如何准备文献综述和撰写论文

Finding, formulating and exploring your topic.

Different topic creations

Many students have in mind something that they want to work on; others want to work with aparticular scholar or research centre. In the first case, students search for a compatible supervisor.In the second, for a topic. Regardless of these preliminary circumstances, the topic is very likelyonly roughly formulated at this stage. This is usually enough to have your enrolment accepted.

Reading the literature

Once you have a general idea, you could start by talking to your supervisor and other scholars. But,most importantly, you have to think why you would like to work on it, or why anyone would wantto do so. Ask yourself, "Why is it important? What is interesting about this? Suppose I solve it, orfind it, or pull it all together, what use is it? What is its significance?" Then, with some questionssuch as these in mind, go and read more about it to see what is there and find out what aspects of ithave been exhausted, what neglected, what the main ideas, issues and controversies are in the area.It is regarded as your supervisor's role to direct you to the most fruitful starting point in readingand surveying the literature.

Cycle of literature review

All of this is not a once only activity, but is a cycle you go through again and again. So you read,think, and discuss it with your supervisor and then, as a result, come closer to the formulation ofthe topic. And then with each cycle of reading, thinking and discussing your topic becomes morespecific and focused.

This is not the final formulation and the last time you will focus your topic. But you couldprobably let go of this round of general exploration and embark on the next stage. Your supervisorby this time should have enough of an idea of your topic to judge whether or not what you proposeto do is feasible within the time available and has the potential to meet the required standards for aPhD. To see the full potential of your topic or, to the contrary, see that it is not going todeliver what you wanted, you do need to begin doing your research. This, of course, is why pilotstudies are often undertaken.

Making sense of the literature

We do truly wish we could tell you about a reliable or simple way to make senseof the literature. We can say, however, that you need to attend to things attwo levels:

 One is establishing a system that will allow you to organise the hardcopies of the articles etc., and develop a data base for references, soyou have easy access under relevant categories and don't chase the samereferences repeatedly.

 The other is the more demanding task of understanding and using theliterature for your purposes.

Without attending to the first task, you could easily become inefficient andfrustrated. However, although it is necessary to have some way of keeping track,don't spend all your energies on perfecting your system. It may be a good ideato attend a course for researchers on handling information. Check whether youruniversity's library or computer centre offers such a course.

The other task ahead of you of understanding, reviewing and using theliterature for your purposes goes to the heart of your thesis. We considerthis in three stages.

Making sense of the literature first pass

When you first come to an area of research, you are filling in the backgroundin a general way, getting a feel for the whole area, an idea of its scope,

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starting to appreciate the controversies, to see the high points, and to becomemore familiar with the major players. You need a starting point. This may comeout of previous work you've done. If you're new to the area, your supervisorcould suggest fruitful starting points. Or you could pursue some recent reviewarticles to begin.

Too much to handle

At this stage there seems to be masses of literature relevant to your research.

Or you may worry that there seems to be hardly anything. As you read, thinkabout and discuss articles and isolate the issues you're more interested in. Inthis way, you focus your topic more and more. The more you can close in on whatyour research question actually is, the more you will be able to have a basisfor selecting the relevant areas of the literature. This is the only way tobring it down to a manageable size.

Very little there

If initially you can't seem to find much at all on your research area and youare sure that you've exploited all avenues for searching that the library canpresent you with then there are a few possibilities:

 You could be right at the cutting edge of something new and it's notsurprising there's little around.

 You could be limiting yourself to too narrow an area and notappreciating that relevant material could be just around the corner in aclosely related field.

 Unfortunately there's another possibility and this is that there'snothing in the literature because it is not a worthwhile area ofresearch. In this case, you need to look closely with your supervisor atwhat it is you plan to do.

Quality of the Literature

This begins your first step in making sense of the literature. You are notnecessarily closely evaluating it now; you are mostly learning through it. But,sometimes at this stage students do ask us how they can judge the quality ofthe literature they're reading, as they're not experts.

You learn to judge, evaluate, and look critically at the literature by judging,evaluating and looking critically at it. That is, you learn to do so bypractising. There is no quick recipe for doing this but there are somequestions you could find useful and, with practice, you will develop manyothers:

 Is the problem clearly spelled out?

 Are the results presented new?

 Was the research influential in that others picked up the threads andpursued them?

 How large a sample was used?

 How convincing is the argument made?

 How were the results analysed?

 What perspective are they coming from?

 Are the generalisations justified by the evidence on which they are made?

 What is the significance of this research?

 What are the assumptions behind the research?

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 Is the methodology well justified as the most appropriate to study theproblem?

