Review of Related Literature

This section presents a focused and exhaustive exploration of literature that informs the current state of knowledge on the field of study of the current research. A good literature review must address the following questions:

·      What empirical studies have been done in this field of study in the locale and elsewhere?

·      What do we know about the phenomenon in question based on scholarly reports that has been published?

·      What is not yet known about the concept that I am trying to study?

·      What findings in the present research available are inconsistent?

Sources. The review of related literature must be mainly populated (at least 70% of the total) by primary sources, which include (1) actual empirical research studies published in reputable journals; (2) metaanalyses/metasynthesis; (3) theoretical papers and conceptual analyses published in reputable journals; (4) technical reports and policy briefs from government and civil society organizations; (5) legal articles; (6) theses and dissertations; (7) research conference proceedings, and; (8) Church documents. Secondary sources should only comprise 30% of the RRL at a most. These sources include (1) textbooks and lectures; (2) single case reports; (3) encyclopedias and dictionaries; (4) opinion essays and articles, and; (5) blogs and sites that are not electronic research databases (ProQuest or EBSCO).

Timeliness of sources. As a general rule, the sources that should be included in the review of literature must have been published no earlier than five years from the year of expected graduation from the program.

However, there are exceptions to this rule:

·      Not all phenomena and fields of study have the same rate of publication. For instance, we expect a more frequent publication rate for studies about HIV, tourism or social media, and scarce literature on rare diseases, specific tribal groups and other highly specific and unexplored topics. This is a consideration whether sources published more than five years earlier may be accepted.

·      There are times wherein a “knowledge history” of how certain concepts evolved through time is needed to be presented in the RRL. Because the account is historical, older publications are acceptable.

·      Theories that have been formulated many years ago that are still relevant in the present must be attributed to original publication and proponents, no matter how distant in the past.

·      Citation of old sources is acceptable as long as there is proof that an exhaustive search has been done and still, no recent publications have been available.

·      In general, old sources are acceptable as long as they are relevant to the current study at hand and that the findings in the said source have not been refuted by more recent publications.

Organization of presentation. Before the actual discussion of the literature, a one-paragraph introduction must be presented. The introductory paragraph should reflect the following: (1) enumeration of the thematic categories of literature to be presented.; (2) disclosure of the libraries and online scholarly search engines used; (3) the range of the years of publication of the sources included in the review of literature.

Figure 1. Sample introduction (click to enlarge)

Thematic presentation. For quantitative and mixed methods research, the review of literature must be thematized according to each variable of the study, followed by the hypotheses being tested, and then other topics and contexts related to the study.

For qualitative research, certain designs like descriptive phenomenology and classical grounded theory prohibit the inclusion of RRL in the study.

For other qualitative designs, there is no strict rule on what topics should be included, except that the themes used must be justified and contribute to the elucidation of the focus of the study, and must be arranged in a logical fashion.

For studies that will develop a product, program and other types of output, a theme that includes literature on the intended output must also be included.

Language and composition. The review of related literature section is not simply a repository of paraphrased research reports put one after the other. Each paragraph in the RRL must be able to drive a specific point about the theme it is subsumed under. The findings and inferences of each report must be constantly compared with each other. Studies with similar findings must be grouped together. The context of each study included must be explained. The writing must be in active voice. Connections and transitions among studies, paragraphs and themes must be well established. Again, the overarching goal of the RRL section is to present, organize and analyze research related to the topic at hand, with the attempt to find answers to the research questions of the current study, using available literature and studies done locally and elsewhere.

(click to enlarge)

Synthesis. The last subsection of the review of literature is the synthesis that includes the following:

·      Summary of the major points discussed in each theme, pulling together research studies that are similar and comparing them with others which offers contradicting findings or different insights.

·      Appraisal of the methodologies used in the studies that are directly related to yours. Critique the common sources of biases in the studies that might have deterred the objectivity, internal and external validity and rigor of the studies.

·      Explanation of the data gap that you have identified. A data gap is the area in the literature of the field of study that is still not yet known or explored, and the areas of the phenomenon wherein a consensus of truths/findings is not yet well established.

·      An ending that articulates the data gap that the research objective of your study will address.

Note: Theses/dissertation that will include systematic or integrative literature review as design usually have a less detailed RRL section. The findings of the systematic/ integrative literature review are found in Chapter 3, not in the RRL.