The Literature Review: Busting Some Common Myths

 I am sometimes startled by the myths and misunderstandings that I find circulating about the literature review, so today’s blog is the first in a semi-regular series on busting these myths 💪 or, at the very least, unpicking them to get at some useful truths. To get us started, have a think about this claim, which pops up with annoying regularity: The literature review is all about other people’s work, so it won’t be original. 

True or false? 🤔 The sharp-eyed amongst you will already have noticed that there are two claims here -- bad practice for a true-or-false item, to be sure, but a good place to begin our discussion. Let’s take each claim in turn. 

The literature review is all about other people’s work. Is it? In one sense, this is true. The main purpose of a literature review is to analyse the body of previous work in a field to establish why a research question needs to be asked. So, yes -- a literature review in this narrow sense deals with other people’s research.

But is this all it is about, or even primarily what it is about? No. If the job is done right, the findings, insights, observations, and everything else discovered in the body of previous research should be treated as evidence in the unfolding case for why the research question needs to be asked. The literature review is not about what other people have found; it is about what you do with those findings as the writer of the literature review.

 The literature review won’t be original. To tackle this claim, let’s stay with idea of discovery for a moment more. If the review gets stuck describing studies one after another instead of presenting an argument, this will be true. The literature review won’t be original since it will simply recount what already exists. What the literature review needs to do is put forward a view on why this material matters – that is what will be original. As we dig into the body of existing work in our field, that is what we should be seeking to discover – what we think about what everyone else has said. And how do we come up with that? By identifying patterns and trends in previous work and figuring out how they add up to the need to ask our question. 

 A concrete example might help. When I was writing my analysis of the character Gus in Harold Pinter’s play The Dumb Waiter, I found that there were many, many existing analyses on this play. Why did the world need one more? Why should anyone be interested in what I had to say about the play? When I dug into the existing studies, I noticed an interesting pattern – most of them were concerned with the same two or three scenes and as a result offered generally convergent analyses, variations on narrow set of similar themes. Bingo❗There it was. Why did the world need my analysis of The Dumb Waiter? Because I offered a careful look at neglected scenes and was able to put forward a new reading of Gus by doing so. 

🔑 The key take away? Identifying patterns and trends in previous findings is a key skill in doing a literature review, a skill that will help lift the review out of description and into original analysis. 

So how do you enable students to do this? 

•  Some of my previous blogs, which go over practical tips, might be of interest -- click through and have look: Your Literature Review Is an Argument; Your Literature Review is Like a Qualitative Research Project; Reverse Engineering a Review. 

• If you like what you find, are UK-based and want to go further, contact me to discuss a workshop on How to Really Write Your Literature Review (available as 2-hour master classes; 4-hour in-depth sessions; 1 day intensives; and 2-day courses). 

• Hop onto my website or connect on LinkedIn and drop me a message.

I would love to hear from you. 😊

Listening to Your Drafts: Insights for Students and Supervisors

As I look back on my writing about writing, I realise there is something I sometimes say without much explanation: we need to know how to listen to our drafts. So in this blog, I am going to tell you a bit more about what I mean by that.  If you are currently working on your literature review, the practical examples I give here may help you develop your own listening process. If you are supporting other researchers with their literature reviews, these insights may help you when it comes to giving feedback, as this technique is useful whether we are listening to our own draft or someone else's.  

First, let's quickly review Huff's (1983)* three phases of drafting. Phase 1 is the generative phase, when you get your ideas down on paper in whatever way works for you. This is a relatively unmonitored phase when you actively want to encourage your ideas to tumble out, one after the other. In this phase, you can give your stream of consciousness free reign without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Just get your ideas down.  

Phase 2 is the more disciplined problem-solving phase, when you need to start sorting, sifting, and evaluating these ideas. Do you have an argument yet? Do you need to read more? Are you fairly considering the evidence or cherry-picking? When you sit down to write your first solid draft, are you making progress? Why or why not? Are you writing for hours at a stretch but just describing what others have said? It is during phase 2 that writing and active critical thinking come together and reinforce each other. 

