still in Year 2 Week 35

i found one of this useful blog entry from HERE regarding tips on critical reading and how to extract ideas from the literature review.
i hope with those tips, i could enhance my style of writing and improve my confidence to complete every chapters on the expected time.. insyaAllah


QUESTION: I still haven't got the grip to do critical reading and to extract the main idea from the literature review. Does anyone have any notes or tips to share. I could really use some help here


ANSWERS:

Friend 1

I suggest you look at all journals related to your topic. preferably less than 2-3 years old. if your case study is in malaysia maybe you should look at any previous journal related regardless of when it published related to your intended research.

If you have more time you can go through the list of thesis available in British Library athttp://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do just register and search for related topic. Lastly off course the books related to your topic (according to some people books maybe contain outdated information, but it is still very useful to understand the topic and theoretical perspective.

If you have done the above, what you need to do is to justify nobody have done the topic you choose (although at this stage is sill premature to say that) and how the research fill the gap of knowledge. Important to remember the 'originality' and 'contribution to knowledge' term all the time.

The book that I read about doing literature review suggest dont read the whole book at one go. so just read the intro and maybe the conclusion if needed. So you could identify the author(s) idea or contribution. After that you can transfer the info into table and compare with other authors ideas. important to identify the 'keys' books or journals for your thesis as you can begin the argument from there. Hopefully this will help you to do your proposal. Although it easier to say than actually do it.

Friend 2

....what my supervisor said, read best journal at least 2-3 years back and pick 3 main keyword that similar to our topic..( 5-6 journals would be ok...to just find a gap) by that we may not go too far..and end up reads piles of journals that's might be outdated..on the other hand we do need to read and digest all those journals, but later, after we find the grips and know how to go about in our topic...

Friend 3

Another suggestion for latest book always check with Amazon.co.uk as I always check the latest plus the future books for publication until 2011 (title not release yet but could give you ideas what coming up in the near future). Google Books also good but too much time consuming because they provide you with the selected content of the book and where to buy. But I always used that information to borrow books from our library or British Library. For journals please refer to Google Scholar and used your library on-line journal access to get the copy.

Friend 4

.....While journals may give you recent information on methods or empirical case stud(ies) , I find books are still the best sources for some concepts, theories and frameworks especially when they are authored by the big names in your research area. And some (especially the recent ones) are very helpful in giving hints for future research direction as well.

What I do is tabulating the suggestions for future research which i picked from my readings (both from books and journals). After some time you can easily identify what sort of issues that are not being attended to yet. And i guess, that's when you can identify the research gaps easily as you will notice a certain trend.

Friend 5

......as you may know by now, firming your idea on the topic and doing the literature review is one of the hardest part of the whole journey of doing PhD. Jangan risau, semua orang melalui pengalaman yang lebih kurang sama. It is a natural process of learning. You are not alone in this!

Friend 6

I am still doing LR, even after more than a year into my candidacy, well, I would rather call it literature survey now. Grappling with the direction in the early stage of studies is normal, as I have experienced.

There are already plenty of advice above that you can very well apply. To add to that is probably to remind you about note taking and EndNotes. You can do annotated bibliography of the key papers that you have read. You can also try organizing your study area into themes that you number them, 1, 2, 3...Prepare a folders for each of them. Take notes into a table, there are many ways.

Mine is like this: on top, you can write the folder number, topic, authors and date. Then the table; you can have 4 columns:1. Page number2. Key words3. Summaries (this is important where you summarize it in your own words)4. Notes (compare, reflect, question, etc, etc).

After some time, you will realize that certain papers/studies are more significant than others, then you may use color dots stickers to differentiate them; maybe in terms of importance.I find that management is crucial besides other stuffs.

Also, don't forget that the LR should:1. summarise the main ideas, issues and debates.2. link these to your research questions, methodology and later, your findings.

Friend 7

.............take those LAST 5 years journals or last 2-3 years ago journals and re-read them (my SV gv me this idea, and kalao boleh get those from TOP ratings journals in yr field)The write... re-write (while closing the original journal, just write what YOU think and what YOU understand, i even write in Malay sebab kekadang idea comes in that format)...and draw diagrams.. sometimes..

Friend 8

................you cannot ignore journals paper. Journal papers have being reviewed by the experts. In addition, journals provide us the "state of the art" for the LR. And...always refer to the list of references (the last page)..the list will link you to another authors and perhaps you will find a very..very..interesting papers....lama2 nanti you will noticed that the same authors works have been cited regularly...so from that kita tahu who are the people (the experts) in our area.the 4 column (as mentioned by mimi) is a good method.

I pun guna that technique. Cuma kena banyak sabar...or else you will be easily give up..keep on digging and reading..after a few months Insyaallah you can categorize your research theme.

Mind Mapping technique is also very helpful..(mcm buat design gak lah)..especially when you get stuck with so many ideas....

Friend 9

..............pasal LR u need to formula ur problem statement, so the next q is where will u get the problems? of course you need to identify the frontier of knowledge & look at the parameter of the scope of ur study from there u will get a picture of ur research topic. Meaning u need to read the journal & articles as much as possible tapi bukan baca semua just appropriate utk ko dapat grasp of the area.