Literature Reviews and Annotated Bibliographies

After defining your research question, ensure you get the most relevant results by making decisions about the following:

1. Select a time frame for relevant search results.
   • Would the most recent five years be appropriate?
   • Is your research from a more historical perspective?
2. Consider the population you want to research. 
   • Age range?
   • Education level? 
   • Socio-economic status? 
   • Gender? (There are many, many options!) 
3. Consider inter-disciplinary fields
   • Are there adjacent fields in which this research has been conducted that you would like to include?
4. Select a geography (and language)
   • Where has this type of research taken place?
   • Will you confine your results to the United States?
   • To English speaking countries?
   • Will you translate works if needed?
5. Consider the organizing structure for your review
   • Is there a controversy or debate in your research field that you want to highlight?
   • Are you creating a historical overview? Is this background reading for your research?
   • Is there new technology that can shed light on an old problem or an old technology that can be used in a new way?

Source: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/c.php?g=1060589&p=7710321

Locating Periodicals: 

As its name suggests, a periodical appears periodically, such as daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc. Each issue is entirely new and different from previous issues.

• Newspapers - Who, what, when, where. Basic vocabulary, current news, eye-witness accounts (current and historical)
• Magazines - easy reading, informative, general public readership
• Scholarly journals (aka peer-reviewed, academic, refereed, research) - Analysis & research: College level
• Professional or Trade periodicals - more news and short reports on updates for professionals working in their field.

1. Start with exploring concepts and keywords to identify relevant information. During this phase, search interdisciplinary databases such as the ASU Libraries One Search, ProQuest, EBSCOHost, Academic Search Ultimate, and Google Scholar. These databases contain many subject databases, making them suitable for investigative searches. 

2. Consider the areas or disciplines that factor into the topic after clarifying your question. Most academic research is multidisciplinary, and including literature from various 'lenses' enhances your literature review. 

• For example, there may be an economic lens to your question, a psychological, or a gender viewpoint -- in addition to the overall discipline you are working in. 

3. You want to consider selecting databases by Subject: (for example: design, journalism, education, business, engineering) 

4. You can also search by Type: (for example: biographies, newspapers, or government documents)

5. You can also use our Research Guides to search for database suggestions. 

6. A librarian can help you decide on and use discipline-specific resources and search strategies. Contact us via Ask A Librarian. 

Adapted from: https://libguides.mcmaster.ca/litreview/conducting

Compile a list of relevant terms for each key concept in your research question, including synonyms, alternate spellings, and related phrases that may give you valuable results. For example: 

Does cognitive behavioral therapy improve social communication in children with autism?

The three main concepts of this question are: 

1. Cognitive behavioral therapy 
2. Social communication 
3. Children with autism

The next step would be to list the terms that are related to each one. For example: 

1. CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy 
2. Social interaction, interpersonal communication, social skills, social cues, conversation skills (and many more) 
3. Autistic, autism spectrum disorder, ASD, neurodevelopmental disorders, autistic students

To enhance the effectiveness of your literature review search strategy, consider the following best practices:

1. In databases offering advanced search features with multiple search bars, enter each key concept in a separate bar, using 'OR' to link synonyms or related terms. See the example below:

2. If only a basic search is available, group similar terms within parentheses and connect these groups with 'AND' to combine concepts effectively. ("college student*" OR "university student*") AND (anxiety OR panic) AND (intervention OR treatment OR strategy)

AND

When terms/concepts are combined with the AND operator, retrieved records must contain all the terms. For example: "Do hormonal changes in women influence memory as they age?" This will retrieve citations that discuss all four concepts in each article. The more concepts you AND together, the fewer records you will retrieve.

For example: hormones AND female AND age AND memory

OR

The Boolean operator OR allows you to broaden a concept and include synonyms. For example, attachment behavior OR attachment disorder will retrieve citations using either (or both) terms. This expands your search by retrieving citations in which either or both terms appear. The more concepts or keywords you OR together, the more records you retrieve.

NOT

Use NOT to narrow your results, but beware! NOT eliminates all results containing a specific word, so be very careful using the NOT Boolean operator because you might unintentionally exclude records.

Example: (testimony OR witness+) NOT expert. 

Video on Boolean Operators