Category Archives: literature reviews

reading against the literatures – #litreview

Advice on literature reviews pretty well always say something like – the literature review should say what’s already been said about your topic – or – you need to bring together the particular literatures that your study is going to … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, literature a resource, literature mapping, literature review, literature reviews | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

I’m writing a journal article – what literatures do I choose?

I’m often asked about the literatures sections of journal articles. Not your literatures based paper of course but your standard empirical paper. They only want a short section! I can’t cram everything I’ve read into a few paragraphs – how … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, journal article, literature review, literature reviews | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

getting to grips with new literatures

Over time all researchers build a knowledge base about their key interests. A large part of this knowledge is a core set of literatures. They/we do need to keep up to date, but they/we can rely on – and use … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, Endnote, literature mapping, literature review, literature reviews, note-taking | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

orientations to reading – the literature as ‘resources’

Everyone knows that doing research means doing lots of reading. And that Reading leads to literature reviews which are crucial to research proposals, theses and papers. The most common way to think about working with the literatures is to use … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, literature a resource, literature review, literature reviews, literature themes | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

getting ready to write about “the literature”

You’ve all heard that the doctorate is about making an original contribution To the literature. Well, that’s right, although what that means is not nearly as scary as it sounds. What you may not be told is that doing a … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, literature mapping, literature review, literature reviews, preparation | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

why​ is writing a literature review such hard work? part two

Yes, some examiners do ask doctoral researchers to change their literature review to show how they are “located” in the text. OK, let’s pretend this is you. What do those pesky examiners mean exactly? At one level this is a … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, Joseph Harris, literature review, text work/identity work, transforming knowledge | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

why is writing a literature review such hard work? part one

Yes, a literature review means reading a lot. Yes, a literature review means sorting out how to bring the texts all together, summarising and synthesising them. And yes, there are lots of ways to do this. But this post is … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, knowledge domains, literature review, literature reviews | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

quick lit – rapid evidence reviewing

This is one of a very occasional set of posts about some of my own academic work that you might find useful. A colleague and I have just undertaken what is called in the (academic) trade a Rapid Evidence Review. … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, literature mapping, literature review, literature reviews, Rapid Evidence Review | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

putting the search into research – starting the phd

Getting through a doctorate requires a finely honed information practice. You have to become pretty good at summarising, synthesising and categorising ‘stuff’ – otherwise known as ‘the literatures’.  But you also have to keep track of what you’ve read, and … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, keywords, literature review, literature reviews, research, searching, starting the PhD | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

literatures work – and a pair of new shoes…

It’s September and the Autumn equinox. To mark the occasion, I took my new pair of lace-up boots out of their box and gave them their first wearing/airing. Now anyone who knows me knows that I always have a pair … Continue reading

Posted in literature mapping, literature review, literature reviews, mapping, reading, scan-reading, scoping, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments