Efficient Way of Searching the Literature

1. Literature Review - Overview
2. Part One - Literature Survey
3. Literature Survey
4. Efficient Ways Of Searching The Literature
5. Where to Hunt
6. Other Useful Info
7. Citations And Notes
8. Errors Of Judgment
9. Planning Checklist

EFFICIENT WAYS OF SEARCHING THE LITERATURE

One useful approach to surveying the literature involves decisions about (a) search strategies, (b) where to hunt, and (c) what to record and how to record it.

Search Strategies

An approach some students use is the generally-browse-and-peruse strategy. They hunt for books and journals in the broad area of their topic, then read the sources in detail, hoping to find material that might apply to their project. In our experience such a method is very inefficient. A specify-and-look-up strategy is far more productive because it saves lots of time, eliminates wading through pages that will be of no use, and guides you to where relevant material should be located in your project.When employing a specify-and-look-up approach, you first decide which functions you intend your literature survey to serve. Those functions can be cast as questions you plan to answer, such as:

1. What studies have already been conducted about my topic, and what conclusions did the authors draw?
2. What key terms did the author use that can relate to my study, and how were those terms defined?
3. What are methodological strengths and limitations of previous studies relating to my topic?
4. On what theories have previous studies been founded? Or, which theories have been applied in previous studies?

Additional questions of this sort can focus on the other functions we described earlier in this chapter. Armed with your guide questions, you skim through book chapters, journal articles, or newspaper accounts to find the answers you seek. As a result, you rarely, if ever, read a book straight through. Instead, you hunt up answers to your questions. In some instances this will require a detailed perusal of one or more chapters - sometimes an entire book or monograph - as when you wish to thoroughly understand the theory on which the study was grounded. In other cases, your task consists of hunting only for a key word or phrase in the book’s index (as in learning how an author defined a term that will be important in your project); then you read only the pages whose numbers appear for that word in the index. Sometimes your search will be guided by a single question. In other cases, you will find it economical to look up answers to several questions at the same time in order to make the most efficient use of a book, dissertation, or journal that would be difficult or inconvenient to obtain on a future occasion.

Examples of key words used in a literature search

Here are two examples of key words whose meanings students might seek in their literature search. The first example is from a project titled Social-Class Changes in a Southern Town - 1945-1995. The second is titled Treatment Plans for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

Social-Class Changes in a Southern Town - 1945-1995: Key terms can be selected either to address the project’s topic in general or to focus on a particular function that the literature is expected to serve. General key terms for the study of social class can include social class, social stratification, socioeconomic status (SES), social structure, upper class, middle class, lower class, minorities, the rich, the poor, wealth, and poverty. Words specific to a function, such as that of generating research methods for the social-class study, could include social-science research methods, survey techniques, interview techniques, social-class scales, scaling methods, and social-class typologies.

Treatment Plans for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD): General key words for the study of attention deficit can be attention, attention deficit disorder (ADD), hyperactivity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), inattention, and distractibility. If one of the chosen functions of the literature search is that of locating ADD within the learning-disorders domain of knowledge, then key terms - in addition to the foregoing general ones - could include learning disorders, learning handicaps, disadvantaged learners, special education, remedial education, and teaching the handicapped.
In summary, as you plan your literature review, you will likely find it helpful to decide which functions the review should perform and then to select both general and specific-function terms to guide your effort.