Many students undertaking a thesis find it difficult to know where to start when doing a literature review. According to our recent survey, most students feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of literature available and are not sure how to collate it. One small step that can be taken is to categorise any literature you come across into one of three types (original, published or locator).
Original sources: These provide the first occurrence of a piece of work. For example, if you were going to do doctoral research on socialist economic policies, it is likely that you would need to look at foundation literature, such as notebooks compiled by Karl Marx. Ask yourself, who is the equivalent of Marx for my area? If, for example, your thesis is based on data analytics you might want to look at some of the original presentations and lectures in this area, such as John Tukey’s work on the future of data analysis, from the late 1950’s. Such work can be publicly available (like research theses, conference proceedings and some industry and government reports) or privately held (like unpublished manuscripts, notebooks, minutes from committee meetings and private emails). As the focus in these original sources is on new material, they are inclined to be detailed in nature and challenging to access. Despite this, it is, however, important to access original sources to get under the skin of a topic.
Published sources: Published sources tend to be aimed at a wider audience and are thus easier to access and more widely disseminated than original source material. Published sources can be academic in focus (academic books and journal articles), report-based (government publications), practitioner oriented (professional body reports) or all-purpose (general books, newspapers and magazines). A student of data analytics, for example, might look for John Tukey’s academic articles in this area, written in the early 1960’s and the many books, articles and other publications written and published since then.
Locator sources: These are sources that assist in accessing and attaining literature from the original and published sources. They are available in traditional formats (such as hard copy dictionaries, indexes and encyclopaedias) and from contemporary platforms (such as search engines, virtual academic database portals and publishing house portals). In addition to their retrieval function, these sources can also act as a convenient springboard for your literature search. This is because they offer the opportunity to gain an elementary understanding of a topic you may have limited knowledge on.
To help establish exactly which original, publisher and locator sources are available to you, it is a good idea to contact the person in your institute’s library responsible for the subject matter you are researching. This person should also be able to give you advice on carrying out your search efficiently and effectively.
It is also worthwhile asking this individual about the training your library provides concerning searching for relevant literature and sourcing suitable publications. Most colleges offer regular tours or induction sessions for their libraries (in-person and online). It is useful to know your way around physical and online catalogues, databases, etc. Time spent on this early on will save time later.
One final piece of advice: Do not rely on just one library. Use both your college library and libraries outside your college. For example, your local community library, libraries in professional institutes and government libraries. You may also want to access online repositories, such as the textbooks and toolbooks from Thesis Upgrade. For example, our Searching for Relevant Literature Toolbook will help you get going with your thesis literature review.