Literature Survey

Research is a systematic investigation to add some knowledge to existing knowledge. It can be any of these types as in the following figure. 

  • In the research, you quantify something for an example where you determine the toxic chemicals in a food product?
  • Definition research can be the research where artificial intelligence was first introduced and defined.
  • Qualitative research can be about a survey you do to collect people's ideas on Facebook impacts for covid. 

Doing research is not one day work. It includes commitment and passion throughout these steps. Why are we doing research? We are providing novel knowledge which will ultimately benefit society. So, we are addressing some issues in the world. So, you first identify the problem or some area that has issues. Secondly, you should read about previous research which is relevant to your topic. Because you should not repeat the same thing which has been already done. Then it is not research. Then you plan for your research or experiments, collect data, and finally analyse them. After that, you should expose what you did to the world. It is through a research paper. So, you finally write your thesis or a research publication and publish it. Here the focus is the literature survey which is the foundation for your research house. Before going deeper into the literature survey, some terms should be familiarized, and I have explained them with my current knowledge.
 
Keywords: Text you enter to search for relevant research papers. Try to think of some keywords before starting the search. With more time during the literature survey, you can increase your keywords collection. If you only search papers with one set of words, then you may miss lots of important papers. Thus, it is better to change the words and extend your search to have a sufficient collection. 

Research question: One of the major aspects of the entire research project. It is what you are going to answer/address from your project because it is a problem that has not been solved by existing studies. Remember it should be researchable otherwise you will only waste your time and money on the project. It should be significant and specifically, it should be novel. If you are going to present some others’ research or repeat the same thing, then it is not researching but rather preparing an article. The research problem can be about an area, a condition, a difficulty, or a troubling issue that was usually identified from previous literature.
 
Research gap: It is the missing piece you find from the literature relevant to your research area. “It is an area that has not yet been explored or is underexplored. This could be a population or sample (size, type, location, etc.), research method, data collection and/or analysis, or other research variables or conditions.” The research question lies in this gap. It takes some time to find this gap. Read & read. Thus, identification of the research gap can lead you to define a research question that you are going to solve. In most cases, for undergraduates, your supervisor did the initial study and gave you the research topic. So, you may not have to find the research problem and decide your project topic.  But usually, it is not similar for master's or PhD students. When I started my PhD research, my supervisor gave me only the research area. So, it was kind of looking for a light in a dark room. I had to dig more and more until I find something missing in the research papers. It took about 3 full months with lots of improvements and changes. Even though your supervisor already gave you the topic, you as a student should understand what question lies in your project. Otherwise, you cannot get a good outcome. This gap can be an entirely new one or something which needs more exploration. 

Hypothesis: That is the prediction you make at the start of your research. You are going to solve a question. So, you assume, I am going to solve it in this way, and it will be successful. The hypothesis can be changed when you are getting your data. 

Citation: “A reference to a published/unpublished source that you consulted and obtained information from while writing your research paper.” We always referred to other works as examples, some theories, equations, experimental methods, statistical methods, etc. You should give them credit for their work. Otherwise, it is plagiarism. 

“A literature survey is a comprehensive summary of previous research on a topic. In that, we survey scholarly articles, books & other sources relevant to a particular research area. It should enumerate, describe, summarize, objectively evaluate & clarify the previous research.”

Literature review

Purpose of Literature Review

Not only reviewing the literature.

Demonstrate familiarity with the topic & scholarly context.

But situating your work within the literature.

Develop a theoretical framework/methodology.

Identifying research gaps & questions.

Position your approach (objectives).

 

Identify a research gap.

When I was doing my literature study in PhD, at the beginning I was clueless to select what should I refer to. With the given research area by my supervisor, my first task was to narrow down the area and find something interesting where I can find some research gaps. For that, I first read some review papers on the broader research area and checked whether they have given some perspectives for future research. In this way to find the research problem, I also watched YouTube videos & attended sessions on literature surveys. Additionally, I have read some Q&A forums in PhD communities (on Facebook, Quora, and LinkedIn). The main aspect I have identified is that there is no shortcut to identifying the research question, but the only thing I have to do is read papers & critically review them. Thus read, read & read! 

