a Study
Introduction Literature Review
Where to Find Research Literature
How to Conduct a Systematic Literature Review Taking Notes
Writing the Review
What a Good Review Looks Like
Using the Internet for Social Research
Qualitative and Quantitative Research Orientations Linear and Nonlinear Paths
Preplanned and Emergent Research Questions Qualitative Design Issues
The Language of Cases and Contexts Grounded Theory
The Context Is Critical The Case and Process Interpretation
Quantitative Design Issues
The Language of Variables and Hypotheses Causal Theory and Hypotheses
Aspects of Explanation
From the Research Question to Hypotheses
INTRODUCTION
It is now time to examine the specifics of design- ing a study. You start with a general topic, nar- row the topic into a specific research question, and then design a specific study to address the research question. In qualitative studies, the pat- tern varies somewhat because new questions can emerge during the research process.
Topics for study have many sources: pre- vious studies, personal experiences, your dis- cussions with friends and family, or something you saw on television or a film or you read about in a book, magazine, or newspaper.
Often, it begins with something that arouses your curiosity, about which you hold deep commitments or strong feelings, or that you believe is wrong and want to change. Almost all social research topics involve patterns that operate in aggregates, and that you can empirically measure and observe. This rules out topics about one unique situation (e.g., why your boy/girlfriend dumped you yester- day, why your friend’s little sister hates her schoolteacher), or one individual case (e.g., your own family), or something impossible to observe, even indirectly (e.g., unicorns, ghosts with supernatural powers, etc.). This may rule out some interesting topics, but it leaves tens of thousands for you to investigate.
Three things can help you learn the most effective type of study to pursue for a topic or question:
1. Reading studies that others have conducted on a topic
2. Grasping issues within qualitative and quantitative approaches to research design 3. Understanding how to use research tech- niques as well as their strengths and limitations
You will read about the first two of the three in this chapter, and the third item in subsequent chapters.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Reading the “literature” or studies published on a topic serves five important functions:
1. The literature can help you narrow down a broad topic. It shows how others conducted their studies, and this gives you a model of how narrowly focused a research question should be. It also shows you the kinds of study designs others have used, how to measure variables, and ways to analyze data.
2. The literature informs you about the “state of knowledge” on a topic. From the stud- ies by others, you can learn “what we now know” collectively. You will see the key ideas, terms, and issues that surround a topic. You may consider replicating, testing, or extending what others already found.
3. The literature can stimulate creativity and curiosity. As you read many studies, you are likely to encounter some new, unexpected findings and fascinating information.
4. Even if you never get to conduct or publish your own research study, reading published studies offers you examples of what the final report on a study looks like, its major parts, its form, and its style of writing. You will develop skills to evaluate reports of studies and distinguish weak from strong reports.
5. A last reason is more practical. Just as your writing skills can improve if you attentively read top-quality writing, reading many reports of high-quality research enables you to grasp better the elements that go into conducting a research study.
You want to be organized as you locate and read the scholarly literature on a topic. In addition, it is wise to look ahead and prepare a
in a college or university library. This section is a simple “road map” on how to access the reports.
Periodicals Social research results appear in newspapers, in popular magazines, on televi- sion or radio broadcasts, and in Internet news summaries. However, these are not full, com- plete reports of research that you need for a written literature review. There are several types
of reviews, but most often, the literature review is a carefully crafted summary of the recent studies on a topic with key findings and research methods. It carefully documents the sources in the review summary.
To prepare a literature review, first locate the relevant studies. You next read thoroughly to discover the major findings, central issues, and methods in each. You will want to take conscientious notes on what you read. While the reading is still fresh in your mind and with notes in front of you, begin to organize what you have learned. Write about the studies in a way that builds a context around a specific research question.
The literature review rests on the assump- tion that knowledge accumulates, and we can learn from and build on the work of others.
Scientific research is a collective effort of many researchers. They share results with one another and pursue knowledge as a community. A few studies may be especially important and indi- vidual researchers may become famous, but a specific study is just one small part of the larger knowledge creation process. Today’s studies build on those of yesterday.
Reviews vary in scope and depth. Some reviews are stronger at fulfilling one or another of four goals (see Expansion Box 1). It may take over a year to complete an extensive professional summary review of all the literature on a broad question but only a few weeks for highly focused review in a narrowly specialized area. To begin a review, decide on a topic, the amount of depth to go into, and the kind of review to conduct.
Where to Find Research Literature Research reports appear in several writ- ten forms: periodicals, books, dissertations, government documents, or policy reports.
Researchers also present papers on studies at the meetings of professional societies. For the most part, you can find research reports
EXPANSION BOX
Goals of Literature Review
1
1. To demonstrate a familiarity with a body of knowl- edge and establish credibility. A review tells a reader that the researcher knows the research in an area and knows the major issues. A good review increases a reader’s confidence in the researcher’s professional competence, ability, and background.
