In my last post I discussed how I wish to be really well-organized before I begin to write my literature review. Thanks to Diana Ridley’s The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students (Sage, 2009), I have good information to help me.

 In chapter 3, Ridley begins with basics of what a literature search is and offers important tips for making it the best it can be. She lists helpful sources of information, including:

  • Books, including textbooks, specialized books, and reference books
  • Journal articles
  • Published literature reviews of a field
  • Grey literature, material that is not provided commercially and is difficult to obtain, such as reports, theses and dissertations, conference literature, popular media, monographs/works-in-progress papers, and specialist literature and primary data sources

Ridley also explains various tools for finding relevant sources which can be divided into these main categories:

  • Catalogues
  • Bibliographical databases
  • Internet subject gateways
  • Internet search engines
  • Open access databases

Regarding Internet search engines, I learned that there  is one called “Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) that is a more specific search engine enabling me to search for scholarly or academic Web page links. I was not aware of this search engine even though, like everyone else, I use Google often because it is quick, easy, and, well, there.

I found Ridley’s refresher on using Boolean logic to be helpful. Even though I do searches frequently, that does not mean that I am doing them effectively or efficiently.

Of particular value was Ridley’s suggested form for keeping records of literature searches. She stresses the importance  of keeping clear records of which word searches we use and on what databases. I had not thought of this. I plan to follow her advice and keep such records.

I found chapter 4 on reading and note taking less helpful. Admittedly, it contains solid advice, but for most of us who have gotten to the point of writing doctoral dissertation literature reviews, our reading and note taking skills are fairly well set. By now,  I believe that most of us have developed our own style of taking notes, including a familiar and comfortable way of abbreviating.

Ironically, Ridley discussed “serendipity”, which she defines as “the fortuitous and unexpected discovery of something useful” (page 38).  She mentioned it in the context of finding a key source while looking for something else. It happened to me as I read an example in Chapter 4. The example of note taking discussed computer-mediated communication (CMC) and language (“netspeak”) among young people. CMC is also discussed in the Write and Respond (W/R) assignment, specifically in the article by Loel Kim on online technologies for teaching writing. This relates to my literature review topic, so I was pleased to see it.

I was really looking forward to Ridley’s chapter 5 on reference management. This is a great concern of mine at this point, and I want to learn all I can before I get started. The opening information on managing the process was helpful, if not revolutionary, but the rest was a detailed discussion (and dare I say promotion) of EndNote. It was way too tedious for my tastes. Perhaps I am just tired, but my eyes glazed over at page after page of instructions on how to use this program.

And why is just this one covered in so much detail? Ridley mentioned two others, Reference Manager and ProCite, but they were not given the extensive discussion that EndNote was.

Ridley warns that EndNote’s user guide is over 600 pages! That is just what I need on top of all the searching and reading for a literature review — 600 pages of software user information. Isn’t there a simple and effective way to manage references?

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