One of the most frequent requests for dissertation help is to clarify what is required for a review of literature. This series of articles takes that process apart piece by piece. This article deals with how to analyze what you are reading. Others in the series discuss: what to include in your notes and how to organize those notes for the most efficient and effective recovery when it comes time to write.
Start by questioning your university for guidelines on what they consider a rigorous dissertation lit review. If you find no clear guidelines available it is reasonable to assume that seventy five pieces of peer reviewed literature actually used in your writing would be about average for Chapter 2 of a dissertation. This means that you will likely need to have read approximately 150-200 articles, which, at an average of three a week equates to approximately a year of reading, making notes and organizing.
What to include? Obviously an article has caught your interest for a reason, for instance it may say something that intrigues or provokes, yet is it worthy of inclusion? My suggestion would be to say yes to all the authors and their works that add to your understanding of your topic but to judge them on the following points. Those about which you can answer the following questions with a "Yes!" meet the highest criteria for inclusion.
Criteria for a rigorous and relevant article
Was it published within the last three to five years? While this may not matter for some topics, most new research needs to be based, or at the least obviously aware of, the latest in your field. Will this article demonstrate that you understand what is current?
Does the author draw out a complete explanation? Usually this is accompanied by you putting it down with a sense that they either explained something very well and/or that you understand what they were discussing better or more fully than before.
Have you seen these ideas before? If so, is there any indication that this author is an original source (i.e. this is someone that others cite and reference)? If no, and these ideas seem to be important to your argument, go through this authors references and keep tracking back until you find the original source.
Rate the authors quality as to building a logical argument, do they seem to think critically and deeply about their (and your) topic? Generally if you have found the article provocative in some way there is a spark there - now ask yourself about whether their scholarship goes deep enough so that it can be a foundation for your work? This may be demonstrated through an analysis of the interrelationships within your topic area. Another clue would be an author who discusses procedures or assumptions, is transparent in their reasoning and demonstrates an expertise on which they base their ideas. If the ideas are good but the scholarship is weak, see if you can find other articles that back it up, or, better yet, improve upon it.
Is this article quotable? Does the author write particularly well, put things in an engaging way or say something startling?
Finally, if this article is research, can you find the purpose, scope, methodology, findings, conclusions, limitations, and contributions of it to the field? If so, then these can be noted in the abstract section of EndNote or whatever database you are using to categorize your literature.
Some students have told me they keep this list on the computer and then have a code for their overall impression against these ideas - ranking 1-5. The rank is then added to a field in EndNote - allowing them to sort by topics and then rank by rigor prior to writing. More about using EndNote as a tool for writing lit reviews in another article.
There are other resources the doctoral student will find helpful in starting this process. General dissertation headings and a video that explains the logic of the three chapter proposal have also proven helpful an can be found at: http://www.doctoralnet.com/ E. Alana James, Ed.D. works as a consultant for a number of universities mentoring doctoral students through to completion. Her Doctoral Net site puts these resources on the web and allow you to have the help you need to finish your dissertation more efficiently. Dr. James works with doctoral in business and education through a series of free and for a moderate payment services.
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