2. To show the path of prior research and how a cur- rent project is linked to it. A review outlines the direction of research on a question and shows the development of knowledge. A good review places a research project in a context and dem- onstrates its relevance by making connections to a body of knowledge.
3. To integrate and summarize what is known in an area. A review pulls together and synthe- sizes different results. A good review points out areas where prior studies agree, where they disagree, and where major questions remain. It collects what is known up to a point in time and indicates the direction for future research.
4. To learn from others and stimulate new ideas.
A review tells what others have found so that a researcher can benefit from the efforts of others. A good review identifies blind alleys and suggests hypotheses for replication. It divulges procedures, techniques, and research designs worth copying so that a researcher can better focus hypotheses and gain new insights.
magazines about topics on which they may also conduct empirical research (e.g., welfare reform, prison expansion, voter turnout). The magazines differ in purpose, look, and scope from scholarly journals with research find- ings. Opinion magazines are an arena in which intellectuals debate current issues. They are not where social researchers present study findings to the scientific community.
Scholarly Journals. The scholarly journal (e.g., American Sociological Review, Social Prob- lems, Public Opinion Quarterly, Criminology, and Social Science Quarterly ) is the primary type of periodical for a literature review. It is filled with peer-reviewed research reports. You rarely find them outside of college and university libraries.
Researchers disseminate most findings of new studies in scholarly journals.
Some scholarly journals are specialized.
Instead of research reports, they may have only book reviews that provide commentary and evaluations on new books (e.g., Contemporary Sociology ). Alternatively, they may contain only literature review essays (e.g., Annual Review of Sociology, Annual Review of Psychology, and Annual Review of Anthropology ) in which researchers give a “state of the field” essay for others. Literature review publications can be helpful if an article was recently published on a specific topic of interest. Many scholarly jour- nals have a mix of articles—literature reviews, book reviews, reports on research studies, and theoretical essays.
No simple solution or “seal of approval”
distinguishes scholarly journals from other periodicals, or instantly distinguishes the report on a research study from other types of articles.
In the beginning, you will want to ask experi- enced researchers or professional librarians.
Distinguishing among types of publications is an important skill to master. An excellent way to learn to distinguish among types of publi- cations is to read many articles in scholarly journals.
literature review. They are selected, condensed summaries written by journalists for a general audience. They lack essential details needed for a serious evaluation of the study. Textbooks and encyclopedias also present condensed summa- ries to introduce readers who are just starting to learn about a topic. These also lack essential details about a study required for you to evalu- ate it fully.
When preparing your first literature review, it is easy to be confused about the many types of periodicals. With skill, you will be able to distin- guish among four types:
■ Mass-market newspapers and magazines written for the general public
■ Popularized social science magazines for the educated public
■ Opinion magazines in which intellectuals debate and express views
■ Scholarly, academic journals in which researchers present the findings of studies Peer-reviewed empirical research findings appear in a complete form only in the last type of publication. Mass-market publications (e.g., McLean’s, Time, Newsweek, The Econo- mist, The Nation, American Spectator, and Atlantic Monthly ) are sold at newsstands. They are designed to provide the public with news, opinion, and entertainment. A researcher might use them as a source on current events, but they do not include reports of research studies in the form that you need to prepare a literature review. Popularized social science magazines and professional publications (e.g., Society, Contexts, and Psychology Today ) may be peer reviewed. They provide the interested, educated public a simplified version of key findings. They are not an outlet for original research findings. At best, they supplement to other sources in a literature review. Serious opinion magazines (e.g., American Prospect, Commentary, Dissent, and Public Interest ) are carried by larger bookstores in major cities.
Leading scholars may write articles for opinion
Your college library has a section for schol- arly journals and magazines, or, in some cases, mixes them with books. Look at a map of library facilities or ask a librarian to find this section. The most recent issues, which look like thin paper- backs or thick magazines, are often physically separate in a “current periodicals” section. Most libraries bind all issues of a volume together then add the volume to the permanent collection.
Libraries place scholarly journals from dif- ferent fields together with popular magazines.
All are periodicals, or serials in the jargon of librarians. Thus, you will find popular maga- zines (e.g., Time, Road and Track, Cosmopoli- tan, and Atlantic Monthly ) next to journals for astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, literature, and philosophy as well as sociology, psychol- ogy, social work, and education. The “pure”
academic fields usually have more journals than the “applied” or practical fields such as marketing or social work. You can find a list of journals in the library catalog system.
Scholarly journals are published as rarely as once a year or as frequently as weekly. Most appear four to six times a year. For example, Sociological Quarterly appears four times a year.
To assist in locating articles, librarians and scholars created a system for tracking scholarly journals and their articles. Each issue of a jour- nal has a date, volume number, and issue num- ber. This information makes it easier to locate an article. Such information—along with details such as author, article title, and page numbers—
is an article’s citation. We use the information in bibliographies. When a journal is first pub- lished, it begins with volume 1, number 1, and the first article is on page 1. The journal con- tinues increasing the numbers thereafter. Most journals follow a similar system, but there are enough exceptions that you must pay close attention to citation information. For most journals, one volume is one year. If you see a journal with volume 52, for example, it probably means that the journal has been in existence for 52 years. Most, but not all, journals begin their publishing cycle in January.
