Literature Review

If you are going to do a literature review and you need a simple and succinct instruction to develop an authentic review you might need to see this site. Although it has been written in a very simple language, I found it a profound introduction about writing literature review. For example, I like the ten reasons that are presented here as the reasons behind any literature review. Based on this site these reasons are:
“Provide a context for the research, justify the research, ensure the research hasn't been done before (or if it is repeated, that it is marked as a "replication study"), show where the research fits into the existing body of knowledge, enable the researcher to learn from previous theory on the subject, illustrate how the subject has been studied previously, highlight flaws in previous research, outline gaps in previous research, show that the work is adding to the understanding and knowledge of the field, help refine, refocus or even change the topic.”
If you manage to develop a review which is able to address these ten points then I would say this is a perfect review.

Photo by Yazdan Mansourian: Cambridge, Trinity College, April 2006.

Popular posts from this blog

Web Search Efficacy

The following paper was published recently: Mansourian, Y. (2008). Web search efficacy: definition and implementation, Aslib Proceedings , Vol. 60, No. 4, pp. 349-363. Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to report a number of factors that are perceived by web users as influential elements in their search procedure. The paper introduces a new conceptual measure called “web search efficacy” (hereafter WSE) to evaluate the performance of searches mainly based on users' perceptions. Design/methodology/approach – A rich dataset of a wider study was inductively re-explored to identify different categories that are perceived influential by web users on the final outcome of their searches. A selective review of the literature was carried out to discover to what extent previous research supports the findings of the current study. Findings – The analysis of the dataset led to the identification of five categories of influential factors. Within each group different factors have been recognize...
Read more

Off the Web

Image
I used to have access to the web at home and always considered it as a bonus. I could not imagine a day without it. It was an indispensable part of my stuff at home. However, recently I do not have access to it at home and interestingly I found it very useful! I just noticed how much time I used to spend on the web. Now I spend that time on reading books which is much more enjoyable.
Read more

ISSI 2011 in Durban

13th ISSI (International Society for Scientometrics and Infometrics) Conference will take place in Durban, South Africa from 4th to 8th July 2011. The conference topics include: theory, methods and techniques in Scientometrics and Infometrics, citation and co-citation analysis, indicators, Webometrics, mapping & visualization, research policy, productivity & publications, journals, databases and electronic publications, scholar collaborations, country level studies and patent analysis. For more details, please have a look at the conference’s website .
Read more