Statistical tests are used for analysis |
| Less generalizable | More generalizable |
Use this chart to help organize your work (used in K. Brown's Comm 390 course)
Additional resources:
- What's the difference between qualitative and quantitative methodologies? Xavier Univ.
- Quantitative and qualitative methodology, E. Mich. Univ.
Library Databases for Communication
COMM 390: Articles
Journal articles provide you with the latest research in your field. The research databases below will provide you with both scholarly and popular journal articles in communication.
- What's the difference between scholarly and popular articles?
- What's the difference between qualitative and quantitative methodologies? Xavier Univ.
Most Useful
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Also Useful
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Citations
COMM 200: Why Cite?
Why cite?
- To give credit where credit is due;
- So your reader (professor) can get the source that you mentioned in your assignment;
- To add credibility to your research - shows you did the work;
- Avoid plagiarism.
Learn more about writing citations and avoiding plagiarism by visiting these websites:
- Oops, I plagiarized, from UCLA's Bruin Success with Less Stress
- Research Tutorial: Citing Your Sources
APA Style Guides
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How to find an article's DOI (Digital Object Identifier |
Spieldenner, Spring 2020
info eval comm 390
Evaluating Information
We evaluate information in three main areas:
- Visual: surface level
- Quality: just below the surface
- Ethos: deep dive
Whether you know it or not, you engage in these levels of information pretty frequently -- every time you meet a new person, read something on the internet, or any other time you encounter a piece of new information.
Let’s use the analogy of water sports to see how we can apply the Visual Quality Ethos method of information evaluation:
Visual: Surface-level
What do you see, at a glance?
- Title - does it contain emotional cues?
- Author or Sources (organization) - is a name or organization mentioned?Grammar/Spelling - are there any errors?
- General topic
- Date - when was it published, update times listed, date relevance?
- URL - does the URL have any useful information?
Quality: Just below the surface
This level of evaluation is about determining credibility, basic purpose, content. This is the minimum level of evaluation for any source you want to use in college, whether it is for a class discussion, or for a more formal assignment.
- Authority/Credentials - Do they have the “right to write” about the topic? Credentials could mean education or experience - give examples of both.
- References Listed - Where is the author/org getting their information?
- Verify information with another source?
- Do a quick Google search. Can you find this information easily?
Ethos: Deep dive
Ethos in this case is referring to its “ethical appeal” -- what are they trying to convince you of, and why? When we try to evaluate the ethos of a source, we need to dig really deep and ask “big” questions.
- What is the purpose?
- Does it make you feel anything (note emotions while reading)?
- Where does the funding come from?
- Is there bias (one side favored over the other, especially in an unfair way)? Is only one side of the topic presented?
Data and Advocacy
Data and Advocacy
Evaluating Data
Consider the following when evaluating your data or statistics:
Source
- Who collected it? Was it an individual, organization or agency?
- The data source and the publication/website where it appears not always the same. For example, advocacy organizations often publish data that were produced by some other organization. When feasible, it is best to go to the original source (or at least know and evaluate the source).
- If the data are repackaged, is there proper documentation to lead you to the primary source? Would it be useful to get more information from the primary source? Could there be anything missing from the secondary version?
Authority
- How widely known or cited is the producer? Who else uses these data?
- Is the measure or producer contested?
- What are the credentials of the data producer?
- If an individual, are they an expert on the subject? What organizations are they associated with? Could that association affect the work?
Objectivity & Purpose
- What was the purpose of the collection/study?
- Was it collected as part of the mission of an organization? Or for advocacy? Or for business purposes?
- Who sponsored the production of these data?
- Who was the intended audience for or users of the data?
Currency
- When were the data collected? There is often a time lag between collection and reporting because of the time required to analyze the data.
- Are these the newest figures? Sometimes the newest available figures are a few years old. That is okay, as long as you can verify that there isn't something newer.
Collection Methods & Completeness
- How are the data collected? Count, measurement or estimation?
- Even a reputable source and collection method can introduce bias. Crime data come from many sources, from victim reports to arrest records.
- If it was a survey:
- what was the total population -- how does that compare to the size of the population it is supposed to represent?
- what methods used to select the population included, how was the total population sampled?
- what was the response rate?
- What populations included? Excluded?
Consistency / Verification
- Do other sources provide similar numbers?
- Can the numbers be verified?
** (Adapted from Gould Library, Carlton University)
Additional resources
Become Data Literate in 3 Simple Steps, Nicholas Kayser-Bril, DataJournalism.com
3 Ways to Spot a Bad Statistic, Mona Chalabi, TED Talks
Statistical literacy:Thinking critically about statistics, Of Significance: A Topical Journal of the Association of Public Data Users
Using Data for Advocacy
Data Advocacy: Visualizations for Promoting Change (Just Publics@365, CUNY)
Data Visualization and Infographics: Using Data to Tell Your Story (TechImpact/Idealware)
Need Help?
Allison Carr
Academic Transitions Librarian