Phase 3 is the editing phase, when you dot the i's, cross the t's, and look up the rules on using semi-colons for the hundredth time. While phase 3 generally should be done last and can, depending on the size of your document, be done in one sitting, phases 1 and 2 are not strictly speaking linear (you may drop back into phase 1 for a bit after starting phase 2) and will generally be done over multiple sittings. 

The listening I refer to here occurs in the second phase of drafting as part of the essential problem-solving process. Listening, of course, is metaphorical, as what I am really talking about is the act of noticing specific things in your writing that crop up when you are drafting and paying attention to what these things may be trying to reveal to you about your own argument or writing process. This feels like an act of listening to me when I engage in it, so that is what I call it. In the rest of this blog, I'll outline four things that might crop up when you draft and why you might want to listen to them in the way I suggest here.

Repeating Things: Any time you keep repeating something, such as an idea, a quote, a question,  or a position in a debate, pay attention.  When something like this crops up again and again, and insists on inserting itself even when you set out to write about something else, it is an indication that you need to think more about it. Simply removing repetition may feel like progress, but in order to truly resolve this you need to know why you keep repeating it. In my experience, repetition of this kind tends to occur for two reasons: 1) you haven't yet nailed down the steps in your argument, so your account is beginning to meander; or 2) you have hit on something important, but you haven't figured out why it is important yet. In the first case, sort your argument out and the repetition will most likely take care of itself -- the thing you are repeating will slot into the place it should go, and you will stop repeating it. If it is the second case, think carefully about this thing that you keep repeating. Is it important evidence you haven't considered yet? Is it something that disturbs the framework you have thus far assembled? In such cases, we might keep pushing a thought away because it is inconvenient, but back it comes, in the form of repetition, demanding to be dealt with. Listen to it. 

Asserting What You Are NOT Doing: Any time you declare My purpose is NOT to X; or This section will NOT go into Y, pay attention to that, especially early on in the second phase of drafting. Often, we set out with a certain structure in mind and the temptation is to stick to that structure. But early in our drafting new things emerge because we are still collecting information. The new information may at first look irrelevant, so we loftily declare there is no need for us to go into it. Later, however, it turns out that the thing we dismissed as most definitely NOT our purpose turns out to be the key to our whole argument. The early decision to dismiss it came about not because the idea was truly irrelevant, but because the structure of our argument was not yet complete. There are, or course, times when you do need to state that you won't be dealing with something, but that decision should be made when you are pretty sure you are finished with the second phase of drafting, not at the start of it.

Things That Come Out as Brief Asides: These are ideas that make their first appearance in your draft as though they are unimportant. They come out as quips on the far side of a dash, or comments in parentheses, or items shunted into subordinate clauses. Pay attention to these. While it may seem counter-intuitive, these seemingly dashed off things often turn out to be the key to something important -- an avenue you need to pursue or an aspect of your topic that turns out to be crucial.  They make their first appearance tentatively, but that is all the more reason to stop and pay attention to them. Try foregrounding them -- give them their very own sentences, start paragraphs with them, and see what happens. Have you learned something new about your argument? Pursue it. If, towards the end of your drafting, these things do turn out to be superfluous, by all means delete them. But do this because of a conscious decision, not because of an assumption. 

You Suddenly Become Overly Discursive: When we are secure in what we think, our prose tends to be clear. If we are still grappling with new ideas, our prose rambles. You can, for example, write There are four books on the table. Clear, confident, done -- you've said what you needed to say. Or, you might write Well, I was in the library, it was the afternoon and it was after lunch when I was just coming back and I saw this table. Oh, and I noticed some books. Four, I think. This is overly discursive, and notice that the important bits appear only as after thoughts. When you catch episodes like this in your draft, trying to simply edit them won't work because what you really need to do is improve your understanding of something. Do more reading, attend more lectures, nail down the point of confusion and then start re-writing. The greater your understanding, the clearer your prose.

