Understanding Research (17 page)

The first thing to note is that the very term,
literature review
, is culturally specific; most commonly used in the UK but also in other Anglo-American settings (for example, New Zealand, Australia, Canada). The second point is that the term is shorthand for both a process by which you conduct a ‘review of the literature’ – let’s call it an
overview
, and a product. This particular phrase of the research process does tend to stress the product side of the equation – the presentation of this search as a ‘focused argument or set of concerns’ (Gray 2009: 122). The various ways a literature review is actually used and where it ends up in the final report is also conditional on whether a project is affiliated to
qualitative, quantitative
, or
mixed-method
approaches in general and the local customs of a department in particular (see Creswell 2009: 26–9, M. Davies 2007: 38, Gray 2009: 122–24).

There are comparable distinctions between relative depth and breadth as well, ranging from reviews that are comprehensive, highly selective, or quite cursory; dissertation, journal articles, and books require different weightings in this respect. However, for dissertation work on the whole there are three things to note:

• Depending on where you are carrying out the research and at what level, the scale and scope of this element needs to be tailored to the degree for which you are studying as well as the stage you are at in the dissertation project.
  
• The review of the literature presented in an initial outline, or formal research proposal, is necessarily more of an overview; distilled and so quite short (sometimes there are word restrictions).
  
• The one you shape and write up for the final dissertation will need to go into more depth, cover more terrain, or do a bit of both. By this point your discussion will be considerably more refined in itself and be closely related, if not integral to your theoretical framework.
  

So, straightaway it should be clear that whilst there is no hard and fast rule, there are some general rules of thumb, more on these below, as well as some well-entrenched conventions or unwritten rules that are dependent on time and place. As (part of) the end-product, the eventual placement of your literature review is partly the outcome of how these factors interact with the effectiveness of your search and selection of the literature itself, your own thinking and writing, organizational decisions in the chapter or section outline and, most importantly, consultations with your supervisor/s. They will, if nothing else, indicate what is expected of you in terms of the ‘local customs’, to use an anthropological turn of phrase, of your department or larger institution.

Either way, approval and criticism of the study often begin and end with opinions on the merits or deficiencies of this aspect; in its own right – who, or what is in, who or what is left out. But more importantly it is about how well it frames the study with respect to what is often called ‘the field’; broad debates, intellectual precursors, recent research, a particular (sub-)discipline. In contrast to the
original research component
– the part that you do yourself and by which you develop hands-on knowledge that you can call your own and by which you make your case – this
element is largely where you present a
synthesis of others’ work
. Either as a self-contained part or recurring element (more on this in
Chapter 4
) the ‘lit review’ sends signals about where you are situating the study, in specific and more general terms.

Establishing this point of departure along with your intellectual preferences, or those of others that you’ve taken on board, means that you are addressing an audience. As I noted above, the more interdisciplinary the study is, the more bases to cover, the more potential audiences there are that have a stake in the outcome. Here, when the overview is comprised of more than one, if not several literatures, the bar is raised even higher.

Lest this deter anyone who is embarking on a research project that straddles more than one specific discipline, learning to be both inclusive (at first) and then selective (sooner or later) is key to surviving and learning from this process. Knowing when to stop, and then being able to live with, if not defend your choices at the end of the day is part of it. This is true for undergraduate work through to advanced research. Whilst searching for, reviewing and then presenting relevant literature is distinct from the research method/s or theories we are engaging with, it also informs and influences them by requiring us to make distinctions and informed choices. In most academic cultures students are expected to go out and find – at least some of – the literature themselves. Expecting otherwise incurs the common complaint about younger generations wanting to be ‘spoon-fed’.

Doing well in this part is related to assessment criteria that look for evidence of ‘original thinking’, ‘critical thought’ and ‘independent research skills’. Literature review is also part of the research process as a whole; neither just a warm-up to the real thing, nor an end in itself if it is to make sense as part of a larger project. In particular, the line between a separate ‘literature review’ and ‘theory chapter’ is one that needs negotiating according to local conventions; the latter implies the former. By the same token, your theoretical framework is distinct from how you position your project vis-à-vis the literature.

In western cultures, knowledge – scientific and common sense forms – is largely contained in written texts; a long-term historical development that is regarded as one of the hallmarks of
modernity
, of which higher learning institutions, literacy, and the archive are cornerstones (see Anderson 1991, Foucault 1972, 1995). Since then a plethora of
postmodern, feminist
, and
postcolonial
critiques have targeted the value-hierarchy that privileges the written word and its western European/Anglo-American seat of governance as the preferred vehicle for producing and disseminating knowledge (Fierke and Jørgensen 2001, Giri 2004, Ratcliffe 2001, Said 1994, Smith 1999).

