The Literature Review in the Social Sciences: Home

LibGuide – conducting a Literature Review –

Instructional goal – graduate students provided with appropriate information resources and computer  tools and software can plan, conduct, and write a literature review for a research report.

This instructional LibGuide includes text, audio, and video screencast components providing instruction in writing a graduate level literature review in the social sciences.

Learning environment –

Learners  – graduate students enrolled in a higher education program with access to the internet, scholarly databases, information resources, and who are seeking to learn more about research methods in the social sciences.

Learning outcomes - participants can identify the elements of a literature review and can state in writing the purpose and process of the literature review as they relate to the research process.  Participants can search for and access information in multiple formats and use found sources to mine for additional sources.  Participants can manage information resources and a workflow process in support of the literature review process.

Instructional objectives

Define a literature review

·         Identify sources of information

·         Conducting the literature review

·         Using bibliographic management software

·         Managing the literature review process

·         Writing the literature review

Additional objectives

·         Use EBSCO folders

·         Use Zotero bibliographic management program

Boote, D. N., & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: On the centrality of the dissertation Literature Review in research preparation. Educational Researcher, 34(6), 3-15.

Combs, J. P., Bustamante, R. M., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2010). An interactive model for facilitating development of literature reviews. International Journal Of Multiple Research Approaches, 4(2), 159-182. doi:10.5172/mra.2010.4.2.159

Maxwell, J. A. (2006). Literature reviews of, and for, educational research: A commentary on Boote and Beile’s “Scholars Before Researchers”.  Educational Researcher, 35(9), 28-31.

A literature review provides a summary of the published literature on a selected topic.  It includes a comprehensive survey of a topic including a concise history, description, and critical evaluation of an area of published research.  A synthesis of the discovered literature provides opportunity for presenting a perspective from which to launch a new study.