* Huff, R. 1983. 'Teaching Revision: A Model of the Drafting Process'. College English 45 (6): 800-816.

Well, this turned out to be a long one! If you find this blog helpful and are UK-based, I now offer workshops as an independent writing and language consultant, bringing the content of this blog to life in greater detail and with opportunities for face-to-face discussion and feedback. 

If you want know more or talk to me about a workshop or a series of workshops, 

• Hop onto my website and contact me www.writingworksconsulting.co.uk
• Visit me on Linked In and message me there: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-mandala-phd-6a94b7290

I would love to hear from you. 😊

An Announcement

Hello Readers 😊

I am delighted to announce that I can now bring you this blog as an independent writing and language consultant and founder of Writing Works Consulting! My mission at Writing Works is to help you achieve your highest level of achievement and professional fulfilment through more effective writing and thinking. 

For many years an academic at the University of Sunderland (UK), I had the opportunity to work with students and research staff in my capacity as a lecturer, associate professor, and research writing mentor. As I taught, mentored, and led seminars, I realised the work of greatest and lasting value – and most pressing need across a range of disciplines and subject areas – was all about writing, thinking, and drafting. 

• How do you take a pile of random notes and turn it into a persuasive argument? 
• How do you sort and sift through all your material to know what you should say first, and then next, and so on, until your conclusion?
• How do you evaluate the information you’ve collected to communicate to your readers why it matters? 
• How do you move through successive drafts of your own work with deliberate purpose so that your final piece is effective and worthwhile? 

As regular readers will know, unpacking issues such as these and suggesting ways that you can roll up your sleeves, dig in, and actually do these things when you are writing your dissertation literature review has been my focus in this blog. 📕✍ 

As an independent writing and language consultant and founder of Writing Works Consulting, I will still be bringing you this blog. The only difference is that I can now, in addition to this blog, offer live workshops! 🎉 

If you are UK-based, like the contents of this blog, and would welcome the chance to practice the techniques set out here with direct feedback and guidance in a live workshop, contact me today to discuss a workshop for your research group. I can also discuss options for one-to-one support. 

You can

• Visit my Writing Works website: www.writingworksconsulting.co.uk
• Visit me on Linked In and drop me a message there: www.linkedin.com/in/susan-mandala-phd-6a94b7290
• Email me directly at Writing Works: susan@writingworksconsulting.co.uk

I can’t wait to hear from you 😊

In the meantime, happy writing, thinking, and drafting! 📒🤔✍️ 

I Should Start with an Outline, Right?

It is that time of year again. August has drawn to a close and we are now into September. The shops have their school stationary front and centre – pens of all kinds, piles of printer paper, shiny new notebooks in all manner of designs, just waiting for your brilliant ideas. Ah, yes – the start of the academic year. 

If you’re an MA student or a doctoral candidate, these golden days on the cusp of autumn may find you embarking on your dissertation, which typically starts with your literature review. What’s out there on your topic? What do we already know, or think we know? What is the lay of the land in your subject? As the autumn sunshine streams through your window, you’ll be digging into a stack of research articles and filling up one of your shiny new notebooks or its electronic equivalent. 

So what do you do with all this material you are collecting – all the findings, all the quotes, all the conclusions, and all the thoughts you have about these things? How do you turn that into your literature review chapter? An outline!, you say to yourself in triumph. That’s how I’ll start. I’ll make an outline. And you turn to an inviting new page in your notebook. 

So that’s how you should start, right? With an outline? Well, hang on a minute there. I have been reading another fantastic book, David Allen’s Getting Things Done (Viking Penguin, 2001). While this is mostly geared towards defining and organising your flow of tasks to maximise productivity at work, an insight he shares applies here: if you haven’t actually written anything yet, what will you outline? 

When I work with people on drafts, they often ask Will an outline be okay? And my answer is generally something along the lines of Well, outlines can be very useful, but I don’t suggest it as a starting point. Here are 3 of the main reasons why. 

