Reviewing the literature

Why should we review the literature as the first step to our research process?
• Getting ideas.
• What has been done, what hasn't been done?
• Avoid past mistakes.
• Understanding the relevant theories.
• What variables are important?

Now let's discuss the How to do a literature review

Potential Sources

• Text books - important studies, but tend to be old (secondary source)
• Journal articles and their reference sections (primary source - make the distinction)
• Review articles and Edited books
• Electronic publishing (fairly new, pluses and minuses)
• Social Sciences Citation Index - who has cited a particular paper
• Reprint/Preprint requests
• Professional meetings
• Faculty members (ask them)
• Searchable databases (largely replacing printed databases)
  • PsycInfo, PsycLit, Psychological Abstracts, etc.
• Discuss the peer review process
• Discuss the time line of research and research reporting
• Discuss some the pitfalls and potential solutions to doing a literature search (and review).
  e.g., the library doesn't have it
  • inter-library loan,
  • UIUC library (hours posted at: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/SERVICES/default.asp)

  A research article
  • What's the goal of a research article? - for the reader to know about, understand and (hopefully) be convinced by your research.
  • Go over the basic parts of a research article
    • Introduction - gives you the background that you need and outline the issues, the theory, and the hypotheses
    • Method - tells the reader exactly what was done, with enough detail that the reader could actually replicate the study.
    • Results - gives a summary of the results and the statistical tests
    • Discussion - the interpretation and implications of the results
  • You should always read with a critical eye (don't just accept what you read, question it).
    Reading checklist
    • Introduction
      1) What is the author's goal?
      2) What are the hypotheses?
      3) If you had designed the experiment, how would YOU have done it?
    • Method
      4a) Is your method better than theirs?
      4b) Does the authors method actually test the hypotheses?
      4c) What are the independent, dependent, and control variables?
      5) Based on what the authors did, what results do YOU expect?
    • Results
      6) Did the author get unexpected results?
      7a) How would you interpret the results?
      7b) What implications would YOU draw from these results?
    • Discussion
      8a) Does YOUR interpretation or the authors' interpretation best represent the data?
      8b) Do you or the author draw the most sensible implications and conclusions?

  Day 2: Go the the Library, room 231C for instructional lecture

  Jim Huff lectured about:
  • Brief history of call number system
  • Location of psychology sources in Milner
  • How to use PsycINFO
    • keyword searches vs. subject heading searches
    • combining searches
    • finding call numbers
  • Location of Social Science Citation Index