Clearing Your Throat
Your first step in preparing yourself is the literature review. Conducting a literature review is how you gain the necessary background that gives you confidence to add your voice to an already rich discussion. In social situations, preparing to talk with others is not a luxury you have, so you choose to join conversations based on the topic being discussed. An academic conversation is similar: you enter the one that most interests you. But if you do not know much about any of the topics being discussed, how do you decide which conversation to join? Think about what excites you: Do you already know something about the topic? Have you formulated research questions you want to explore? Have you uncovered a problem (or gap in knowledge) in the field that needs to be examined? Once you know what questions you want to pursue, you can begin research for your literature review.
When you have narrowed your field of inquiry and have a sufficiently focused research question, you only need to read - and include in your literature review - the material that is relevant and significant to your question. Remember that the review is not simply a survey of the literature written about your research question; it is primarily a means for you to summarize, evaluate and synthesize the works you have read. As you read the material, summarize each source and keep track of your citations. Beyond this record-keeping, however, it is essential that you evaluate your sources by asking yourself these questions:
- Did you find any gaps in the research or controversy among scholars?
- How do those gaps, or how does that controversy, relate to your research?
Your goal in asking these questions is to see how your sources relate to each other:
- What is the nature of the conversation they are creating?
- Where do people agree and disagree?
- What are the hot topics?
- What kinds of questions are included and excluded?
- What topics, types of methods, and approaches are considered valuable?
Once you have answered questions like these queries and any others that your committee and mentor may ask you, synthesize your summaries and interpretations into a coherent and cohesive review in which you discuss your findings and conclusions. This discussion is not simply a report of the state of the field: it is the context for your work. Thinking of your literature review this way allows you to organize your sources in a way that makes sense as background to your research question; to point out gaps and flaws in others' arguments or methods; and to decide which sources are most important, or least relevant, to your study. In addition, you might find that your literature review prompts you to refine or even reformulate your research question; this is not uncommon, and is actually a sign that you are engaged in meaningful ways with the academic conversation you are exploring. All of this work helps prepare you to contribute your unique voice and perspective to the academic conversation you are about to enter.
