Presentation by Professor Simon Haslett at the Institute of Life Science, Swansea University, Monday 4th July 2011.

1. Literature review and the PhD Professor Simon Haslett Dean, School of STEM Seminar at the Institute of Life Sciences, Swansea University, Monday 4th July 2011

2. Contents A taxonomy for literature reviews Undertaking a literature review Assessing the success of a literature review Institutional guides and resources Recommended reading: Randolph, Justus (2009) A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 14(13). Available online: http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=14&n=13

3. Cooper’s (1988) Taxonomy of Literature Reviews

4. Cooper’s Taxonomy (cont.) From “Organizing Knowledge Synthesis: A Taxonomy of Literature Reviews,” by H. M. Cooper, 1988, Knowledge in Society, 1, p. 109.

6. Personal

7. Departmental/School/Faculty

8. Institutional

9. Other external e.g. British Library, learned society

10. Online literature databases:

11. Web-based e.g. Google Scholar – but note limits

12. Web of Knowledge (Web of Science) – but note limits

13. Subject-specific databases e.g. Geobase

15. Search Geobase

16. Refine results if there are many

17. Read through all remaining results

18. Mark for collection into ‘marked list’

19. Collate all titles and abstracts in ‘marked list’ and go through them

20. Decide whether relevant or irrelevant

21. Categorise them according to which aspect of my research they relate to

22. Decide whether the title and abstract provide enough information on their own

23. If not, obtain full paper e.g. search online, search library catalogues, inter-library loans

24. Annotate abstracts and papers precisely where relevant passages are located

25. Decide on organisation structure

28. Deakin University http://www.deakin.edu.au/library/findout/research/litrev.php

29. Monash University http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/general/lit-reviews/index.xml

30. St. Mary’s University http://www.smu.ca/administration/library/litrev.html

31. University of California, Santa Cruz http://library.ucsc.edu/help/howto/write-a-literature-review

32. University of Canberra http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/literature

33. University of Leicester http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds/sd/pgrd/resources/literature-review

34. University of North Carolina http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html

35. University of Toronto http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review