• Outlines may make you feel like you are getting something done, but this can lead to a false sense of productivity. You might wind up listing topics you have read in outline format and if you then use that outline to write your chapter, you’ll end up with a description of what you’ve read.

• Outlines may be a satisfying way to impose some order on your unruly collection of notes, but if you haven’t come to grips with what your argument is, the order you have come up with won’t be useful. An outline should reflect the structure of your argument. That is, your first point should be your research question, and every other point and sub-point should be your evidence, culled and curated from your reading notes, for why it should be asked. If you haven’t done that thinking yet, outlining is the equivalent of running in place – lots of energy spent without getting anywhere.

• Outlining can be a very tempting displacement activity. Coming up with your argument is hard – we all face that when we write our literature review. It is just intrinsically hard. Producing an outline can be a way fool ourselves into thinking we are going forward when in reality we are just avoiding the hard bit of grappling with what our argument is. 

So what to do, especially if you are required to produce an outline? I return to David Allen: do some drafting first. Turn your notes into a set of cards, with one single sentence or idea per card. Why does your research question need to be answered? When you have 3 main points backed up by evidence from your reading notes that answer that question, you are ready to start outlining. 

Did you find this blog useful? Would more detail and guidance be helpful? I am now an independent writing and language consultant, and founder of Writing Works Consulting (watch this space for more announcements!) I offer writing workshops and specialise in workshops on writing dissertation literature reviews. 

If you are UK-based and organising research development training for MA or doctoral students and like the content of this blog, visit me on Linked In (www.linkedin.com/in/susan-mandala-phd-6a94b7290) and drop me a message to discuss a workshop that is right for you. 

And if you found this post helpful, please share it with your networks.

Susan Mandala, PhD

Independent Writing and Language Consultant

Founder, Writing Works Consulting

Is There A 'Model' Literature Review?

 Well, yes and no. It depends on what you mean by 'model'. 

If you were looking for some sort of proforma into which you could just plug your text, that might appeal in the short term but, like most short cuts when it comes to deep and complex writing, it won't be helpful and in the long run it will only waste time. There are at least two reasons why this is: 

1) Your literature review is yours. It makes the case for why your research question should be asked. This means that what you find in the literature as you set about building this case will be different to what anyone else finds -- they are researching their topic, not yours. And the argument you eventually construct as you grapple with your review will be based on what you find and, more importantly, what you make of what you find. Since neither of these things is predictable, neither of them can be reduced to any particular, one-size-fits all proforma. 

2) Your literature review is not just a 'review'. In fact, I dislike that word when it comes to reviews because you are doing much more than 'reviewing'. You are really doing a literature analysis, but since the name 'review' has stuck (sigh), we'll stick with it. It is your job as the literature reviewer (analyser) to discover and name the patterns and trends in previous findings and to work out the steps of your argument -- what it is about those patterns and trends that adds up to why your research question needs to be asked (My research question should be asked because . . . ). If you fill in some sort of proforma, answering questions in relation to a series of pre-set prompts and then turning that into paragraphs, you are skipping the most crucial step of all -- building your own argument with all the evidence you have found. You will feel busy, but you won't have accomplished much, and you still won't know why your research question should be asked. 

And that is what you should know when your literature review is done.  If someone (your supervisor, someone on an internal review panel, an examiner) were to say 'So, why does the world need this question?', you'll be able to look the questioner straight in the eye with confidence and reply 'Because previous research indicates that . . . '. Doing your literature review properly will put you in this strong position. Filling in a proforma will not. 

So beware of proformas.  They are good for collecting information, but they are not very useful when it comes to the creative and generative act of thinking about how that information is evidence for why your research question needs to be asked. 

