WORKING WITH

LITERATURE
Importance of the literature review:
The purpose of a literature review is to collect relevant,
timely research on your chosen topic, and synthesize it into
a cohesive summary of existing knowledge in the field. This
then prepares you for making your own argument on that
topic, or for conducting your own original research.
Depending on your field of study, literature reviews can take
different forms. Some disciplines require that you
synthesize your sources topically, organizing your
paragraphs according to how your different sources discuss
similar topics. Other disciplines require that you discuss each
source in individual paragraphs, covering various aspects in
that single article, chapter, or book.
Within your review of a given source, you can cover many
different aspects, including (if a research study) the
purpose, scope, methods, results, any discussion points,
limitations, and implications for future research.
Key benefits of literature review:
• Literature reviews allow you to gain familiarity with the
current knowledge in your chosen field, as well as the
boundaries and limitations of that field.
• Literature reviews also help you to gain an understanding
of the theory(ies) driving the field, allowing you to place
your research question into context.
• Literature reviews provide an opportunity for you to see
and even evaluate successful and unsuccessful
assessment and research methods in your field.
• Literature reviews prevent you from duplicating the
same information as others writing in your field, allowing
you to find your own, unique approach to your topic.
• Literature reviews give you familiarity with the
knowledge in your field, giving you the chance to analyze
the significance of your additional research.
Using Resources and Finding Literature
Before starting with finding literature review, we need to
understand what are the acceptable sources of literature or
what are the resources to be used during literature survey.
Following are a few acceptable sources for literature
reviews, listed in order from what will be considered most
acceptable to less acceptable sources for your literature
review assignments:
1. Peer reviewed journal articles.
2. Edited academic books.
 3. Articles in professional journals.
4. Statistical data from government websites.
5. Website material from professional associations (use
sparingly and carefully).
The following sections will explain and provide examples of
these various sources.
Peer reviewed journal articles (papers)
A peer reviewed journal article is a paper that has been
submitted to a scholarly journal, accepted, and published.
Peer review journal papers go through a rigorous, blind
review process of peer review. What this means is that two
to three experts in the area of research featured in the
paper have reviewed and accepted the paper for publication.
The names of the author(s) who are seeking to publish the
research have been removed (blind review), so as to minimize
any bias towards the authors of the research (albeit,
sometimes a savvy reviewer can discern who has done the
research based upon previous publications, etc.). This blind
review process can be long (often 12 to 18 months) and may
involve many back and forth edits on the behalf of the
researchers, as they work to address the edits and
concerns of the peers who reviewed their paper. Often,
reviewers will reject the paper for a variety of reasons, such
as unclear or questionable methods, lack of contribution to
the field, etc. Because peer reviewed journal articles have
gone through a rigorous process of review, they are
considered to be the premier source for research. Peer
reviewed journal articles should serve as the foundation for
your literature review.
Edited academic books
An edited academic book is a collection of scholarly scientific
papers written by different authors. The works are original
papers, not published elsewhere (“Edited volume,” 2018).
The papers within the text also go through a process of
review; however, the review is often not a blind review
because the authors have been invited to contribute to the
book. Consequently, edited academic books are fine to use
for your literature review, but you also want to ensure that
your literature review contains mostly peer reviewed journal
papers.
Articles in professional journals
Articles from professional journals should be used with
caution for your literature review. This is because articles in
trade journals are not usually peer reviewed, even though
they may appear to be. A good way to find out is to read the
“About Us” section of the professional journal, which
should state whether or not the papers are peer reviewed.
You can also find out by Googling the name of the journal
and adding “peer reviewed” to the search.
Statistical data from governmental websites
Governmental websites can be excellent sources for
statistical data, e.g, Statistics Canada collects and publishes
data related to the economy, society, and the environment
(see https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/start).
Website material from professional associations
Material from other websites can also serve as a source for
statistics that you may need for your literature review. Since
you want to justify the value of the research that interests
you, you might make use of a professional association’s
website to learn how many members they have, for example.
You might want to demonstrate, as part of the introduction
to your literature review, why more research on the topic of
PTSD in police officers is important. You could use peer
reviewed journal articles to determine the prevalence of
PTSD in police officers in Canada in the last ten years, and
then use the Ontario Police Officers´ Association website to
determine the approximate number of police officers
employed in the Province of Ontario over the last ten years.
This might help you estimate how many police officers could
be suffering with PTSD in Ontario. That number could
potentially help to justify a research grant down the road.
But again, this type of website- based material should be
used with caution and sparingly.
How to search effectively
1. Identify search words
Analyze your research topic or question
• What are the main ideas?
• What concepts or theories have you already covered?
• Write down your main ideas, synonyms, related words
and phrases.
Tips: If you're looking for particular types of research, you
can use these as search words. E.g., qualitative,
quantitative, methodology, review, survey, test, trend (and
more).
• Be mindful of UK and US spelling variations. E.g.
organisation OR organization, ageing OR aging.
2. Connect your search words
Find results with one or more search words
Use OR between words that mean the same thing.
E.g. adolescent OR teenager
This search will find results with either (or both) of the
search words.
Find results with two search words
Use AND between words which represent the main ideas in
the question.
E.g. adolescent AND “physical activity”
This will find results with both of the search words.

