Literature Review Method

Use of tenses

The verb tenses you use in your lit review reveal more to your reader than just the time frame. They can also tell your reader:

·         whose idea is being put forward (yours or someone else's)

·         something about your attitude toward the ideas you are reporting on (if you have attributed them to an author/theorist)

·         how general or specific your point/description is

In brief, tenses are used in the following ways (note that this is a simplified description of tense use):

The present tense is used for:

a generalisation (in overviews, statements of main points, etc.) OR a generally accepted scientific fact

Example: " This thesis investigates the second approach."

a statement made by you as a writer

Example: " Non-standard applications such as CASE, CAD/CAM are now emerging."

a statement reporting the position of a writer and your support or lack of support for this position

Example: " Therefore, this sequential approach is impractical in the real world where projects are typically large (Radice, 1988) and the activities from one stage may be carried out in parallel with the activities of another stage."

The past tense is used to:

describe the contents, findings, or conclusions of past research. It emphasises the completed nature of a past activity. It is often referred to as the 'reporting' tense, and is traditionally used by scholars to report all past findings, including even very current research in some cases.

Example: " This model was not popular in the software industry until it was later refined by Boehm (1976)."

The present perfect tense is used to:

indicate that research in the area is still continuing, or that the research has immediate relevance today

Example 1: " Several researchers have studied distributed database design."
Example 2: " Fricke (1983) has illustrated that black liquor shows three rheological behaviours."

generalise about past literature

Example: " Software has been tested manually for most of the last four decades."

present a view using an information-prominent citation

Example: " The services that have been identified for the future B-ISDN include [7] [77] [78]."

Thus, you can use tenses to indicate more than chronology. You can use the past tense in reporting others' research to indicate that that research is of secondary importance to your current work. You can use the present perfect to indicate that the research is of more direct and primary importance. You can use the present tense to indicate your general position relative to reported research.

Paraphrase or quotation?

You will need to introduce the work of others to your reader, and you can do this in different ways. You can:

·         directly quote the words of other researchers, making sure you integrate the quote properly, or

·         paraphrase other researchers' ideas by expressing the ideas in your own words

Direct quotation is thus found more commonly in humanities and social science writing, and not so frequently in the science and technology disciplines. For the most part, you should aim to paraphrase. Rarely is the original text written with your particular focus as its main concern. Your examiner will be looking to see how well you can utilise the sources for your own ends.

Direct quotations are commonly used to highlight:

·         author's definitions of important terms

·         assumptions underlying the author's choice of words

·         particularly illustrative examples of an author's specific view, difficult to paraphrase

·         particularly well-expressed opinions, revealing insights which a paraphrase could not capture

When you use direct quotation, it needs to fit grammatically with the rest of your sentence.

1.       Aid agencies have been known to take the view that such communities consist of "helpless victims with no capacity or expertise for responding to their own needs" (Leung et al., 1994).

You can see that the quotation is the grammatical continuation of that part of the sentence used to introduce it.

2.       Hancock (1987) more recently summarized the concept as follows:

During disasters, "charitable" advertising may succumb to the temptation of making appeals for public money which can function to humiliate the supposed beneficiaries and misrepresent them as passive victims.

With ' as follows', no grammatical constraints apply to the quote, whereas an expression such as ' Hancock (1987) can be criticized for [...]' must be followed by a verb ending in '-ing' (e.g. ' comparing') or a noun phrase (e.g. ' his neglect of ...)'.

In some cases you will need to modify the quote using square brackets [like this] to include a verb ending or to change a pronoun to make it follow grammatically. Omitted information is indicated by '[...]'.

3.       The system was designed to show "how expert systems [could be used to] help in the decision making for investments in real estate" (Ostler and Branard, 1996, p. 77).

A variety of constructions is available. The important thing to consider is how you put this all together to give a picture of your own research in relation to others'. You will be showing your attitude toward that research, whether you consider it outdated or still viable, close to your own perspective, etc.

Reporting words

The following section lists some useful expressions for critically presenting other writers' ideas.

Reporting verbs or expressions are used to report on what other authors have done: whether they have made claims, argued a case, established findings, drawn conclusions, etc. Note the differences in these verbs: your choice of word will reveal to your reader your attitude toward the status of the author's theories/research; it will also indicate whether or not you consider her/his claims to be substantiated.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism means taking the ideas or words from other writers without acknowledging them. Along with fabricating results, it is considered to be one of the worst academic sins! When you submit your thesis you must be very confident that all sources are acknowledged; hence the Declaration Statement. This is why you must use a method of notetaking which allows you to easily distinguish your own work from that of others.

Example

The original author wrote:

" [Microsoft's chairman has explained the] company's strategy to make Windows the universal client operating system in the enterprise."

The student wrote:

" The company's strategy is to make Windows the universal client operating system in the enterprise by the Window Open Services Architecture (WOSA) [Semich, 1992]."

The student has copied word for word from the original author's article. Although the student acknowledged the author, he didn't put the excerpt in quotation marks or adequately paraphrase the original wording. This is still not acceptable, and may be considered plagiarism.

Signalling your position

The I vs We debate

In a thesis, the relevance and importance of you as the author can change from section to section. The way your identity intrudes into the text depends to a large extent on accepted use in your particular discipline. Take your cues from the way this is done in published articles in your field (although note the different vehicle and audience), and seek the advice of your supervisor.

" I" or " we" is commonly found in mathematical writing, but is usually advised against for industrial or civil engineering. " I" and " my" can commonly be intrinsic for psychoanalytic writing, for instance - and case-study writing in a number of disciplines - but not for psychology. You will find " we" in history theses, and even " nous" in French.

Traditionally in much academic writing, it is not generally accepted to write: "I think..." or "It is my opinion...", because this detracts from the supposed objectivity of scholarship. It is true that too much insertion of yourself in your writing swings the focus away the material you are investigating and on to you. However, under the influence of a number of (post-)modern philosophers and other theorists, this may even be desirable in some disciplines. It is a debate that is still in flux within the academic community.

It sounds awkward to style yourself as " the author", " the present writer", or " the researcher". There are more graceful ways of expressing your own opinion. If you are uncertain how to avoid an over-personalised tone in sections of the thesis where you do not want this, or too much passive voice, you can use the following expressions to make your position clear in relation to your sources: