In Favor of Lists: Some Thoughts on an Ancient Technology
In a recent post, I noted that annotated bibliographies are not the same as literature reviews. An annotated bibliography is a list that describes each source you've read while a literature review is an argument that uses previous work in your field as evidence to establish why your research question needs to be asked. But does that mean you shouldn't do an annotated bibliography? Actually, no -- you should. Annotated bibliographies and other kinds of lists are an important tool you can use while you are drafting your literature review. Few people (at least amongst my students and mentees over the years) seem to realize this -- my suggestions to make and analyze lists in order to get a literature review off the ground often come as a bit of a surprise. I think that is because lists are widely misunderstood. When we think of lists, we tend think of everyday ephemera -- the shopping list on the back of an envelope, the to-do lists on a scatter of ...