i know most of you have your own ways of summarizing the literature review. some of em are quite comprehensive. :) cant compete with that.
what do u hope to achieve with your literature review?
if you're writing a review paper to be published, the comprehensive approach is very tempting. however, if you're using it for the purpose of doing research ie helping you in solving your research problem, or helping you direct your research better then you may not need to list out everything you've read.
so, when should i use this?
inshaaAllah, this technique is okay if you wanna organize the literature review in your MIND. remember, the mind can't really suspend too much facts at one time. so, this approach is more of a lightweight process.
the approach exploits the concept of 'layering' in literature review. looking at all the journals, articles etc that u've collected can be a bit overwhelming right? so, we're gonna layer them pretty much like a cake.
image from freedigitalphotos.net
how can i do it?
so, how do you do it? remember the acronym I-BRING.
what does it mean? Idea - Basic Related Important New Goal
now, let's take a look at how we can use each of em step by step.
Idea
what's the central idea for your literature review?
first of all, you gotta decide on the main idea that u wanna focus on. this is the central idea of your literature review. supposed u have one and it's all about "driving". so, we're gonna visualize that now. ahh look at that. assume that (faridah, 2010) is the paper that you wanna attach to the idea. so you have the idea in the centre and the ring circling it. wassup with the ring?
Basic
what's the basic ideas that are related to this main idea?
yeah, once the central idea is clear, try figuring out what are the basic ideas that explain the central idea. when you're doing try your best to stay FOCUS. forget about the new technology and what not. just ask yourself. "what is the basic idea that explains the central idea?" there can be a few, but for the sake of illustration, let's just say that three things are basic to driving. they are... the car you're driving, the cost of driving and finally the traffic. so, you can now update the diagram this way inshaaAllah. ahh that's the first layer of the literature review.
Related
what is related to the basic idea?
now that you have the basic idea etched properly in your mind, along with the key reference, it's time to go to the next step. let's expand it a bit by looking at the ideas that are related to the basic one. Again, try to stay focus when you do this. don't clutter it too much. at most, just take three ideas that are related to the first layer. this would be the second layer. Why are we using the lines to mark the layers? to remind us that we should stay focus in doing the literature review. i know, it's really tempting to talk about 1001 things under the sun when it comes to citing something but again, stay focus!
Important
what are the important ideas for me?
ok, in this step we won'd be adding any more layers yet to the cake, urm.. i mean the literature review. instead, we're gonna accentuate the ideas that are important to our own research. accentuate in the sense that we're gonna make it stand out from the rest. so, to do this, it's important to contemplate, what is it that you're doing for your research? let's say you're doing research on how to exploit the time of driving to save the cost of petrol. can you see how that would affect the pic below?
see that now, all the related ideas are in bold. they are time - traffic - driving - cost - petrol.
New
what are the new things that others are suggesting?
now comes the final layer! the third layer. in this layer you put all the new ideas that are emerging in research. for instance, to save cost of petrol in driving, we could do two things. first, we could work only 4 days a week. going to the office only four days a week instead of 5 or 6 times would save petrol. another alternative is to go to work at non-peak hours, when everyone else is not on the road. this way, there would be less traffic and so inshaaAllah.. less petrol would be consumed. Oh, and notice the question mark inside the idea (?) . it means that the idea is new and is still being explored.
Goal
does the diagram fit your research goal?
the last step is to check the summary you just made for yourself. does it fit your research goal? if it doesn't then you may need a revision. always remember that in summarizing the literature review you need to know two things :
- what's my goal for research? (the literature review must fit the goal of research)
- how do i plan to use the summary? (comprehensive one is for writing, this one is for helping you think about research.
anyway, hope it helps. try it out now. you don't need to draw it nicely like the example. it's best to sketch it with a pen and paper. oh, and when you draw it on paper, you don't have to draw the orbits too. just remind yourself that you need to do it in layers ... Basic, Related, Important and New.
if you have any questions, just ask. i'll try to answer if i can inshaaAllah. and if you wanna know the rationale behind the usage of this approach, feel free to do your own research on schema theory, cognitive load theory and radial diagram.
Thank you your sharing! It is helpful to lead us to organize our ideas systemically.
ReplyDeleteu're welcome. i hope that it helps :)
ReplyDeleteThanx for the sharing
ReplyDeleteglad to help aida :)
ReplyDeleteHi..can you explain what is different between central idea and new thing? is central idea must be the idea from fundamental theory? I getting confused when I tried to suit with my research as my central idea was the new thing proposed by others. Thank you
ReplyDeletethe central idea does not need to come from the fundamental theory, but usually it's from there.
DeleteinshaaAllah u can make the new thing as the central idea.
but the NEW to the central idea would be ideas that are worth considering.
for instance, let's say the new idea proposed by others suggests using X.
perhaps, for the new layer u can use a variation of X say .. X4 that has better quality.
X4 is not yet explored by the others. it's your own insight.
hope this helps!
hey there.
ReplyDeleteinshaaAllah central idea is the main idea of your research.
new is the idea that is currently being explored, considered and pondered upon.
for instance, let's say you're doing research on handphone.
central idea? handphone
what's the new idea?
1. coupling of handphone and watch. example? samsung galaxy note 3 and watch. iphone6 and iwatch.
2. curved body. example? flex from LG.
hope this helps!
hi there. thanks for the sharing. and, if you don't mind, i would like to ask for permission to make a copy of this entry and paste it in my site. then, i'll put a credit to link to this site. thanks in advance.
ReplyDeletep.s. i've try this diagram. but, i can't seem to understand on the idea, basic and related things. care to explain?
yes, inshaaAllah feel free to do so. :)
Deleteidea? the main idea that you want to focus on.
example? FOOD
basic?
the basic ideas that are connected to the main idea. basic ideas are simple ideas. i know there might be 1001 ideas related to the main idea, but just choose the basic ones.
example?
FOOD - HYGIENE (how clean is the food?)
FOOD - TASTE (how yummy is the food?)
FOOD - PRICE (how much do you have to pay for the food?)
this is the first layer.
related? ideas related to the basic ideas.
example?
HYGIENE - SHOP(how clean is the shop?)
HYGIENE - PREPARATION (how clean is it when they prepare the food?)
TASTE - DELICACY (how yummy is the food?)
TASTE - CHOICE (how much choice do you have?)
PRICE - NORMAL (price of normal food like rice, fried chicken and vege?)
PRICE - SPECIAL (price of special food like briyani, roasted chicken and steamed vege?)
this is the second layer.
so, can u see how the ideas are organized in layers?
hope it helps!
I would like too try your idea in organizing the literature. I tried using literature matrix but did not work well. Do you mind sharing your email address so that i can contact you personally? Thanks a lot.
ReplyDeletecould u please contact me through FB? :) cant leave my email here. might get a spam later.
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ReplyDeleteSummarizing a literature review always needs to be done professionally. Although it can be done in so many different ways but it has to be completed properly. summarize my text
ReplyDeletei dont think you get what the author is trying to impart. he's not talking bout the basic strategy of summarizing text that is covered in most english subjects for degree level classes. the explanation is meant for more advance students ie phd students. it is assumed that they've acquired the fundamental skill of summarizing text.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHigher class graduates usually used to go in such kind of the institutions and the guidelines, also they have also discovered out more of the perspective and the ideas that would certainly help in ph.d programs as well. summarize an article
ReplyDeleteThanks for your effort
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ReplyDelete