Doing Your Literature Review. Traditional and Systematic Techniques

Abstract

In order to come to the aid of the readers, the authors present and explain methods that should be used for producing a good literature review, from reading, note-taking and writing, to the methodology of making a meta-analysis. [...]the manner in which the end paper will look depends on the way previous steps were undertaken.

Jesson, J.K., Matheson, L., & Lacey, F. M., Doing Your Literature Review. Traditional and Systematic Techniques, London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2011, 192 p.

Doing Your Literature Review. Traditional and Systematic Techniques, as suggested by the authors, is intended to be "a practical study guide" for anyone who wants to learn or to improve their way of reviewing mainly scientific literature. The main contribution of this book is that it presents different models of literature review used to this day; however, its emphasis falls on describing the latest methods and techniques. In the last 20 to 25 years, the advancement of technology and the extensive use of the Internet have changed the way literature review is done. The book also explains the difference between traditional literature review and the more exact, more scientific systematic model. In order to come to the aid of the readers, the authors present and explain methods that should be used for producing a good literature review, from reading, note-taking and writing, to the methodology of making a meta-analysis.

The authors of the book come from different academic fields, and their experience is used for creating a methodology for literature review that may be used in all sciences. Jill K. Jesson has worked with multi-disciplinary research teams, and her publications cover community pharmacy practice, public health and social care. Her main contribution in the present paper covers issues about traditional and systematic literature review. Lydia Matheson is an information specialist working for Library and Information Services at Aston University. Her professional expertise was used in the chapters that focus on searching for information and the use of traditional printed sources of relevant contents, as well as the use of modern electronic databases. Fiona M. Lacey is an academic pharmacist, who teaches research methods as Associate Dean in the School of Life and Health Sciences at Aston and her contribution relate to the topics of multidisciplinary research, systematic review and meta-analysis.

The introduction focuses on presenting the authors as well as the objectives and the overall features of the volume. The book is divided in two parts, with chapters focusing on specific issues. The volume starts with the conceptualization of the terms to be used; it gradually presents techniques of searching for information, reading skills, taking notes and writing; it then proceeds to describe the traditional and systematic types of review. The volume ends with the analysis of the meta-analysis model, as well as issues related to referencing and plagiarism. By taking the topics gradually, the authors make it easy for readers to understand, and maintain their interest.

The book is structured in two parts. The first part - "Getting information" - has 4 chapters - "Preliminaries", "Searching for information", "Reading skills" and "From making notes to writing" - which provides a general introduction to literature review, finding and evaluating information.

The second part - "Using information" - provides detailed methods about how traditional, systematic and meta-analysis review should be done in the 5 chapters it contains, namely "The traditional review", "Writing up your review", "The systematic review", "Meta-analysis" and "Referencing and plagiarism".

In the "Preliminaries" chapter, the authors focus on explaining the concepts and the terminology used throughout the book. Recognizing and distinguishing between traditional and systematic review is also described briefly in this chapter, as well as different review designs such as the conceptual, the state-of-the-art and the expert type. In the project management section, the reader can find useful methods of planning for a literature review.

In the second chapter "Searching for information", the methodology for identifying the relevant sources of information is presented. All the steps that must be taken in order to create a bibliographic database are described in this section, from finding the available information sources to identifying the keywords to elaborate further complex search, to methods of organizing and record-keeping of the results. The suggested methods are mostly modern ways of fulfilling the task of searching for information such as the ISI Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, Ebsco, digital libraries, and online journals.

The chapter about Reading skills begins with the planning of the time allocated for doing a literature review and the proposal of using a Gantt chart. In this part of the book, the reader will find useful methods and techniques for reading the literature that is important for their research. For a systematic approach, the authors suggest the use of one of these three methods: the scan, skim and understand, EECA (Examine, Evaluate, Establish, Compare, Argue) and SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recall and Review). Literature sources are debated in this section, making difference between scientific literature and gray literature.

The last chapter of the first part, is about making notes and writing. This part focuses on some protocols for the process of taking notes and writing papers based on the literature that was prior reviewed. In conclusion, the manner in which the end paper will look depends on the way previous steps were undertaken.

The traditional review is intended to explore issues, develop ideas and identify research gaps. The main characteristic of the traditional review, and also the difference compared to the systematic research, is that it hasn't got a specific methodological approach. Different types of traditional review are described in this chapter: conceptual, state-of-the-art, expert and scoping method. When analyzing traditional literature, the reader must be aware of the fact that the paper could be written in a subjective manner, and thereby be biased. The reasons for undertaking a traditional review is that it is flexible, it allows the reader to use different types of evidence, and it constitutes the first step in endeavoring in a systematic style review. The chapter about writing a review is focused around the framework of such a paper. The authors describe the methods that should be used in writing a scientific paper, and the manner in which its parts (the abstract, the executive summary, annotated bibliography and content) must be constructed.

The systematic review uses a standardized, structured, protocol-driven methodology, and it requires an exhaustive search for all the relevant literature. This kind of work is usually undertaken by experienced researchers, and is typically restricted to published, peer-reviewed academic work. Being a type of review with a strict protocol, the authors explain all the phases that should be covered in the attempt of making a systematic review. The more precise meta-analysis is a statistical technique used to combine data from different published sources in the attempt to obtain an estimated overall perspective on a specific issue. The difference in making a meta-analysis, in comparison with the systematic review, is that the literature sources must be academic and the variables analyzed t homogeneous.

The last chapter provides guidance on how to create references in the traditional manner and/or using reference management software, and on the way a paper should be written in order to avoid plagiarism. The authors present the most widely used systems of referencing like the Harvard, Vancouver, Oxford, APA, MLA and OSCOLA. Referenced authors found in the bibliographic section of all the scientific published papers could become important research tracks to follow if they are in the reader's field of interest.

This book is intended to come to the aid of students and researchers that work in the academic field and guide them through the production of either a traditional or a systematic literature review by giving practical advices. An important feature of this volume is that it is addressed to and can be used by researches from any discipline, and it also presents the latest methods used in searching for information and reference management.