 Is the theoretical basis transparent?

In critically evaluating, you are looking for the strengths of certain studiesand the significance and contributions made by researchers. You are alsolooking for limitations, flaws and weaknesses of particular studies, or ofwhole lines of enquiry.

Indeed, if you take this critical approach to looking at previous research inyour field, your final literature review will not be a compilation of summariesbut an evaluation. It will then reflect your capacity for critical analysis.

Making sense of the literature second pass

You continue the process of making sense of the literature by gaining moreexpertise which allows you to become more confident, and by being much morefocused on your specific research.

You're still reading and perhaps needing to re-read some of the literature.You're thinking about it as you are doing your experiments, conducting yourstudies, analysing texts or other data. You are able to talk about it easilyand discuss it. In other words, it's becoming part of you.

At a deeper level than before, you are now not only looking at findings but are looking at how othershave arrived at their findings; you're looking at what assumptions are leading to the way something isinvestigated; you're looking for genuine differences in theories as opposed tosemantic differences; you also are gaining an understanding of why the field developed in theway it did; you have a sense for where it might be going.

First of all you probably thought something like, "I just have to get a handleon this". But now you see that this 'handle' which you discovered for yourselfturns out to be the key to what is important. You are very likely getting tothis level of understanding by taking things to pieces and putting them backtogether.

For example, you may need to set up alongside one another four or fivedifferent definitions of the same concept, versions of the same theory, ordifferent theories proposed to account for the same phenomenon. You may need tounpack them thoroughly, even at the very basic level of what is the impliedunderstanding of key words (for example 'concept', 'model', 'principles' etc.),before you can confidently compare them, which you need to do before synthesisis possible.

Or, for example, you may be trying to sort through specific discoveries whichhave been variously and concurrently described by different researchers indifferent countries. You need to ask questions such as whether they are thesame discoveries being given different names or, if they are not the same,

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whether they are related. In other words, you may need to embark on verydetailed analyses of parts of the literature while maintaining the generalpicture.

Making sense of the literature final pass

You make sense of the literature finally when you are looking back to placeyour own research within the field. At the final pass, you really see how yourresearch has grown out of previous work. So now you may be able to identifypoints or issues that lead directly to your research. You may see points whosesignificance didn't strike you at first but which now you can highlight. Or youmay realise that some aspect of your research has incidentally providedevidence to lend weight to one view of a controversy. Having finished your ownresearch, you are now much better equipped to evaluate previous research inyour field.

From this point when you have finished your own research and you look back andfill in the picture, it is not only that you understand the literature and canhandle it better, but you could also see how it motivates your own research.When you conceptualise the literature in this way, it becomes an integral partof your research.

Writing the literature review

What we are talking about here is the writing of the review. We assume that youhave made sense of the literature, and that you know the role of the literatureand its place in your thesis. Below are links to other sections covering theseaspects.

You will doubtless write your literature review several times. Since eachversion will serve a different purpose, you should not think you are writingthe same thing over and over and getting nowhere. Where you may strike troubleis if you just try to take whole sections out of an earlier version and pastethem into the final version which, by now, has to be differently conceived.

In practical terms, it is necessary to have an overall picture of how thethread runs through your analysis of the literature before you can get down toactually writing a particular section. The strategy which writers use as a wayto begin the literature review is to proceed from the general, wider view ofthe research you are reviewing to the specific problem. This is not a formulabut is a common pattern and may be worth trying.

Let's look at an example taken from the first pages of a literaturereview. This shows us the progression from general to specific and thebeginning of that thread which then continues through the text leading to the

aims.

Despite the undisputed success of quantum mechanics, manyimportant fundamental problems and questions remainunanswered (see for example X, 1973): the measuringprocess cannot be satisfactorily described in QMformalism; there are great mathematical stumbling blocksto attempt to make QM consistent with the assumptions ofspecial relativity; ……….., just to name a few.

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[This is basically an introductory section, which starts with astatement of the problem in very broad terms, alerting us to the factthat not everything is rosy, and proceeds to sketch in specific aspects.]

Without doubt, one of the most widely discussed of these…is …[this closes in on what the focus of the problem is]Like most fundamental issues in physics, this questionleads to challenges at several levels of thought. At thephilosophical level this issue poses questions about

….

At the physical level we are forced to examine

…. At the

mathematical level many questions are raised about thecompleteness and logical consistency

….

[The text moves on to specify issues at various levels. Although thefocus is sharper, the coverage at the same time opens out.]

