Background readingLiterature review

References & bibliography

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Overview

• Why review the literature?

• How do your background reading

• Writing your literature review

• Bibliographic references and citation

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Why review the literature?

• Find out more about your topic• Show how your work fits into the context of what

other people have done– Absolute originality not expected (for MSc) but some

degree of novelty required

• Show that you understand how your work fits into the context of what other people have done

• Clarify which parts of your work are original, and which are based on other people’s work

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“What other people have done”

• General background to the topic• Remember thesis~antithesis~synthesis?

– Your review may include some discussion of conflicting opinions

– Critical analysis is important: say where you stand on any debatable issues

• You may (also) want to chart the development of the topic: historical perspective

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How to do your background reading

• Identify useful sources– Your supervisor should help

• But see next slide

– But so should your reading• Follow up references in what you are reading• But not slavishly: be selective• Often-cited sources are a must-read, and should be cited You should try to “recognise names that reappear. They are often

the leading people in the field.  [... W]hen an examiner looks at a literature review they will expect to see certain names, leading names, and if they are not there you are not going to get the marks or approval.” (Tony Ward, CQU webpage)

• At some point you will find that what you’re reading is covering the same ground

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Identifying useful sources

• Supervisor may make suggestions– Though possibly not for general introductions suitable for your

background– May be able to “vet” what you have found

• Nowadays everyone starts with a web search– But web-based sources can be very variable– Learn how to recognize reliable sources

• Preferably, it will be an online version of a published paper• (How would you know?)• Otherwise check the URL, which may indicate its source (a

university or an official organization

• You may find an existing review of your topic– Use this as a guide, but not necessarily as a model– And only if it passes the “reliability” test

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Identifying useful sources

• Be realistic about how much you can read• Look at the date

– How relevant is that old stuff?• Do a lot of other articles refer to it?

– Why does everyone refer to it?• Because it expresses the fundamental theory behind this

approach• Because it has historical significance: it got everyone thinking

in a new way, but it’s now pretty much outdated

• Beware of self-references– You may just get the same thing over again

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Identifying useful sources

• Always prefer refereed, published articles– Journal articles rather than books

• Books OK for general background• Prefer textbooks or introductory books• Book-length theses (monographs): try to find a

shorter article with the same author/title

– Avoid web pages which are not signed (author/s names) and dated

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Identifying the source of a web page

• PDF or RTF more likely to be a genuine article• Look on the web page itself for its source• Otherwise, search the web using

– The title of the page– The author names

• Go to the author’s home page and search under their Publications list

• In any case you will need this info for your bibliography

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How to read

For each source, ask yourself• Has the author formulated a problem/issue? • Is it clearly defined?

– Is its significance clearly established? • What is the author's research orientation? • What is the author's a priori theoretical framework?• What is the relationship between the theoretical and

research perspectives? • Has the author evaluated the literature relevant to the

problem/issue? – Does the author include literature taking positions she or he

does not agree with? • ... cont.

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How to read• In a research study, how good are the basic components of the

study design? – How accurate and valid are the measurements? – Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to the research

question? – Are the conclusions validly based upon the data and analysis?

• In material written for a popular readership, – Does the author use appeals to emotion, one-sided examples, or rhetorically-

charged language and tone? – Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or is the author merely "proving"

what he or she already believes? • How does the author structure the argument?

– Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the argument to see whether or where it breaks down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-effect relationships)?

• How does the article contribute to our understanding of the problem under study, and in what ways is it useful in practice?

• What are the strengths and limitations? • How does the article relate to the your specific topic?

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Writing your literature review

The review should ...• be organized around and related directly

to your topic • synthesize results into a summary of

what is and is not known • identify areas of controversy in the

literature • formulate questions that need further

research

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Your review should ...

• be more than a simple summary of what you have read

• be organized around themes

• offer both summary and synthesis“A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and [take a stand] on the most pertinent or relevant.”(UNC web page, n.d.; emphases added)

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How to organize your review

• Chronological?– Go through your sources in the order they were

published– Usually makes it difficult to show connectivity, and to

bring out antithesis and synthesis

• Thematic– Better to have a structure which considers different

themes, and juxtaposes the different viewpoints– There may still be a chronological element to this of

course

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Choosing what to cite

In your review (and in general), citations indicate the source of some fact/idea– To support its veracity

• Especially if it is quantitative• Or surprising/controversial

– To identify it with some personality/school of thought– To show that you are in touch with the literature– To allow the reader to check that’s what was said

(and the context)• So giving an accurate reference is important

– To show that you are not claiming it to be your original idea

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Bibliographic references and citation: Quotation vs citation

• Use direct quotes sparingly. If it’s >4 lines you probably should be summarizing what they said

• If it’s <4 words, is it necessary to quote?• Yes if it’s a technical term or an unusual turn of phrase, and

you want to give its original source• No if it’s really the only way to say something ordinary

• Quoting (and citing sources) is not (necessarily) a defence against a charge of plagiarism

• “Plagiarism” is use of sources without citation, i.e. passing it off as your own work

• But if you don’t contribute anything original, this is almost as bad as plagiraism

Type, don’t swipe

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Conventions in quoting

• “Quote marks surround the entire quotation.”

• But “Sometimes” you have to “split the quotation up”.

• Use square brackets to indicate – Extra words– Summarized words– Explanation or correction

• Use dots to indicate omitted words

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Conventions in quoting

In the example above, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point.

A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research piper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence to show that what you are saying is valid.

“In the example [about Moby Dick] above, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point.

A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research p[a]per. Your interpretation of the available sources must [show] evidence [...] that what you are saying is valid.”

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Conventions in quoting

• [sic]– Yes that’s really what they said (e.g. a

misspelling or bad grammar that you don’t want to correct, or some other error)

• emphasis (or emphases) added or original (at end)

• Give the source in the conventional manner (see next slide(s)) and ...

