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Theories and Definitions

Literature Review

Planning Research

Research Methodology

Data Collection

Ethics and Law in Research

Data Analysis

Data Presentation and Conclusions

Disseminating Research

Additional Resources

Glossary

About the Authors

Contact Information

Reviewing the literature, identifying gaps in human knowledge and specifying a relevant research topic

Why should we review the literature?
	To acquire an appropriate level of knowledge and clear understanding of a particular subject that we intend to research, i.e., what is already known about the subject

	The knowledge and any explanatory theories, need to be up to date

	Develop or improve the rationale for the chosen research, through finding statistics, epidemiological or other data about the importance of the subjects, its costs in terms of quality of life, finance and services provided, and the possible impact of finding good answers to the research questions

	To have a good idea about areas of disagreement or controversy or lack of knowledge (Gaps in Human Knowledge), in a critical way

	To explore areas of recent advances in the field

	To explore areas that are being currently investigated or researched in the UK and worldwide, which might inform, elaborate, improve or even change our intended research ideas, hypotheses or questions in an objective way

	Literature reviewing at the beginning of and during research acts as an insurance policy against reinventing the wheel: un-necessarily researching what has been extensively researched without taking previous reports into account, asking the wrong questions at the wrong situation or failing to include significant advances in discussing our results

	To sum up: we want to become experts in the field of our choice through the quickest possible way!! Careful and critical reading and writing the literature is an essential early stage for a successful research project

What are the major sources for literature for research purposes?
	Textbooks
	Textbooks that specialise in a subject of interest, e.g., diabetes or affective disorders. They provide the knowledge in a systematic way with secondary references for further expansion. However, they have some disadvantages:
	They take years to write, publish and then reach your hand. This makes some of the information not up to date with the state of the art knowledge in the field, especially when the chosen field is rapidly developing, e.g., cancer
	You need time to go to the library, library card, photocopying with copy-right limits, costs, or they might be expensive to buy and also tend to change in next editions.

	Peer-reviewed Journal Articles
	These focus on the subject advertised in the title, provide some background or introduction, aims, methods, data analysis, results and discussion, with some limitations and references. They tend to be more recent than textbooks. However, there could be a large number of publications in a particular field that sometimes is difficult to organise, and critically appraise. One might not be able to find all the essential articles, especially those who do not have experience in the field. Controversies between reports in different papers might be difficult to explain.

	Review Articles
	These are more comprehensive articles about a particular subject, written by a group of experts in the field usually upon invitation from the editorial board of a journal. These experts research the subject themselves, might have their clinical practice in the field, attend conferences that address the subject, listen to the discussions or contribute to them etc. They live the subject!! They go on to present the “state of the art” level of knowledge in the field, by choosing and summarising 50-100 relevant peer-reviewed journal articles and present the results in a critical way with relevant discussion. One can expand further on particular aspects of the review by going into the relevant papers, as secondary references, and from these to other references, as tertiary references.

	However
	Some authors might be biased about their own work or personal experience, and therefore, one should read 2-3 review articles to find out areas of agreement or overlap and areas of controversies that might be presented differently by different authors.
	Be extra-careful not to fall into the foolish mistake of plagiarism in any way!!

	Theses and research reports
	PhD, MSc and other theses in the library, as well as research reports and conference proceedings can also be used to provide information. However, many of these are unpublished and were not subjected to peer-reviewing, albeit academically assessed.

	Web sites
	e.g., NICE guidelines, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Physicians, World Health Organisation, British Heart Foundation, British Society of Gastroenterology and many others. These professional bodies issue academic and clinical reports that can be used and referenced in the appropriate way.

How to perform a computer-based literature search?
	Please also follow the step-by-step demonstration video

	Decide on initial key words, which might change and get refined by computer suggestions or by looking at key words selected by authors of found articles.

	You will need a password and user name provided by the librarian.

	You can access the Athens website from wherever you could work as long as you have internet access or you could access the data base at St. George’s University of London or Kingston University campus.

	Once you go to www.athens.ac.uk you can go to different locations of data bases. For most healthcare research, choose CINAHL (mainly nursing literature) or MEDLINE (medical, nursing and other healthcare literature), using OVID as an entry point.

	The Cochrane Reviews handbook can also be directly accessed at www.cochrane.org/resources/handbook/index.htm

	You could perform the research based on Key Words by entering one at a time and combining the search as demonstrated. You can select and limit the search as needed to human only, certain year range, English language literature only, full articles, review articles etc as demonstrated.

	Alternatively you might choose to search certain authors you might find their articles or certain journal. The search engine can be instructed by clicking your choice as demonstrated.

	When you enter key words and click search, the computer might suggest alternative, similar or additional key words. It is up to you to decide whether to accept or turn down the computer offers.

	The computer will also ask if you want the search to be focused or extended. Always start with a focused search, to get articles that focus on the selected subject. Extended search will bring also articles that touch even marginally on the selected subject.

	The computer will offer categories of articles, e.g., nursing, pharmacology, aetiology, genetics, rehabilitation, economics, psychosocial aspects, etc. You can tick the relevant boxes

	When you click search or execute, the computer will bring the articles in groups of 10 per page. You can browse as demonstrated; you can read the abstract or find the original paper, save on a memory stick or send it to yourself as an email attachment.

	If you search needs a combination of key words, e.g., diabetes mellitus with obesity, then you need first to perform two separate searches for diabetes alone and then for obesity alone, and then combine the two searches using the “AND” choice as demonstrated.


How to write a review of literature?

	Read all the abstract of the literature that you have found. Select the relevant ones and quickly read all the articles. At this stage do not insist on understanding everything you read. If not enough appropriate articles, including review articles are found, go back to look for more articles and review articles.

	When you have decided you had enough recent articles to cover your literature review, and then start reading review articles and other research articles several times. Write key phrases in relation to the articles and try to make a story in your mind about these. Arrange the articles into groups which will turn into headings and subheadings in your work. You might be guided or helped by parts or all of the review articles at this stage.

	Once you have types the headings of the groups of papers, start with group 1 of the papers and go on them, one by one to summarise the aim or research questions, study design, sample size, sampling technique and whether inclusion/exclusion criteria for the recruitment of the study population addressed and justified, main findings and conclusions, any limitations and strengths for the study.

	You then do the same with the other groups of papers. Once you have completed your literature review, compare its broad contents with those of 2-3 review articles and try to find out if you have relevant gaps in your work that you should cover.

	As you go through your literature review, you keep reporting on what is known, and also hint at what is not known or controversial or still in need of research. These are the “Gaps in Human Knowledge” that you have now realised through your successful literature search. These need to be summarised at the end of your literature, and will immediately lead into your general aim and specific objectives, in order to find answers to cover these gaps in human knowledge.