An important instance in which all of these challengesconverge occurs with the concept of 'angle' in thedescription of quantum systems…

[Thus the text has set up the situation where all aspects of theproblem--theoretical, practical, etc.--are brought together.]

Whatever the pattern which fits your work best, you need to keep in mind thatwhat you are doing is writing about what was done before. But, you are notsimply reporting on previous research. You have to write about it in terms ofhow well it was done and what it achieved. This has to be organised andpresented in such a way that it inevitably leads to what you want to do andshows it is worth doing. You are setting up the stage for your work.

For example, a series of paragraphs of the kind:

"Green (1975) discovered ….";"In 1978, Black conducted experiments and discovered that….";"Later Brown (1980) illustrated this in ……";

demonstrates neither your understanding of the literature nor your ability toevaluate other people's work.

Maybe at an earlier stage, or in your first version of your literature review,you needed a summary of who did what. But in your final version, you have toshow that you've thought about it, can synthesise the work and can succinctlypass judgement on the relative merits of research conducted in your field. So,to take the above example, it would be better to say something like:

"There seems to be general agreement on x, (for example,White 1987, Brown 1980, Black 1978, Green 1975) but Green(1975) sees x as a consequence of y, while Black(1978)puts x and y as

…. While Green's work has somelimitations in that it …., its main value lies in …."

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Approaching it in this way forces you to make judgements and, furthermore, todistinguish your thoughts from assessments made by others. It is this wholeprocess of revealing limitations or recognising the possibility of takingresearch further which allows you to formulate and justify your aims.

Keep your research focused

It is always important to keep your research focused, but this is especially soat two points. First when you have settled into the topic and the time forwider exploration has to end. And then again at a later stage when you may havegathered lots of data and are starting to wonder how you are going to deal withit all.

Focus after literature review

First, it is a common temptation to prolong the exploration phase by findingmore and more interesting things and straying away from what was once regardedas the possible focus. Either you or your supervisor could be guilty of this.In some cases, it might be you who is putting off having to make a commitmentto one line of enquiry because exploration and realising possibilities isenjoyable and you're always learning more. In other cases, it could be yoursupervisor who, at every meeting, becomes enthusiastic about otherpossibilities and keeps on suggesting alternatives. You might not be sure ifthis is just sharing excitement with you or if you are supposed to follow themall up.

Either way you need to stop the proliferation of lines of enquiry, sift throughwhat you have, settle on one area, and keep that focus before you. It couldeven be a good idea to write it up on a poster in front of your desk. Unlessyou have this really specified in the first place, with the major question andits sub-questions, and you know exactly what you have to find out to answerthese, you will never be focused and everything you find will seem to be 'sortof' relevant.

You have to close off some lines of enquiry and you can do so only once youdecide they are not relevant to your question. We continually meet students who,when we ask, "So what is the question you're researching?", will answer, "Mytopic is such and such and I'm going to look at x, y and z". Sometimes furtherprobing from us will reveal that they do indeed have a focus, but many timesthis is not so. Thinking in terms of your topic is too broad. You need to think,rather, of what it is you are investigating about the topic.

 Questions force you to find answers; topics inviteyou to talk about things.

Focus after data collection

Then, at a later stage, you could find yourself surrounded by lots of datawhich you know are somewhat relevant to your project, but finding the ways ofshowing this relevance and using the data to answer your question could be adifficult task. Now you have to re-find your focus to bring it all together.

Again, it is your research question and sub-questions which will help you

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to do this because your whole thesis is basically the answer to these questions,that is, the solution to the problem you presented at the beginning. This maystrike you as a very simplistic way to view it. However, approaching it in thisway does help to bring the parts together as a whole and get the whole to work.

We even recommend that, to relate the parts to each other and keep yourselffocussed , you could tell yourself the story of the thesis.

Making a deliberate attempt to keep focused will help you to shape yourresearch and keep you motivated.

Apparently I have to write a research proposal. What do I need to do?

The main purpose of a research proposal is to show that the problem you proposeto investigate is significant enough to warrant the investigation, the methodyou plan to use is suitable and feasible, and the results are likely to provefruitful and will make an original contribution. In short, what you areanswering is 'will it work?'

The level of sophistication or amount of detail included in your proposal willdepend on the stage you are at with your PhD and the requirements of yourdepartment and University.

 In initial stages, the document you need to write will probably be threeto five pages long. It will give a general idea of what you areproposing to do but it isn't a binding contract. Often it serves as astarting point for discussions with your supervisor to firm up the topic,methodology and mechanics of your research.