Whatever your disciplinary home, the written word is paramount. It is through
the literature
(classical, topical, archival, popular, scholarly) that researchers get a sense of what came before, what is going on now and, most importantly for those looking to break new ground, what has been left unsaid, unstudied or overlooked. As modern academe’s credentials are founded on publications, again academic books and journals are the fountainhead of what counts as the ‘literature’. More recently online texts, for example, blogs, media portals, web-portals from international organizations (for example, the UN, WTO), NGOs, think tanks and funding organizations (for example, Greenpeace, Economic Social Forum, the Social Science Research Council) jostle for position on the top-ten hits of web-searches; as do individuals’ (independent and salaried researchers) web-pages where they post their own work. All these have been pushing the envelope of what may or may not be included in either respective literary canons or literature reviews. At the very least these newer forms and locales are contesting the norm.

In research cultures prone to using this term, the literature review is a milestone in the earlier phases of a research dissertation, often in the first year of the longer process of Ph.D. work. For bachelor- and master-level research projects, this is the case too albeit in different measures. Remembering that some disciplines tend to define the data/research field as literature (philosophy, literary studies, history, cultural studies) as opposed to those that gather other sorts of data, or see data in non-literature forms (sociology, anthropology, political science, media studies, science and
technology studies), the tendency to reify this element goes hand-in-hand with a large amount of anxiety and mixed messages.

In the North American scenarios (USA and Canada), the literature review at a Ph.D. level dominates the first year or two years of the research trajectory, encapsulated by courses with terms like ‘foundations’ and ‘classics’ in their titles, completed before a full research proposal is developed. Exams are held that assess students’ knowledge of a set of literature that is canonical to the field or discipline in which they are enrolled; for example, international relations/politics, sociology, anthropology, media and communications, women’s studies and so on.

In other research cultures and parts of the western world, however, these terms are used a lot less. The form they take in the research proposal, and then the final project, is less prominent, more integrated into what is often referred to as the ‘theory chapter’ or ‘theoretical/conceptual framework’.
⁵
For instance, in parts of continental Europe, the emphasis is on a more selective approach: depth as opposed to breadth. Nonetheless, a grasp of broader debates, fields of literature and the ability to synthesize these in terms of how they serve, underpin, and challenge your project, is still regarded as an early phase, an early section/chapter in the final product. But even in these arguably narrower notions of the literature review and how it is often synonymous with the term ‘theory’ or ‘theoretical framework’ there is a fine line between being too selective and not selective enough.

There are various ways to categorize literature reviews, some of which trace the quantitative–qualitative divide as well as straddle it (Burnham et al. 2004, Creswell 2009: 25, Gray 2009: 123). Broadly speaking we can speak of comprehensive – systematic – literature reviews and more selective – integrated – ones.

For most student research dissertations, the literature review element is selective; you are not expected to literally review everything. Those settings that favour
integrative
and
theoretical
sorts of reviews (Cooper, cited in Creswell 2009: 28) mean both

• summaries of broad themes emerging from the literature; and
  
• a more focused appraisal of a particular theory, theorist, or theoretical stream.
  

In practice these two categories overlap, the balance between them depending on the focus, angle, and topic that is being researched.

A third sort of literature review is more difficult, indeed more contested given the way in which ‘method’ can be either eschewed in some quarters or this term used synonymously with references to
methodology
(see Burnham et al. 2004, Moses and Knutsen 2007: 3–5). The
methodological
literature review is important for studies that
engage a particular data-gathering method, or which look to critique or adapt existing ones. Whilst quantitative research projects give more attention to this side of the literature (see also
Chapter 1
, ‘Using this book in context’) this dimension to your literature is also important to methodological rationales across the spectrum.

Some delineations do apply to literature reviews for hypothesis-driven research projects, which take a particular format.

• More than describing everything that has gone before, it provides a focused theoretical context and justification for the hypotheses under investigation in the remainder of the paper – or larger report.
  
• From the objectives listed above, along with justifying the need for this research through reference to the theoretical literature, it also points out exactly how past research has either presented anomalous findings or that there is a gap in the existing research.
  

In the example below, we see how this mini-lit review sets up the justification for the research, points out existing problems with the past research and sets out hypotheses based on bringing in a different set of literature.

Before tackling the practicalities let’s take a look at the first category of literature review, suitable for some projects and fields but not all. Realizing the difference between a comprehensive and a selective sort of approach will help you navigate these ever-increasing and shifting fields.