Literature includes the books, reports, documents and works of other researchers. Reviewing Literature is also called secondary research and is a very important part of the research process in many ways; secondary research enables the researcher to:
Tune to the context: this implies understanding the past, present and future directions, identifying the problem areas.
Locate the chain of progress or research activities: this implies sequencing the efforts of researchers, contributed in any particular domain.
Avoid repetition: research work must be original, if the topic under consideration has already been attempted, then fresh branches can be explored.
Identify novel areas and ways of contribution: while scanning the literature the researcher can come across a bright idea or novel method which no one has attempted before.
Fine tune research topic: this implies setting the boundaries and limitations to the research topic and making it more concrete and definite.
Identify various research topics which have yet not been addressed: research papers mention the scope of further research that can be carried out, such information is very useful for researchers who are searching for a good topic for their own research.
Identify best fit research methods and methodology, sampling techniques: by critically analyzing the methods used by other researchers, researchers can select, modify and design their own research work.
Selecting best topic: literature review can spew up several research ideas which can then be assessed against criteria such as novelty, practicality, importance etc., and best topic can be chosen.
Before starting any research work, a researcher must search for as much material there is on the chosen topic. A researcher needs to choose a topic from his/her area of specialization, that is the subject qualified at the post graduate level, a good understanding of the chosen subject and its past, present and future context provides a sense of direction to the researcher. If the material available is too extensive, the researcher may narrow the topic; whereas if the material is too less, the researcher may think of broadening the topic. While looking for review material it is a good idea to look for good quality and credible review based research works available on the topic. Review based articles synchronize data from several other research work conducted in the same domain; the articles considered for synchronization are mentioned in the review. Hence a researcher can read the review instead of each of the separately mentioned articles and save time.
A researcher with a proper sense of direction is able to quickly scan literature; each and every word need not be read. Reading should be done in a purposeful mode; the purpose of the reader as well as the writer should be kept in mind while reading. Before starting to read the researcher should have a semi structured mindset that is he/she should have some specific direction but also a delving and probing mindset to seek further clarity. Generally research documents follow a particular pattern and structure to present information, which facilitates the location of specific information and their threads. The bibliography given at the end of any research paper is also a rich source of information. Annotated bibliography provides a short summary of each source which may range from one to ten pages and are very useful for researchers as they can find vital information in the summary and need not scan the entire source material. Audio and visual content can also be referred to instead of just text based content.
Digital information gleaning is much faster than paper reading. These days most sources are available online in digital libraries. Researchers can get access to them through a minimum subscription. Specific digital libraries like bibliographic library are a smart way to start secondary research. A bibliography is a list of all sources referred to and a bibliographic library is a well categorized collection of such sources.
The many information and data gathered from various readings should be recorded judiciously in software form so as to render them manageable and reusable. Gleaning information is a tedious task and the efforts made should never be lost. Systematic methods of recording like indexing, sorting, tagging, classification and categorization can be used. Use of software packages specially designed for such purpose can also be used. Knowledge of data synchronization tools is very useful in compressing information. The tools applicable will depend upon the type of research whether qualitative or quantitative. Meta-analysis, automatic summarization, factoring and clustering methods are some of such tools used in research. Information stored in software can be used by a research group or team, collaborative learning works much faster than individual learning.
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