 Some of you will be required to write a proposal at the time ofconfirming your candidature (usually at the end of the first year). Insome instances, this is a document of four to five pages and may beviewed as a mere formality. In other cases a much more substantialdocument of 30 40 pages is expected. Therefore it is essential for youto check the requirements with your department.

Regardless of the above distinctions you should never see writing a proposal asa worthless chore. Indeed, if it isn't formally required, it is a very goodidea to write one anyway. You can use it to your advantage. It always forcesyou to think about your topic, to see the scope of your research, and to reviewthe suitability of your methodology. Having something in writing also gives anopportunity to your supervisor to judge the feasibility of the project (whetherit is possible to finish in time, costs, the equipment needed and otherpracticalities, time needed for supervision), to assess its likelihood ofsuccess, and its ability to meet the academic standard required of a PhD thesis.

While there are no hard and fast rules governing the structure of a proposal, atypical one would include: aims and objectives, significance, review ofprevious research in the area showing the need for conducting the proposedresearch, proposed methods, expected outcomes and their importance. Inexperimentally based research it often includes detailed requirements forequipment, materials, field trips, technical assistance and an estimation ofthe costs. It could also include an approximate time by which each stage is tobe completed.

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write a abstract

. Indeed, the final version of the abstract will need to be written after youhave finished reading your thesis for the last time.

However, if you think about what it has to contain, you realise that theabstract is really a mini thesis. Both have to answer the following specificquestions:

1. What was done?

2. Why was it done?

3. How was it done?

4. What was found?

5. What is the significance of thefindings?

Therefore, an abstract written at different stages of your work will help youto carry a short version of your thesis in your head. This will focus yourthinking on what it is you are really doing , help you to see the relevance ofwhat you are currently working on within the bigger picture, and help to keepthe links which will eventually unify your thesis.

Process

The actual process of writing an abstract will force you to justify and clearlystate your aims, to show how your methodology fits the aims, to highlight themajor findings and to determine the significance of what you have done. Thebeauty of it is that you can talk about this in very short paragraphs and seeif the whole works. But when you do all of these things in separate chaptersyou can easily lose the thread or not make it explicit enough.

If you have trouble writing an abstract at these different stages, then thiscould show that the parts with which you are having a problem are not wellconceptualised yet.

We often hear that writing an abstract can't be done until the results areknown and analysed. But the point we are stressing is that it is a working toolthat will help to get you there.

Before you know what you've found, you have to have some expectation of whatyou are going to find as this expectation is part of what is leading you toinvestigate the problem. In writing your abstract at different stages, any partyou haven't done you could word as a prediction. For example, at one stage youcould write, "The analysis is expected to show that …". Then, at the nextstage, you would be able to write "The analysis showed that …." or "Contraryto expectation, the analysis showed that …..".

The final, finished abstract has to be as good as you can make it. It is thefirst thing your reader will turn to and therefore controls what the firstimpression of your work will be. The abstract has

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 to be short-no more than about 700 words;

 to say what was done and why, how it was done, the major things thatwere found, and what is the significance of the findings (rememberingthat the thesis could have contributed to methodology and theory aswell).

In short, the abstract has to be able to stand alone and be understoodseparately from the thesis itself.

Is there a particular thesis structure I have to follow?

There are certain conventions specific to certain disciplines. However, thesestructures are not imposed on a piece of work. There are logical reasons whythere is a conventional way of structuring the thesis, which is after all theaccount of what you've achieved through your research. Research is of coursenot conducted in the step-by-step way this structure suggests, but it gives thereader the most accessible way of seeing why this research was done, how it wasdone and, most importantly, what has been achieved. If you put side by side allthe questions you had to answer to finish your research and what is oftenproposed as a typical structure of a thesis, then you see the logic of thearrangement. That does not mean, however, that you have to name your chaptersin this way. In some disciplines, it very often is like this; in others, thisstructure is implied. For example, in many science theses, the followingbasically is the structure; in many humanities theses, the final structurelooks very different, although all of these questions are answered one way oranother.

Why am I doing it?

Introduction

Significance

What is known?

What is unknown?

Review of

research

Identifying

gaps

What do I hope to discover?

Aims

How am I going to discover it?

Methodology

What have I found?

Results

What does it mean?

Discussion

So what? What are the possible applicationsor recommendations?

What contribution does it make to knowledge?

What next?

Conclusions

Occasionally a thesis is written which does not in any way comply with thisstructure. Generally the reasons you want to have a recognised, transparentstructure are that, to some extent, it is expected and the conventionalstructure allows readers ready access to the information. If, however, you want

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to publish a book based on the thesis, it is likely the structure would need tobe altered for the different genre and audience.