If by 'model' what you were looking for was a literature review that can give you ideas on how to structure your own, you are on stronger ground. All of the research articles you have been reading will have literature reviews. Read these for structure as well as content. Take out some fresh paper (or start a new document, or whatever the equivalent is for you). Write at the top Their research question is . . . Then, skip a few lines and write According to them, this question should be asked because . . . And then list the steps they set out in their argument. You can also write these out on cards (regular readers of this blog will know how much I love the card-sorting technique). Is research common in their area, but corralled thus far into 2 or three narrow areas? And if so, what are those areas? Or is research common in their area, but flawed in various ways? What are those ways? Or maybe research in their field covers a number of areas but has been limited by design flaws, or measurement effects, or unexplored assumptions? These questions are, of course not meant to be exhaustive -- every argument, as noted above, will be different because every reviewer is defending a different question with different evidence. Rather, these questions are designed to get you going on the task of reading published literature reviews for the structure of the arguments they put forward. 

If you find this difficult at first, persevere. It is a little bit like looking at those pictures that seem very similar, but then as you really study them, you spot the differences, which stand out clear as day once you have pegged them (remember those?). And if after you get the hang of it you come across a literature review where you can't trace the steps of the argument very well, or find that the steps are jumbled, or that a step seems to be left implicit, well, well, well -- you have found a paper that maybe didn't nail down its argument as elegantly as it could have. And maybe you can do a better job than that. How about that! 😀

But Writing is Scary!

 Yes it is. Writing is not easy, especially the kind of high-stakes persuasive writing you need to do in a literature review. For many of us, it can also be scary and this fear can be paralyzing.  The task looms before us – huge, terribly important, but somehow still not started. Instead of sitting down and just digging into the task, we anxiously hurl obstacles at it: But how do I start?! I can’t start if I don’t know how!! I’ve never done anything like this before, so I can’t do it now! This wasn’t really covered in the one session we had on literature reviews! My mind goes blank every time I try to start! Or: I have all these notes, but now what?? They taught us how to search for articles, but what am I supposed to actually write?!! I have now been staring at this cursor for over an hour! I’ll never finish at this rate! and so on.  Many of us will have similar cascading thoughts when it comes to writing our literature review.

I was just about to say there is no magic wand I can wave to help with this, but maybe there is. I have been reading the most wonderful book lately, The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz (Vermilion 2019, first published in 1959). While addressed to success in work more generally, much of what he says, and one thing in particular, applies to writing successful literature reviews: ‘action cures fear’ (263). The corollary is also true: worrying about your task instead of doing it and finding excuses not to do it will only increase your fear, making it that much harder to start (262). So if you are experiencing the very common and very understandable fear of writing, act. Just start.  

Well, okay, I can hear you saying. Very inspiring. But the thorny question of how is still there. To help you with this, I share here 4 strategies I have developed over the years – and still use – whenever I am dealing with one of my oh-my-God-this-task-is-so-huge-I-can’t-possibly-start bouts, which I can assure you I still have.

1. Use a free-writing technique. Set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes, and just start writing. Do not worry about grammar or spelling at this stage, or about whether what you are writing is any good, or about whether you are making any real progress. Don't worry at all. Just write about anything that relates to your literature review.   When the timer rings, you will probably find that you are on your way and have some direction for the day’s writing.

2. If you are not yet on your way after step (1), read what you have written, ONE SENTENCE AT TIME, in a random order. Take a separate sheet of paper, and actually write out a sentence you have written, and then answer these questions about it. Is it useful to your review? If so, how? Is it a main point? Is it evidence of a main point? Does it fit into a pattern or trend you have already discovered in the literature? Does it go counter to what you think so far? Does it suggest something you have to do, or read, or learn? Or maybe it is not useful?  Or perhaps you don’t know yet? When you have finished with that sentence go on to another one, again in a random order. This may seem laborious, but what you are doing here is thinking systematically about what you have generated, and this will help you find your focus.

3. Remind yourself that you do not have to write your entire literature review of 10,000-20,000 words (depending on the size of your project) in one day.  What you have to do in one day is the work of that day.  Plan that work. Set yourself specific goals.  For some people, this might be writing a certain number of words, maybe 1,000 a day. For others, the task might be more functional, such as re-drafting a certain section, or reading and annotating 3 articles, or nailing down what a particular technical term means so that you can discuss it in your review with confidence. Whatever the task is, make sure it is specific. Having something like Work on literature review on your to-do list only introduces a barrier, as you then have to figure out what to work on before you can start (and may thus put off starting).

