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MBS/MSPS Program Guide

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In a manuscript, the literature review is an overview of background concepts, prior research, theory, and frameworks relevant to your research project. It clarifies the rationale and necessary background knowledge on each concept for a new investigation.

This page contains resources that can help you though the literature review portion of your project.

Please contact your librarian for advice or book a consultation on any of these topics.

Planning

Keep a Research Journal

Research is a long process - you will forget why you made early decisions or lose track of goals and insights.

To help with this problem, you should start a research journal at the beginning of your project. Your research journal is a log of all decisions you have made and why you made them along with the issues you are having, the solutions you've found, and your triumphs along the way. It can be structured in many ways (chronological, topics, in a physical journal or online). Below is a template you can save and modify for your own needs.

Research Topic

As you are refining the topic and research question, you will do some exploratory searching.

Exploratory searching is not systematic or comprehensive. The purpose is to:

  1. Identify the current leading edge of research in that area
  2. Identify major papers or researcher in that area
  3. Refine your research topic, goal, and question
  4. Make certain no paper has already been done on your exact research question / methodology

Exploratory Searches - Where to search

One good place to start is by looking for any systematic reviews or meta-analyses on the same or very similar topics. Two good resources for systematic reviews and meta-analyses are PubMed and Cochrane Library.

Another good place to search are collections of dissertations and theses. These are often focused on the newest areas of research and highlight key texts in those area, because they are written by graduate students who are demonstrating their grasp of the research in their field.

Research Question

You cannot produce a solid literature review without a solid research question. The research question defines what types of background information, concepts, frameworks, and other information you need to outline in the literature review.

Finding Literature

Have a Plan

You should always have a strategy before you start. This should include:

  1. A list of where you will search
  2. A concept grid with search terms
  3. A plan of what Boolean operators and modifiers you will use
  4. A plan for where you will be storing and managing citations (see the section below this one for more information)

Decide where to search.

Identify 3-4 databases related to your search topic. For a literature review, you should always search in more than one place. Ask a librarian or your mentor for assistance.

Make a concept grid.

  1. Identify the key concepts from your research question.
  2. Write the key concepts along the top row of the grid.
  3. Identify as many search terms for each concept as you can. Include controlled vocabulary (like MeSH), acronyms, synonyms, alternate British/American English spellings, plurals, etc.
  4. Write all of these in a column below the relevant key concept term.
  5. Use the grid to develop structured searches. Combine terms down a row using the Boolean operator "OR" and combine column to column using the Boolean operator "AND"
An example of a concept grid for the question " In post-menopausal women does hormone replacement therapy compared to no HRT increase the risk of breast cancer?".
post-menopausal (women) hormone replacement therapy increased risk of breast cancer
post menopausal HRT breast cancer
post-menopause menopausal hormone therapy breast carcinoma
post menopause MHT breast tumors
postmenopause estrogen replacement therapy breast neoplasm
postmenopause [MESH] hormone replacement therapy [MESH} mammary cancer
  Estrogen Replacement Therapy [MESH] breast neoplasms [MESH]

Boolean Operators and Modifiers

Searching PubMed

Managing Results

Citation Managers

Use a citation manager to keep track of articles and quickly build reference lists and insert citations into you papers.

EndNote

Roseman provides all students with the subscription citation manager EndNote for free on you Roseman issued device for as long as you are with Roseman.

Zotero

If you would rather use free a citation manager that you will have access to after leaving Roseman, the University Library recommends Zotero. Use the resources below to get started and contact a librarian for more assistance.

Writing the Review

Reading the Literature

Compiling and Organizing the Literature Review

Once you start reading through articles, you need to consider how you will organize the information from those articles in a way that is easy for you to synthesize in your literature review. A literature review matrix is a good tool for this.

Writing Skills

Citations

Library Books