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.
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).
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.
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.