4. Try the card-sorting and thematic coding techniques I have talked about in an earlier post. Quote or paraphrase the findings from 10 or so studies on separate cards – ONE finding per card (not one study per card – one finding per card). Then shuffle your cards and start sorting the findings, putting like with like.  What patterns begin to emerge that relate to why your research question should be asked? Name those patterns and write them down so that you can start completing this frame: My research question needs to be asked because . . . .  By doing this, you generate material that you can then work into a draft. 

I wish you all happy and productive writing! 😊✍If you try any of these, or come up with any of your own just-start strategies, leave a comment and let me know. I would love to hear from you.

Gamify Your Literature Review

Doing your literature review can be a real slog. Believe me, I know.  I like doing literature reviews and even I think it is a bit of a trudge sometimes.  But if you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that it simply must done -- there are no short cuts. You have to come to grips with the body of work that precedes your research. And that means reading many, many papers in order to make the case for why your research question needs to be asked. And, annoyingly, you will have to read papers that in the end turn out to be irrelevant. How else to know if they are relevant or not? Yes, a pain, I grant you.

 But can you have fun along the way, too? That is what I dare to suggest in today’s blog.

 

If you read literature reviews for long enough, you begin to see certain patterns in the way they are structured and written,  For example, many reviews begin, or state somewhere near their start, some version of There have been many studies of X (X being your particular topic).  Here are a few versions of this sentence from some papers I plucked randomly from one of my office shelves (What?! You don’t have a shelf full of papers yet? Acquire one immediately! 😊)

 

• ‘The importance of including counterarguments and rebuttals for making written argumentation persuasive has been underscored by much research’ (Liu & Stapleton 2014: 118, who block cite multiple papers from 1991-2007 in support of this claim).

• ‘Expressive writing studies are plentiful and the once anemic domain of letter writing as a vehicle for improving health has seen a resent surge of interest’ (Toepfer & Walker 2009: 182, block citing papers published between 2001-2009 in support). 

• ‘The concept of mindsets has received considerable attention in education in recent years’ (Irie et al. 2018: 576, with multiple papers cited in support as the review progresses). 

Not to be outdone, here is one from one of my papers.

 

• ‘The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BTVS) has attracted a great deal of academic attention in recent years’ (Mandala 2007: 53, with a number of papers cited in support as the review unfolds).

And the ‘fun’ part? Set yourself a target for the day’s reading and see how many of these you can find. Gamify it further by making this a competition with your research chat group (What?! No chat group? See above 😊). Vote on the ones you like best. Look for the ones you think are most effective or creative or whatever. Get out your thesaurus and start coming up with your own versions.  See how many you can do in 10 minutes. Write some purposely outrageous ones you know you will not use, just for a chuckle.  And who knows? An outrageous version might lead you to a good one (a thought inspired by Edward deBono’s work on thinking).

 

There is much more to your literature review than your first sentence, as the pages of this blog amply demonstrate.  But starting is often the hardest part. So have some fun.

 

References

 

Irie, K., Ryan, S., and Mercer, S. 2018. ‘Using Q Methodology to Investigate Pre-Service EFT Teachers’ Mindsets about Teaching Competences’. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching. 8(3): 575-598.

Liu, F. and Stapleton, P. 2014. ‘Counterargumentation and the Cultivation of Critical Thinking in Argumentative Writing: Investigating Washback from a High-Stakes Test’. System 45: 117-128.

 

Mandala, S. 2007. Solidarity and the Scoobies: An Analysis of the -y Suffix in the Television Series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Language and Literature 16 (1): 53-73.

 

Toepfer, S. and Walker, K. 2009. ‘Letters of Gratitude: Improving Well-Being through Expressive Writing’. Journal of Writing Research 1 (3): 181-198.