Preparing Literature Reviews: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

407 Pages·2016·3.165 MB·English

by  M Ling Pan

Preparing Literature Reviews
Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
Fifth Edition
M. Ling Pan
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First published 2003
by Pyrczak Publishing.
Published 2017
by Routledge
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Copyright © 2016, 2013, 2008, 2004, 2003 by Taylor and Francis.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
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Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and
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organizations are unintentional.
Cover design by Roland Tran
ISBN-13: 978-1-936-52339-9 (pbk)
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Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Introduction to the Fifth Edition
1. Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Reviews
2. Selecting a Topic for Review
3. Searching for Literature in Professional Journals
4. Retrieving and Evaluating Information From the Web
5. Evaluating and Interpreting Research Literature
6. Taking Notes and Avoiding Unintentional Plagiarism
7. Preparing a Topic Outline for the First Draft
8. Writing the First Draft: Basic Principles
9. Writing the First Draft: Optional Techniques
10. Writing the First Draft: Statistical Issues in Qualitative Reviews
11. Building Tables to Summarize Literature
12. Revising and Refining the First Draft
13. Writing Titles and Abstracts
14. Preparing a Reference List
15. Introduction to Meta-Analysis
16. A Closer Look at Meta-Analysis
Checklist of Guidelines
Model Literature Reviews
Qualitative Literature Reviews:
1. Risk-Taking Behaviors and Impulsivity Among Veterans With
and Without PTSD and Mild TBI
2. Spirituality Among African American Women Living With
HIV/AIDS
3. Subjective Evaluations of Alcohol Consequences and Changes in
Drinking Behavior
4. Predicting Marital Separation From Parent-Child Relationships
5. Positive Effects of the Mediterranean Diet in the Prevention and
Management of Cardiovascular Disease
Quantitative Literature Reviews (Meta-Analyses):
6. Dance Therapy in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure
7. Tetrachloroethylene Exposure and Bladder Cancer Risk
8. Exercise for Depressive Symptoms in Stroke Patients
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Appendices
A. Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research
B. Quality Control in Qualitative Research
Table of Z-Values for r
Index
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Introduction to the Fifth Edition
Welcome to the fifth edition of Preparing Literature Reviews. A literature review critically
examines and synthesizes the literature on a chosen topic. This book will help readers
understand the purpose and mechanics of a literature review.
The literature review comes in many shapes and sizes. It is widely used across disciplines
because it offers a useful snapshot of the state of research on a particular topic. It provides
background and helps to frame research questions and findings in empirical articles, theses, or
dissertations. A literature review can also stand alone as an article, providing a valuable
overview for those with an interest in the topic. Entire journals are devoted to publishing
literature reviews. The meta-analysis, which is a specific kind of literature review, treats the
literature as data and may use statistics or other analytic methods to find patterns among all
existing empirical studies on a particular topic. Analyzing research findings across multiple
studies can help to reveal trends and summarize what has been learned cumulatively across
the research on a topic.
Whether a reviewer is writing about biology or sociology, conducting a qualitative or
quantitative review, preparing a literature review as a part of another piece of work, or as its
own stand-alone article, every good reviewer of literature must successfully filter large
amounts of information into a condensed report that allows others to understand what is
currently known about a specific topic. In this book, the author has organized each chapter
into short, concise “guidelines,” which explain each step for constructing a literature review
from beginning to end. Examples appear with many of the guidelines to help readers see how
to put the principle into practice.
While this book presents the mechanics—the “how”—for preparing a literature review, a
good literature review is far from mechanical. Instead, it is part science and part art. Science
comes into play because a literature review must approach a topic systematically and evaluate
the merits and flaws of the existing research. Art comes into play because the reviewer uses
subjective judgment to define the topic and its boundaries, and to interpret the various sources
so that the result is a cohesive synthesis of the literature.
The guidelines provided here apply across various types of literature reviews. Both
qualitative and quantitative reviews are covered. Qualitative reviews tend to be more
narrative and may make little to no use of statistics, while the most quantitative reviews may
synthesize literature using statistical analysis, such as mathematical averages of results across
various studies. Qualitative and quantitative reviews have a great deal in common, so almost
all the material in this book (Chapters 1 through 14) is relevant regardless of the reviewer’s
methodological approach.
Chapters 15 and 16 are more specific to the quantitative literature review. These chapters
present the basics of a highly quantitative approach called meta-analysis. These chapters will
likely prove more directly valuable to students who prepare quantitative or meta-analytic
reviews, but all students can benefit from studying these chapters carefully because
knowledge of the basics of meta-analysis will help with the proper interpretation of results in
published meta-analytic reviews, which students may need to evaluate and cite in qualitative
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reviews.
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About the Examples
Many examples are used to illustrate the guidelines for writing literature reviews. Many
examples have been quoted directly from actual published sources, and their references are
provided. Other examples were written by the author to illustrate types of material frequently
encountered in literature reviews. In some cases, these examples illustrate undesirable
techniques that should be avoided. Rather than quoting such examples from real studies,
which might embarrass the authors of the studies from which they were borrowed, this book
has elected to create examples similar to those appearing in recent literature reviews in order
to create a well-rounded learning experience for the reader.
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About the End-of-Chapter Exercises
Each chapter concludes with a set of exercises to help students practice what they have
learned. There are no right or wrong answers to the end-of-chapter exercises. Instead, the
questions in the exercises are designed to encourage students to reconsider the basic points in
the chapters as they prepare literature reviews. The questions may also be used as the basis for
classroom discussions or assignments.
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About the Checklist of Guidelines
The Checklist of Guidelines (page 125) provides a comprehensive list of the guidelines
presented throughout the book. It can be used in several ways. First, it can be used as a
supplement to the index to help students quickly locate material read earlier. Second, it can be
used as a checklist of reminders to reconsider when writing and revising a review. Third,
instructors can use it for easy reference when commenting on students’ literature reviews. For
instance, instead of writing out a criticism (either positive or negative), an instructor can refer
to the checklist to quickly locate appropriate guidelines in order to write statements such as
“Please improve this section. See Guideline 8.5,” or “Good application of Guideline 9.2.”
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