Exclude search words

Use NOT to exclude words that you don’t want in your
search results.
E.g. (adolescent OR teenager) NOT “young adult”
3. Use search tricks
Search for different word endings
Truncation *
The asterisk symbol * will help you search for different word
endings.
E.g. teen* will find results with the words: teen, teens,
teenager, teenagers
Specific truncation symbols will vary. Check the 'Help'
section of the database you are searching.
Search for common phrases
Phrase searching “...........”
Double quotation marks help you search for common
phrases and make your results more relevant.
E.g. “physical activity” will find results with the words
physical activity together as a phrase.

Search for spelling variations within related terms

Wildcards ? Wildcard symbols allow you to search for
spelling variations within the same or related terms.
E.g. wom?n will find results with women OR woman
Specific wild card symbols will vary. Check the 'Help' section
of the database you are searching.

Search terms within specific ranges of each other

Proximity w/#
Proximity searching allows you to specify where your search
terms will appear in relation to each other.
E.g. pain w/10 morphine will search for pain within ten words
of morphine
Specific proximity symbols will vary. Check the 'Help' section
of the database you are searching.
4. Improve your search results
All library databases are different and you can't always
search and refine in the same way. Try to be consistent
when transferring your search in the library databases you
have chosen.
Narrow and refine your search results by:
• year of publication or date range (for recent or historical
research)
• document or source type (e.g. article, review or book)
• subject or keyword (for relevance). Try repeating your
search using the 'subject' headings or 'keywords' field to
focus your search
• searching in particular fields, i.e. citation and abstract.
Explore the available dropdown menus to change the
fields to be searched.
When searching, remember to:
Adapt your search and keep trying
Searching for information is a process and you won't always
get it right the first time. Improve your results by changing
your search and trying again until you're happy with what
you have found.
Keep track of your searches
Keeping track of searches saves time as you can rerun them,
store references, and set up regular alerts for new research
relevant to your topic.
Most library databases allow you to register with a personal
account. Look for a 'log in', 'sign in' or 'register' button to
get started.
Literature review search tracker (Excel spreadsheet)
Managing references
There are free and subscription reference management
programs available on the web or to download on your
computer. E.g. – Endnote(needs subscription), Zotero(Free)
Keep track of References and Literature Review:
It is good practice to keep a record of your search results,
methodology and strategy, so you don't have to go through
them over and over again.
• Start with the newest research. Recent research often
points to useful older research.
 • Read the abstract (if supplied), the introduction and
conclusion.
• Scan the item to see if you can see how it's organized.
• Document any quotations you'd like to save for later. Use
quotation marks and note the complete citation and page
number for the quote.
• Paraphrase or summarize some main points.
There are a lot of software available to do this as stated
earlier. In addition to that bookmarking websites and
annotating references while writing also help in keeping
track of references and literature review.
Database for research
Database Name Subject Area

Academic Search General (Multidisciplinary)

APA PsycINFO Psychology

Google Scholar General (Multidisciplinary)

JSTOR General (Multidisciplinary)

Nexis Uni News

ProQuest One Business Business

PubMed/Medline Medicine
ScienceDirect Science (Multidisciplinary)

Scopus General (Multidisciplinary)

Web of Science General (Multidisciplinary)