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Many
graduate students have a pretty good idea of the topics they wish to explore
when they begin their research methodology class in preparation for writing
their graduate thesis or project at CSUS. Less
clear is what is required to do a comprehensive literature review in
their field of study, which makes up Chapter Two of the thesis.
In
the simplest terms, a review of the literature is a carefully considered
synthesis of what is known and not known about a topic and related areas by the
scholars in a particular field of study. Emphasis
is on scholarly
resources, (professional or peer reviewed journals and books), rather than
what appears in the popular press. It
is often described as a bibliographic essay, and should identify established
ideas and knowledge. It must also
focus on the particular problem or issue chosen for the thesis topic and
identify the various strengths and weaknesses of the studies read. It is not just an annotated
bibliography. It should analyze,
contrast and compare the ideas reflected in the sources, not just summarize
them.
The
process of completing a literature review will expand the researcher’s
knowledge about the topic and help to identify areas of controversy and fruitful
areas for possible research. Through
it, the major scholars in the field can be identified, and articles, books,
government documents or even online resources that will prove most useful to the
research project can be located.
It
is important therefore to do preliminary research before the actual thesis
statement is discussed and approved by a thesis advisor. It is also
important to determine which style
manual is required. A list of useful Writing Guides
can be found under Library Guides by
Subject on the home page. The
Office of Graduate Studies has forms linked to their web site http://www.csus.edu/gradstudies/forms.htm.
Some departments have additional guidelines for their graduate
students and provide workshops and
forms to help get started.
How do I begin?
Coursework
leading up to the thesis provides the best opportunity to explore topics of
interest. Discussion with fellow students
and with faculty advisors is also useful. Graduate students can often build
a file of articles that might lead to a thesis topic while writing other papers.
Choose
the right Vocabulary. Create
a Brainstorm list – keywords and subject heading that relate to the topic.
This list will grow as new sources reveal additional terms or controlled
vocabulary that are used by the Library of Congress Classification System by or
indexes and abstracting services. Many
indexes and online databases maintain their own list of subject headings, often
called a Thesaurus of Descriptors. Learning
how to identify the appropriate terms to describe a topic is the key to finding
the best material. It's always a good idea to stop by the Reference Desk and ask
for help with this.
Make
friends (and a research appointment) with a librarian.
A list of Subject Specialists is on the Library home
page. Most under-gradutate students can do adequate searching in databases to get enough information for 5-10 page papers, but graduate students are expected to become expert searchers and find the definitive research materials to support their thesis statements. Librarians with subject expertise in your field of study are available for individual research appoints and can show you how to take advantage of all the special features that our research databases provide. Many databases now include programs that will convert the citations found in a database into the correct style format required by your department, such as APA, MLA, Chicago or Turabian. Make sure the librarian shows you these short-cuts and also how books from this library can be found in WorldCat which also has citation software..
Consult
a special encyclopedia for an overview. Each
discipline has its own specialized reference tools.
Check the Library Guides by
Subject on the Library
homepage to see if a librarian has prepared a guide.
Search EUREKA under a discipline
with the subheading “—Dictionaries” will showcase some of the most
useful sources e.g., “History --Dictionaries” or “Social Services ---
Dictionaries”.
Search
what CSUS has.
Use EUREKA to locate books, media, etc.
To look for other CSUS theses related to a topic, limit a keyword search
to: Location: CSUS Theses. All CSUS
theses since 1997 are listed by department name.
Find them by doing a title search under “CSUS thesis” with the
department name as a subheading, e.g., ”CSUS thesis (History (Public
History))” or “CSUS thesis (Social Work)”.
Find articles from appropriate databases.
Use the Database and Periodical Indexes page to identify
databases recommended by discipline. Choose
advanced searching mode and limit
searches to scholarly or peer reviewed articles whenever the option appears.
Read the Help screens. These
few minutes will pay off richly in better search results.
Check
out Government Documents.
The U.S. government is the largest publisher in the world.
CSUS is a partial depository of both state and federal documents. The California State Library downtown has them all.
Find
statistics!
Start with the Statistical Abstract of the United States, HA 202,
(also available free
online) or combine your search with the subheading, “--
statistics.” in EUREKA.
Identify
the major scholars in your field –
use the Social Sciences Citation Index database to determine which articles are cited most often using your indexing terms. It is a complicated system, so ask a librarian to help you search.
Some databases, such as PsycInfo,
now allow searching within the" Reference" or bibliography field, so
users can determine if certain authors are being cited by others.
Determine
if there’s a dissertation related to your topic.
Many databases include
dissertations from other universities and often permit searching limited to this type of
publication. Citations and abstracts are
searchable online through Dissertations and Theses Abstracts (ProQuest) with coverage back to 1637. Full text is available in pdf for the most recent years.
For older years you may have to try interlibrary loan or deal with the commercial service DAI. Dissertation Abstracts International produced by UMI .
CSUS has the paper Comprehensive Dissertation Index which covers American
dissertations back to 1861. Once a useful dissertation is identified, it
may be purchased through University Microforms International, either online at
the link listed above or by calling 1 (800) 521-0600. Most
universities do not lend their dissertations through Interlibrary Loan.
Find
what other libraries have – Use the
Catalog of the CSU
Libraries. Try MELVYL the
Catalog of the University of California Libraries, or WorldCat , which contains over 50 million records with material dating back to the 11th
century. You will be expected to search widely for materials in your
specialty.
Use our
Interlibrary Service to borrow
books,
journals and other research material the CSUS Library may not own. From the library home page click on My Library Accounts to create passwords to allow you to borrow books and/or articles from other libraries through the Iliad system and to create an account in EUREKA so that you can place holds on books and renew them online.
Join a Listserv – Network with other
researchers in your field, using email discussion groups.
How
do I know when I've finished?
A true scholar
is never done reading and researching in his or her field. The
simple answer is that this question is decided between a graduate student and
the thesis
advisor. Once all the things suggested above have been accomplished, the
components of Chapter Two will be ready.
SOME
INTERNET SITES AND RESOURCES
Lots of universities have guides on what is expected of their graduate
students. To see a few other examples, use a familiar search engine as shown
below:
Ask. http://www.ask.com Type "How do I write a literature review " in the box next to
"Ask." This site will
give you several suggestions for
searching topics.
Clusty. http://clusty.com This metasearch engine searches across the results of other search engines, ranking those higher that score high on more than one search engine. It then "clusters" the results into useful folders which groups like items together. It's very helpful in focusing on specific aspects of your topic.
Google. http://www.google.com/ Use Advanced Search using the
exact phrase "how to write
a literature review." and limit to domain "edu".
Google Scholar. http://scholar.google.com This beta project of Google has scanned and indexed the contents of hundreds of library periodical databases. It acts as a metasearch engine so you don't have to know which of our many databases is most likely to contain your search terms. Just use Google Scholar and then click the Find It @SacState link to get back to our databases to determine if we subscribe to the journal. Anyone can use this link to find articles in our databases, but only authenticated Sac State users can actually access the full-text of the articles if they are in a commercial database whcih we pay lots of money to access.
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