• ALWAYS give the page number

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Conventions in citing

• There are a number of citation conventions which you will come across– Footnotes– Numbered references in text, bibliography in citation

order [Vancouver style]– Numbered references in text, bibliography in

alphabetical order – Name (date) style [Harvard style]

• This is the system preferred in the School of Informatics• Full details in Appendix 5 of Masters Dissertation Project

handbook

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Footnotes and numbered references

• Less disruptive to the text flow

• But involve more housekeeping– Refs must be renumbered if you add a new

one– But bibliographic software can do this for you

• Note use of ibid. and idem. [= ‘the same’]

• And op. cit. [= previously cited work]

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Citing in the text

• Refer to the work by its author’s family name and the date of publication

• In the normal text flow: – Smith (1997) claims ...

• In parentheses:– It has been claimed (Smith, 1997) that ...

• Multiple authors:– Smith and Jones (2001); (Smith and Jones, 2001)– Smith et al. (1999); (Smith et al., 1999)– Note italics and punctuation

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Citing in the text• Multiple citations:

– (Smith, 1997; Jones ,1999)– Usually given in chronological (because more logical) or

alphabetical (because easier to look up) order• Multiple citations by the same author (or two authors with

same surname)– (Smith, 1997, 1998)– If the same year, use a,b,c,...– (Smith, 1997a,b) or (Smith, 1997a, 1997b)– Note possibility of Smith et al. (1997a,b) even though “et al.”

refers to different co-authors!– Beware of wrongly “copying” this notation from a secondary

source• When quoting (as opposed to citing), give the page

number– Smith (1997, p.48) or Smith (1997:48)

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Bibliography

• Remember the golden rule: give as much information as is necessary for the reader to find the source– ALL the authors’ names (as they appear on the publication)– The date– The full name of the journal or conference, as it appears on the

publication– Place of publication, or where the conference took place– Volume number and page numbers (of the whole article, not just

the page you quote)

• List ONLY the sources you have cited or quoted in the text

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Bibliography

• Even with Harvard system, exact layout differs from publication to publication

• Important thing is CONSISTENCY• Bibliographic software should help• List references in alphabetical order of first

author’s family name– In case of multiple authors, give authors in the order

they appear in the source; sort references in order of second author’s name

– In case of multiple references by the same author, arrange in chronological order

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Bibliography

• Books– Give full title in italics, place and name of publisher,

e.g.:Dennis, A., Wixom, B.H. and Teagarden, D. (2002) Systems

Analysis and Design: An Object-Oriented Approach with UML, New York: Wiley.

– BE CONSISTENT in capitalization and punctuation– Give first-named place of publication – How do you find out the publication details?– If edited collection, add “(ed.)” or “(eds)” after author

names– Give edition number if not 1st

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Bibliography

• Journal articles– Give full title of article (optionally in quotes), full name

of journal in italics, volume and page numbers. – No need to give place and name of publisher– Some bibliographies use a set of standard

abbreviations in journal names– BE CONSISTENT in capitalization and punctuation– van Quekelberghe, P.R., Jakob, T., Hoffmann, D., Wetter, T. and

Finkeissen, E. (2005) ‘Minimalist knowledge representation of primary care diseases in the medrapid.info knowledge base’, Informatics in Primary Care 13, pp. 239-48.

– If article is also available on the web, add “available at” and give the URL and last date of access

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Bibliography

• Article in edited collection– Give full title of article (optionally in quotes), then full

details of the book (as in previous slide), then page numbers.

– Zue, V. (1997) ‘Transmission and storage’, in Cole, R.A., Mariani, J., Uszkoreit, H., Varile, G.B., Zaenen, A., Zue, V. and Zampolli, A. (eds) Survey of the State of the Art in Human Language Technology, Cambridge: CUP/Giardini, pp. 645-76.

– If you are citing several articles form the same book, give the book as a separate entry, and refer as follows:

– Zue, V. (1997) ‘Transmission and storage’, in Cole et al. (1997), pp. 645-76.

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Bibliography

• Paper in conference proceedings– Give full title of article (optionally in quotes), full name of

conference in italics, place and page numbers. – Some proceedings appear as edited collections (notably in

Springer’s LNCS series): treat them as such if you like– BE CONSISTENT in capitalization and punctuation– Newell, A.F.(1990) ‘Speech technology: Cross fertilization

between research for the disabled and the non-disabled’, in Proceedings of the First ISAAC Research Symposium in Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Stockholm, no page numbers .

– If article is also available on the web, add “available at” and give the URL and last date of access

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• Web page– Think twice: is the best source you can give?– Does it appear elsewhere as a “proper” publication?– Remember, it may disappear or change tomorrow– OK, if you must: give author (if any; if not how are you

going to refer to it? Institution is OK), date (or “n.d.”), title and URL, plus date last accessed.

– UNC (n.d.) ‘Literature reviews’, The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/ literature_review.html, last accessed 7.3.07.

– Don’t hyphenate the URL

• For other reference types see Handbook

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Final tips

• Keep complete and accurate records of everything you read – “Where did I get that quote from?”

• Learn how to do references as soon as you can and use this style for everything you write

• Some sources don’t give full references, so you’ll have to look up the details

• Be accurate with spelling (especially of proper names watch out for accented characters)

• Be consistent with your formatting• Learn how to use a bibliographic referencing package

and use it to maintain your reference list • Keep a back-up somewhere safe, and update it regularly

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Useful sources

• http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/litrev.html• http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html• http://www.library.cqu.edu.au/tutorials/litreviewpages/• http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/literaturereview.html• http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/ir/refs/• http://www.history.unimelb.edu.au/resources/style_guide/footnotes.html