3 Literature based research

General

A specific section of many scientific articles is often titled literature review, which contains an analysis and critical review of a specific body of scientific knowledge. This specific section is sometimes expected in Bachelor theses, very often in a Master thesis or post-graduate work. Project reports will rarely have such a section. However, research always starts with exploring research of other scientists. As a student researcher, you may develop information you generate yourself, using previous knowledge about the topic you are investigating. This research usually is literature based.

Purpose

The purpose of this research  can be to (adapted from Ridely, 2012, p.24):

• build up knowledge about a specific field;
• provide a historical background for your research;
• give an overview of the context in which your research is situated, maybe of current debates, issues and questions in the field;
• include relevant theories, concepts or explanations of terms;
• give insights into methods used to collect and/or analyse data;
• describe related research in the field and show how your work extends/ challenges this, or address a gap in the work in the field;

The literature research will continue throughout a project and findings, opinions of other researchers are considered, included or referred to in many sections of a report/ paper or study. However, as it is most likely the first step of any research project, the following sections focus on literature based research.

Google vs the Library

Googling has become synonymous with research (Mostafa, 2005), and Google’s accessibility has made it irresistible.

However, in academic writing quality matters and you need to base your work on sources written by people who know what they are talking about. For those types of sources, the library (online or not) is indispensable, and you need to complement your Google searches with library searches.

Value of online searches

One of the biggest problems in being able to access much information through computers is deciding which sources are reliable and useful and which can be ignored. Search engines such as Google or online encyclopaedias such as Wikipedia can be useful at the beginning of your research in pointing you towards sources and helping you decide the parameters of the subject you are writing about. Google Scholar will help you find academic, peer-referenced journals. However, you cannot rely on these sources alone for your research: they will not be comprehensive enough and many sources, especially popular ones will be discounted as credible sources if you include them in your references. You also need to ensure that any sources you use are correctly and fully referenced (see Chapter 6).

Libraries and electronic databases (ask our librarian for support)

Your assignment brief may recommend sources to use for your research, but you probably will need to look further. Electronic databases are the best place to go for good-quality material for your research as they store information from a range of sources and allow you to construct targeted searches. Authorised access is needed, normally via your academic institution. Online library catalogues allow you to search for sources by title, author, and subject word. Students at HSLU can use the options shown in table 1.

table 1: Overview of online library catalogues at HSLU

The table shows which databases can be accessed on HSLU Campus or with a VPN connection. The website Swissuniversities offers a wide range of information resources. You can choose between a certain field (engineering, architecture, economics) or type of source (magazine, journal, encyclopedia, norms, statistics). Usually, sources are available as full-text (not just the abstract or summary).

E books and online resources

Many books and textbooks might be available as e-books, allowing you to use a computer to search the text for specific information expediently. Many E-books can be accessed on HSLU Campus or via VPN. Journals should be of major importance in your research as current issues provide cutting-edge information. A peer-reviewed journal means the article will have been written by someone who knows about the subject and has been put through the quality vetting process by other experts in the field. Both journals and newspapers can be searched easily through electronic databases.

Key word searches

Identifying key words for your research is something you (should) do as you narrow down your topic and find a focus. The key words describing your research topic (nouns and adjectives) should be very accurate. There are various techniques:

Snowball technique: when reading around your topic you become familiar with research done in the field and who the important authors are; their work will lead to more relevant literature in the field; so by following up their citations you establish a list of the relevant research and literature.

Boolean logic: The English mathematician George Boole (1815-64) developed a system of symbols and words used to conduct searches by combining key words into search statements. Some catalogues, databases and search engines are based on variations of this Boolean logic, which is worth investigating such as this webpage by Google.

Evaluating quality of sources

Before including information of sources in your writing they have to be evaluated carefully, especially in case of online resources because ”anybody can put information on the Internet and the material is not necessarily subject to peer-review quality checks” (Ridley 2009, p.47).

The highest quality sources are those at the bottom of the list in the box below. These are works written by experts in their field, published in ‘peer-reviewed’ journals. The problem for students might be the jargon used, which makes such texts at first hard to follow. But the effort to understand such documents pays off as your reader knows that you are relying on the best information available.

Printed copies of journals are another important source, although it is often more convenient to search for online journal articles. Once you have located a suitable book or journal through your library’s online catalogue, you might find other sources about the topic either through the article’s bibliography or on the same or nearby shelves. Scan the titles of those works to locate additional sources you might not have found in your online catalogue search.

general knowledge   specialized knowledge

General encyclopaedias General interest magazines/ newspapers Specialised magazines/ journals Government documents Scholary books Academic journals

less authoritative   more authoritative

Quality of sources:

• Books and articles in scholarly journals undergo a lengthy editorial process before they are published.
• Articles in trade and other professional journals do not always go through a strict review process. Their authors might also have a personal commercial interest and thus present a product or issue from a particular, biased point of view.
• Articles in magazines and newspapers are usually reviewed only by the editors (who might represent a certain point of view).
• Theses and dissertations are final projects for students in graduate programs and vary in quality and reliability.

Other indicators of the quality of a source are:

• its date, i.e. recent publications carry more weight. For online sources such as websites the last update entry can inform you when the information was written and might therefore be suitable for your purpose.
• its author(s) or sponsor. Government and educational sources (.edu, .org, .gov) are mostly more reliable than commercial ones (.com).

You should favour authored documents over those without author. But: Some documents have no author as they are from an institutional source like a university. If that is the case they are probably preferable. Otherwise scrutinize the webpage to find credentials of the persons involved and/ or cited or when the webpage was last updated.

Therefore, when assessing the quality of internet sources always ask the following questions:

• How current are they?
• How correct?
• How complete?
• How unbiased?
• Who put it on and why?

See also the evaluation tips of internet sources provided by Reading University.

Using Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopaedia project based on an openly editable model (Park, 2011). While it is not an accepted source for an academic paper it can help to find baseline information and acquire common knowledge.  However, it can be used as a source for images https://commons.wikimedia.org.

For more information on why Wikipedia is not accepted as a source for academic papers, go to the webpage of Cornell University.

Reference management: keeping records and organising information 

Keeping track of key word searches you have conducted and in which catalogues, databases and search engines saves valuable time, especially when working in a team. Develop a simple system to record your ‘hits’ such as presented below:

The management of references can be assisted by various useful software packages that assist you in managing the references by building a database of references.

Microsoft Word offers a basic reference management tool (located under the ‘Reference’ tab). It is recommended to use a more sophisticated one such as Citavi, Zotero or EndNote. Lucerne University recommends using Zotero or Citavi. Most of these tools enable you to write your list of references automatically, with the preferred citation standard.  For more information go to the HSLU library website (information is in German). For more information on Citavi go to  https://www.citavi.com (only Windows) or their manual.

However, when you use software management systems always check references as these tools are not free of error (see the guidelines for correct in-text citations and list of references in this book).