Writing a Literature Review: Organize, Synthesize, Evaluate

Steps to take in organizing your literature and notes:

• Find common themes and organize the works into categories.
• Develop a subject level outline with studies you’ve found
• Expand or limit your search based on the information you found.
• Write brief paragraphs outlining your categories: 
  • How the works in each category relate to each other
  • How the categories relate to each other and to your overall theme.

Available tools:

Sample synthesis matrix

Skim the article to get the “big picture” for relevancy to your topic. You don’t have to understand every single idea in a text the first time you read it.

• Start with venue / title / author list / structure of the article
  • Where was the paper published?
  • What kind of journal it is? Is the journal peer-reviewed?
  • Can you tell what the paper is about?
  • Who are the authors?
    • What are their credentials?
      • Where are they from?
      • What are the sections of the article?
      • Are these clearly defined?
         
• Read the Abstract
  • Can you figure out the purpose of the study, methodology, results and conclusion?
  • Mentally review what you know about the topic
  • Do you know enough to be able to understand the paper? If not, first read about the unfamiliar concepts
     
• Read the Introduction section
  • What is the overall context?
  • Is the problem clearly stated?
  • What does the paper bring new?
  • Did it miss any previous major studies?
  • Identify all the author’s assumptions.
     
• Examine graphs, diagrams, tables
  • Analyze the visuals for yourself and try to understand each of them. Make notes on what you understand. Write questions of what you do not understand. Make a guess about what materials/methods you expect to see. Do your own data interpretation and check them against the conclusions.
     
• Read the Results section
  • Do you agree with the author’s opinion?

• As you read, write down terms, techniques, unfamiliar concepts and look them up
   
• Save retrieved sources to a reference manager

Read for comprehension

• After first evaluation of sources, critically read the selected sources. Your goal is to determine how much of it to accept, determine its value, and decide whether you plan to include it in your literature review.
• Read the whole article, section by section but not necessarily in order and make sure you understand:

Introduction: What is known about the research and what is still unknown.
Methods: What was measured? How was measured? Were the measurement appropriate? Did they offer sufficient evidence?
Results: What is the main finding? Were there enough data presented? Were there problems not addressed?
Discussions: Are these conclusions appropriate? Are there other factors that might have influenced? What does it need to be done to answer remaining questions?

• Find answers to your question from first step
• Formulate new questions and try to answer them
• Can you find any discrepancies? What would you have done differently?
• Re-read the whole article or just sections as many times you feel you need to
• When you believe that you have understood the article, write a summary in your own words (Make sure that there is nothing left that you cannot understand)

Take notes

As you read, take (extensive) notes. Create your own system to take notes but be consistent. Remember that notes can be taken within the citation management tool.

What to write in your notes:

• identify key topic, methodology, key terms
• identify emphases, strengths, weaknesses, gaps (if any)
• determine relationships to other studies
• identify the relationship to your research topic
• new questions you have  
• suggestions for new directions, new sources to read
• everything else that seems relevant