VCSEwiki:Literature review
For writing is necessary to find some very reliable resources - your text should be based on critical and responsible thinking and dialogue with what has been already said.
Where to find the resources
Other sources to your chosen theme should be prefarably scientific articles. Where you can find your external resources:
- for the beginning you can look at Wikipedia or do simple Google search - you will get texts of very different quality. You can use them for basic orientation only - please do not cite those with doubtful quality!
- for your academic writing you may prefer Google Scholar
- you might find out what offers your university library - some of the resources may be available online for you, e.g. from ISI Web of Knowledge or JSTOR or some other scientific database. Here you can find reviewed journals.
Quality assessment
Would be very important at the certain stage. Sites about techniques of quality assessment (and not how to use them):
- How to evaluate sources http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/researchroom/evaluate/
- Evaluating Information Found on the Internet http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/index.html
- Evaluating Online Sources: A Tutorial by Roger Munger http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/techcomm/content/cat_030/evaluatingsources/1_home.html
- Internet Detective online. 2007-04-10. WWW: < http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/index.html >.You can try several quizzes to prove that your skills in evaluating sources have been already developed.
Technique of writing literature review
What we mean by the "literature review"? In this context, it is not just the list of references; but it is not also the thourough analysis of available resources, as Dena Taylor suggests. It is something in between - and following links will provide a guidance for writing your literature review.
Links
- Taylor, Dena Bain. A Brief Guide To Writing a Literature Review {online}. 2007 {2007-12-27}. Online: <http://www.ceu.hu/writing/lit_review.pdf >
- How to create a references list - http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/researchroom/workscited/
You can also use some of the resources about writing an annotated bibliography:
- Definitions and format
- What is an annotated bibliography?
- Types of annotation
- Description of the resource and comment on its value or relevance
- The process of writing annotated bibliography
- Examples
Summary
- Research and Documenting Sources http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/index.html