Book Review: Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X1201200208 |
| Published date | 01 September 2012 |
| Author | Alan Charlton |
| Date | 01 September 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
BOOK REVIEWS
54 Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2012
This book has a clear and
precise aim: to give a wide range
of students a practical guide to
creating a good literature review. It
actually goes further, and claims:
‘that anyone who has to do a
literature review, at whatever level of
expertise, will find this book useful.’
Happily, it succeeds on both
counts. I don’t know how often
students and academics bemoan
the absence of a book like this,
but I can imagine this book being
at least part of the answer for just
about everyone at some stage. It
is not perfect, and it makes some
rather optimistic claims, but it will
help people get from a blank page/
screen to a reasonable literature
review. It will also provide
postgraduate supervisors and
research methods teachers a helpful
option when students ask what to
do next.
The authors have experience
in teaching research, conducting
research and supporting research
through library services, and that
experience permeates the whole
exercise. They have constructed
their book around the notion that
there are two main approaches to
literature reviews: the traditional
and the systematic. They believe
both are valuable, and that the two
sit on a continuum, but they believe
that the systematic approach is
the gold standard for literature
reviews (p. 88). They tell us that
this methodology comes from the
world of biomedical and health
care research, and note that some
people do not think it can be easily
transferred to other spheres (p.
124). I think they might have ‘over-
egged’ the power of the systematic
approach, and they have a slightly
limited (or perhaps old-fashioned)
view of well-structured writing,
Title: Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques
Authors: Jill K Jesson with Lydia Matheson and Fiona M Lacey
Publisher/year: Sage, Los Angeles, 2011
Extent/type: 175 pages, paperback
Price: A$45.95/NZ$63 from Footprint Books which oers a 15% discount to AES members; phone 1300 260 090 (within
Australia) or +61 2 9997 3973 (from outside Australia), email <info@footprint.com.au>, website <http//www.
footprint.com.au> for the latest prices
ISBN: 978-1-84860-154-3
but I don’t think these diminish the
usefulness of this guide.
There is an extreme intellectual
confidence at play in this book,
which believes in achievable
perfection in the field of literature
reviews. The old historian in me
worries at the idea of a ‘gold
standard’ for literature reviews.
I am happy to accept that there
are obvious strengths in having
a repeatable literature review
process. I am not convinced by
the proposition that there could
ever be ‘a rigorous systematic
comprehensive and exhaustive
search for all the relevant literature’
(italics in original), as described
on p. 102. That doesn’t seem
possible; at the very least, it would
exacerbate the time management
problems that the authors
frequently remind us of.
I was also disappointed that
the book tacitly supports the
traditional ‘article-as-thriller’
model, which makes us wade
through everything before we get
to the ‘aha!’ moment where all is
revealed (p. 92). I know the authors
are fond of process, and that this is
a guide to getting by, not for major
changes to academic writing. But
postgraduates and their supervisors
might have been a good target for
talking about why we do things the
way we do.
In the same way that lots of
good teaching works, this book
tells you what it’s going to do, then
oers a number of ways to come
at the particular lesson, and then
explains what you’ve done and why
it matters. The chapters each start
with key points covered, and some
key things to avoid or beware of.
They end with a brief summary
of the areas covered. It will work
whether you read it end-to-end,
skim headings, top and tail, or just
go to the exercises.
The structure of the book
is clear and logical. In eect, it
starts at the beginning and guides
students through what they need
to know and do to arrive at a
reasonable literature review. This
scaolding of understanding and
techniques is inherent in the book’s
content and structure. It builds
from small sections into eight
chapters, with many exercises,
examples and summaries to take
the user along.
After the brief introduction,
the book breaks into two main
sections: ‘Getting Information’
and ‘Using Information’. The first
section really gives a structural
overview of the process involved in
creating a literature review. It starts
with a blank screen, and ends with
a document. The second section
looks in more depth at how to
create the authors’ two categories
of reviews. The book breaks into
nine chapters:
Part 1: ‘Getting Information’
■Chapter 1: ‘Preliminaries’. This
starts with the fundamental
question, ‘What is a literature
review?’ and takes the reader
through varying approaches
and levels of review and
evidence. It discusses when
you might need a literature
review, and makes the key
point that the review is there
to help formulate and position
a research question. It also
reminds us that these things
take time, and that there are
benefits in planning a preview.
■Chapter 2: ‘Searching for
Information’. This chapter
moves into the business of
EJA_12_2.indb 54 15/01/13 10:01 AM
To continue reading
Request your trial