Week 09 – Developing the literature review

This week, we learned about developing a literature review. As I was struggling with this part, it was very helpful for me.

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Finding Claims or Assertions:

Engage Critically: Interact with existing research and ideas in the field.

Identify Limitations: Spot unresolved questions, missing information, paradoxes, theoretical inconsistencies, or other weaknesses.

Importance of Knowledge Gaps:

• Introduce and explain findings supporting new research.
• Synthesize main conclusions of relevant literature.
• Highlight unresolved issues or questions.
• Establish the originality or significance of new research.

Primary vs. Secondary Research:

• Primary Research: The researcher produces their own data (e.g., through surveys or questionnaires).
• Secondary Research: The researcher uses existing data produced by others (e.g., books, journal articles, films).

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Developing a Literature Review:

Purpose:

• Present sources used in research.
• Explain research methodology, theoretical framework, and how the work fits into the bigger picture.

Structure:

• State the research question.
• Explain the research methodology.
• Discuss findings and connections to existing research.
• Conclude by summarizing insights.

Length: Varies from a few pages to an entire chapter, depending on the research.

Style and Writing Approach:

• Academic Style: Use formal tone, concise language, and an objective perspective.
• Tense Usage: Past tense for previous research, present tense for your analysis and viewpoint.

Identifying Themes, Patterns, and Gaps:

• Analyze Sources: Note themes, agreements, disagreements, and research methods.
• Key Insights: Document how each source contributes to the existing knowledge pool and where they challenge or expand upon each other.

Creating a Literature Review Outline:

• Organize Strategy: Create an outline based on how you used sources in your research.
• Organizing Methods:
  • Chronologically: From oldest to newest sources.
  • Thematically: By shared themes.
  • By Research Methods: Group sources according to the methods used by authors.
• Subject Area Considerations:
  • Humanities: Chronological or thematic organization.
  • Hard Sciences: Organization by research methods to highlight scholarly consensus.

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To build the literature review for my report, I tried my best to read as many references as possible. Unfortunately, it took a long time due to my poor reading skills. I read papers, reviews, and books, highlighting sentences related to my subject. While reading the references, I copied the highlighted sentences into another document to organize them based on keywords. Since deepfake and AI are cutting-edge and ongoing technologies, I tried to search as extensively as possible. I found some reports published as recently as this month, just a few days ago.

This is my reference list for building the literature review. (Green highlights indicate sentences that are citations of other sources.) Based on this, I will continue writing my report.