The number of scholarly journals varies by field. Psychology has over 400 journals, whereas sociology has about 250. Political science and communication have fewer than sociology, anthropology-archaeology and social work have about 100. Urban studies and women’s stud- ies have about 50, and there are about a dozen journals in criminology. Each journal publishes from a few dozen to over 100 articles a year.
You can view many, but not all, schol- arly journals via the Internet. A few Internet services provide full, exact copies of scholarly journal articles over the Internet. For example, JSTOR provides exact copies, but only for a small number of scholarly journals and only for past years. Other Internet services, such as EBSCO HOST, Sage Premier, or WILSON WEB, offer a full-text version of recent arti- cles for some scholarly journals. Only a tiny handful of new Internet-only scholarly jour- nals, called e-journals, present peer-reviewed research studies (e.g., Sociological Research Online, Current Research in Social Psychology, and Journal of World Systems Research ). Even- tually, the Internet format may replace print versions. However, for now, 98 percent of scholarly journals are available in print form and about three-fouths of these are available in a full-text version over the Internet. Access is limited to libraries that have paid for a special online subscription service.
Once you locate a scholarly journal that has research reports, you need to make sure that a particular article presents study results. Schol- arly journals often have other types of articles. It is easier to identify quantitative studies because they usually have a methods or data section and charts, statistical formulas, and tables of num- bers. Qualitative research articles are more dif- ficult to identify, and many students confuse them with theoretical essays, literature review articles, idea-discussion essays, policy recom- mendations, book reviews, and legal case analy- ses. To distinguish among these types requires a good grasp of the varieties of research as well as experience in reading many articles.
of Social Science Quarterly that was published in 2008. The citation does not provide the month, but it gives the volume number, 89, issue num- ber, 3, and the page numbers, 573–591.
There are many ways to cite the research lit- erature. Formats for citing literature in the text itself vary. An internal citation format that uses an author’s last name and date of publication in parentheses is very popular. The full citation appears in a separate bibliography, reference, or works cited section. There are several styles for full citations of journal articles, with books and other types of works each having a separate style.
When citing articles, check with an instructor, journal, or other outlet for the desired format.
Almost all include the following: names of authors, article title, journal name, and volume and page numbers. Beyond these basic elements, there is great variety. Some formats include the authors’ first names. Others use initials only.
Some include all the authors, while others give only the first one. Some include information on the issue or month of publication, others do not (see Figure 1 ).
Citation formats can get complex. Two major reference tools on the topic in social sci- ence are Chicago Manual of Style, which has nearly 80 pages on bibliographies and reference formats, and American Psychological Association Publication Manual, which devotes about 60 pages to the topic. In sociology, the American Sociological Review style, with two pages of style instructions, is widely followed.
Books. Books communicate information, provoke thought, and entertain. There are many types of books: picture books, textbooks, short story books, popular fiction or nonfiction, religious books, children’s books, and others.
Our concern here is with books with reports of original research or collections of research articles. Libraries shelve these books as they do with other types of books. You can find citation information on them (e.g., title, author, and publisher) in the library’s catalog system.
Most journals number pages by volume, not by issue. The first issue of a volume usu- ally begins with page 1, and page numbering continues throughout the entire volume. For example, the first page of volume 52, issue 4 may be page 547. Most journals have an index for each volume and a table of contents for each issue. Issues contain as few as one or two articles, or as many as 50. Most have 8–18 arti- cles. Articles may be 5–50 pages long. Articles often have abstracts. These are short summa- ries on the first page of the article, or for a few journals, the abstracts are grouped together at the beginning of the issue.
Many libraries do not retain physical, paper copies of old journals. To save space and costs, they retain only microfilm ver- sions. There are hundreds of scholarly jour- nals in most academic fields, with each costing
$50 to $2,500 per year. Only the large research libraries subscribe to all of them. You may have to borrow a journal or photocopy of an article from a distant library through an inter- library loan service, a system by which librar- ies lend books or materials to other libraries.
Few libraries allow people to check out recent issues of scholarly journals. You should plan to use these in the library.
Once you find the periodicals section, wan- der down the aisles and skim what is on the shelves. You will see volumes containing many research reports. Each title of a scholarly journal has a call number like that of a regular library book. Libraries often arrange them alphabeti- cally by title. Because journals change titles, it may create confusion if the library shelves the journal under its original title.
Citation Formats. An article’s citation is the key to locating it. Suppose you want to read the study by Sharp and Joslyn on racial tolerance in U.S. cities . The citation for the article is: Elaine B. Sharp and Mark R. Joslyn, “Culture, Seg- regation, and Tolerance in Urban American,”
Social Science Quarterly, 2008, Vol. 89, No. 3, pp.
573–591. This tells you the article is in an issue