My professor said that we would hold meetings once every 2 weeks to discuss this. Thus, every two weeks, I went through a set of papers to identify some gaps and a problem while narrow downing my research area. I remember that I did not do well at the 1st meeting because my findings were not up to standard. But my professor gave some advice that guided me on the correct track while realizing my faults. With the comments and suggestions given by my supervisor during the entire period, I made some changes in the direction of the literature study and improved my reviewing ability. When I was reading papers, I made some short notes and highlighted important parts while citing the existing studies. It helped me to keep on track of what I read and to see the big picture at the end. While going through research papers and reviewing them, intermediate brainstorming approaches helped me to identify existing research gaps. Stop for a moment and see what you have done so far. It helped me to refreshen my mind and think about my ideas. 

So far, I have read more than 300 papers for my literature study in PhD research. Even though it is time-consuming and a bit difficult at the start (for beginners), it is the basis for every successful research study. Finally, after commitments for a few months, my professor approved the research problem which was finalized in the end, and I started my experiments accordingly. A supervisor is an expert who can decide whether it is applicable for a PhD study or not. Remember to be aware of some factors when you are deciding on your research topic after identifying the research problem such as your passion, knowledge of general context, time, practicability (doable), need for ethical approvals and resources, etc. Brainstorming for appropriate keywords and concepts before searching the papers helped me in the development of my research topic. Additionally, you can also use a concept map where you can think of more creative ideas and find connections between them. 

Some tools I used for my literature survey:

1. Google Scholar: A freely accessible web search engine providing a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature across a wide variety of disciplines & sources. Finding all the good & relevant literature is a crucial step in the literature survey. I used it
      • To search the relevant literature effectively with appropriate keywords.
      • To filter the literature search according to year (when I need recent papers). 
      • To check their citations easily.
An efficient search can be obtained by using proper keywords. For that, I took the following steps. 
      • Use Boolean operators (and/or/not). 
      • Read abstracts.
      • Check bibliographies for more sources. 
      • Note recurring citations (key articles).
2. Mendeley: A reference manager for researchers to manage & share research papers & generate bibliographies for their papers. I used it because
      • I can use it at any time with different devices, so I do not need to bring all my research papers everywhere. 
      • I can access them by the mobile app of Mendeley. 
      • Creating a reference page through Mendeley is much easier. 
      • Reading papers on this platform is effective & efficient.
A good video I watched before starting to use Mendeley: How to use Reference Manager | Mendeley Sinhalen (by IQ labs) 

3. OneNote: A note-taking program for free-form information gathering & multi-user collaboration. I used it,
      • As a note-taking diary for later reference.
      • In the literature survey, I had to refer to many research papers, but remembering all facts throughout the research is not realistic.
      • To extract important information from literature & tabulate it according to a given format (synthesis matrix).
      • To get an overview & also for the brainstorming process by looking at the synthesis matrix.

4. ResearchGate: A social networking site for researchers/research students to share their publications, ask/ answer questions related to research, & find collaborators for their research projects. I used it 
      • To ask questions from experts when I have some confusion in my experiments. 
      • To ask about 1 research conference I was going to attend to verify its reliability. 
      • Experts (researchers/ university professors) answered my questions even though I don’t know them. 
      • To stay updated on your research field.

Steps of Literature Review

Structure of Literature Review

Composing Literature Review

Research question selection

Introduction – Establishing the purpose

If your body paragraphs contain all three aspects, they can be considered complete & good.

Select & evaluate sources.

Body – Analysing the literature

Descriptive / reporting element.

Identify themes, conclusions, gaps, and debates.

Conclusion – Summarizing the key findings

Interpretive / critical element.

 

Outline your structure.

 

Responding with critique.

Write literature review

 

 
Some writing tools I used during my literature survey:
1. Grammarly
      • To correct grammatical errors
      • Can add to the word or use an online version.
2. Turnitin
      • To detect plagiarism and correct it.
      • Plagiarism of more than ~20% is not accepted.
“Researchers must be able to trust each other's work, & they must also be trusted by society since they provide scientific expertise that may impact people's lives". Plagiarism is a scientific crime that doesn’t acknowledge your dependence on another person's ideas or words. Let’s be ethical researchers.

How do I stay updated?
      • Journal articles
      • ResearchGate
      • LinkedIn
      • YouTube videos
      • News articles
      • Online journals/magazines

Hello, I am Malsha Hansini Samarasiri who graduated from the University of Moratuwa in 2018. I worked as a lecturer in my university for 1 year contract period. Currently, I am a PhD student at NTU, Singapore.