literature review poster

literature review poster

The Impact of Literature Review in Research

1. Introduction

The construction of an effective proposal, which details the ideas from which new knowledge is to be generated, requires a good understanding of the subject. The proposal is the way to communicate in a clear way the objectives, goals, and means of the intended study (Friedenberg, 2003). The development of the understanding of the subject and the plan for generating new knowledge begins with an extensive study of the existing knowledge of the subject. This job is left to the literature review.

The literature review, which is a part of our paper, serves as an introduction to our research study. It has been well recognized that the development of an effective proposal is a necessary first step in the process of conducting research. The proposal is the plan, or contract, for a quality research project and the bridge between the research idea and its implementation. It contains a clear, manageable, and practical research plan that is built on the existing knowledge used to generate new knowledge.

2. Importance of Literature Review

Literature review is very important because it provides a broad picture of what has already been said on the research topic. Most researches start with a niche area and to do them properly, a deep understanding of the niche area is necessary. Literature review provides this understanding. It also puts your research in an academic context. This is very important because your research will not only be judged on the research problem which you undertake but also how it is carried out, how it is received by the academic community, and whether it has made a significant contribution. Lit review effectively helps in achieving these things. It also helps in identifying the research gap, which is basically an area where the current research methods and techniques do not seem to provide an answer and the problem that you have selected to solve is, in fact, a part of the area which has no solution available. Identified research gaps help in better understanding of the problem area and also an indication of what can be achieved. Literature review helps understand the research and the research tools which have both been successful and unsuccessful in the past. This is very important because, as Zimmerman et al point out, one of the biggest errors undertaken in novice research is selecting inadequate tools. Review of successful research is a confidence builder, and review of unsuccessful projects is a wealth of information to prevent the same errors.

2.1 Sets the Platform for Further Research

From the overall analysis of the paper, it can be summarized that literature review is very important in the process of research in the following ways:

3. Methods for Conducting a Literature Review

Narrative literature review is a simple review of the articles and studies, assumes a comprehensive systematic search, collects and synthesizes the information into an easy to understand format. This approach is useful when the research is still exploratory and the exact direction of the study is still undetermined. On the other hand, this approach allows for researcher bias to surface as the search is not rigorous and the information collected may be limited and skewed. This could affect data synthesis and end with a skewed story of what the evidence is showing. A narrative review is also useful when the research question is too difficult to study with an experiment and can provide interesting empirical data permitting the study of that data using a more organized method. Narrative reviews are common for undergraduate projects.

Researchers use three main approaches to conduct a literature review. These include narrative review, systematic review, and meta-analysis. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of feasibility, depth, and potential bias.

4. Common Challenges in Literature Review

There are various seminars and workshops conducted by experienced researchers that provide insight into how to carry out research. Although this is a slow process, it is the best way to learn. Another solution is to search for research related to their topic under the guidance of their supervisor, so that they have a clear path to follow. But the best way is the interaction between students and experienced researchers to find a way out for any difficulties in the research.

Owing to these problems, it is generally seen that students pursue the path of plagiarism. This is the easiest way out but also the most dangerous one, because in research evaluation, students are easily caught, and this has led to spoiling the careers of many new researchers. This way, it is very clear that literature review is a challenging task, but it is also an opportunity for new researchers to learn and develop their research skills. They should not lose heart, as there are solutions for the above-mentioned problems.

Once you have collected and read the literature, the most difficult task is to compile and document it in a way that it can be referred to in the future, and also to maintain a track of all references. But the most challenging task of literature review is the critical analysis of the literature and putting it in a comparative form. This is very difficult as the researcher needs to find out the research gaps in the literature and put the literature in a theoretical form. The problem with new researchers is their incapability to separate their own research work from that of others, and this leads to a vague literature review.

A common feature of not only literature review but all other parts of research is identifying the research work done by others. This is very difficult in today’s scenario with the increase in information technology because the same research work is often presented at various places and there is no detailed information to cite it properly.

Literature review is an important part of research, which involves deep understanding of the already published materials. This is considered to be a challenging and daunting task because the researcher needs to go through a vast number of journals, books, conference papers, reports, etc. in order to find the best literature that suits their research work. After identifying the relevant literature, the researcher needs to carefully read them. This is also a difficult task because many times the researchers skim through the papers instead of reading them in detail.

5. Conclusion

Reminding what we have concluded in the second paragraph before and referring to the titles, many professors, researchers, and students often do not realize the significant roles played by literature review in their research work. In fact, some of them think that literature review is even a waste of time to do the research. Thus, it is very important for us to change their perception regarding the issue of literature review (refer to title “Literature Review: The Roles and Steps”). According to the issue, there are a lot of beneficial things that we can get from doing the review. For example, it could avoid the researcher from making a similar mistake from the previous research done, save time, give clear guidance in implementing the research, develop a new idea that is converged from various sources, and many more (refer to the same title). From creating these perceptions, every college should have a subject related to research at an early phase for the student to realize what they should do and the importance of every phase in doing the research. By the time there are more people who realize what they should do, at least to complete their academic paper, indirectly they have saved our cost to hire them. This is because they already have the ‘know how’ and it is easier to correct them without worrying that they will damage our effort in implementing a research (refer to the title “Implementing Literature Review in Research”). We should also initiate a seminar regarding the issue of research in academia and how it could benefit the organization or public in implementing a research project. This is very important in showing them the right path to get good and reliable information for their research and to correct the perception of many people that research is just a wasting time project (refer to the title “The Influence of Literature Review on Research Quality”).