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[lorem_ipsum]

I'd like to write more in this field, but the lit review's stymied me so far -- my usual approaches are tailored to much more established fields where the drek to decent ratio is significantly better.

Then you critique it thoroughly, instead of just summarizing.

I've been tempted to write a purely historiographical/lit review article that does just that; the subject area doesn't have much in the way of general lit review articles to begin with. It might save time later on, for all it would eat my soul in the process. (Though I do know at least one other person in a related discipline who might be willing to collaborate on a lit review article in this area -- and share the pain, so to speak.)

[tt_wannabe]

"While a great deal was written on the subject of x in the early 1990s, remarkably little from that early wave of discussion has withstood more recent inquiry..."
[/quote]

Ouch.

[msparticularity]

"While a great deal was written on the subject of x in the early 1990s, remarkably little from that early wave of discussion has withstood more recent inquiry..."

Ouch.
[/quote]

Just paraphrasing what I thought I heard from lorem_ipsum.

[captainhaddock]

"While a great deal was written on the subject of x in the early 1990s, remarkably little from that early wave of discussion has withstood more recent inquiry..."

"Most commentators from this period were likely drunk or simple. I suspect both..."

[systeme_d_]

"While a great deal was written on the subject of x in the early 1990s, remarkably little from that early wave of discussion has withstood more recent inquiry..."

"Most commentators from this period were likely drunk or simple. I suspect both..."

"I do not go so far as to suggest a direct causal relation, but there is a remarkable temporal correlation between the literature produced in this era and the height of the crack epidemic in the United States."

[praise_of_folly]

In the appendix to Huff's, Writing for Scholarly Publication, there is a checklist of things that reviewers look for in assessing a scholarly article. Under the criteria, "connection with previous conversation," are four helpful questions: 

1. Are antecedents in the paper clearly identified?
2. Is the discussion of previous work an appropriate length?
3. Is the author's intended contribution to previous conversations clearly identified? Are key terms defined?
4. Would a significant number of research scholars in the field find the paper's subject and approach interesting?

The complete checklist is here: http://books.google.com/books?id=w8GoYutoYFQC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=kurt+heppard+checklist&source=bl&ots=ekiD9j2eCB&sig=nOHznYDaOBn7K7zmD_ljblHe4KM&hl=en&ei=HLR-S4mmGoyd8AaC6vDXDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=kurt%20heppard%20checklist&f=false

[fannie]

As another person in the social sciences, though more heavily quantitative than qualitative, I use the lit review to flesh out the relationships and prior knowledge about constructs or models that are relevant to my research question.

It's important to critique the literature, not just review it. Just because something has been published in a peer-reviewed setting doesn't mean that it was done well or correctly. If you know your methodology well enough (as you should), then you can identify where prior researchers made errors or took short cuts and determine if they harm the validity of their conclusions. I also often find it helpful to not assume that prior researchers' citations of antecedent literature are accurate. If I see a citation in an article that I don't understand or doesn't seem to make sense, I'll go back to the cited source -- and sometimes back even further, if necessary. It's surprising how often you'll find that a commonly cited claim can be tracked back to an earlier author who misinterpreted a primary source or makes a leap of judgment that isn't supported by the primary. Those are rich fodder for your own literature review.

You get this all the time in the humanities, too.

Somebody has a throw-away sentence or footnote where they muse aloud "I've begun to wonder if x imight also be y."  Some people read and cite the article saying "Dr. Everybodyknows has suggested X is Y." In a short time, even more people begin to write "leading authorities agree that X is Y" (citing those who cited dr. Ebkns).  In the end, it's just down to a disciplinary adage "x is y."

This is the basis of what has become my entire career.  One day, as a PhD candidate, I looked up a source.  Big day.

[fannie]

So to go on with my woes with literature review.

1)  I made my mark on the profession because I made the mistake of checking a footnote against a primary source.  It led to a major historical discovery and two book contracts.  Realizing that no one had ever gone to the source - in hundreds of years - but simply misquoted each other, led to a lot of skepticism about everything else that had been published on the topic.  I keep a database of what so - and - so says happened on such - and - such day and where they said it so that I can track the inaccuracies and circular citations.

2) Most of the people in my profession use a few sets of theorists and hackney them around in a few chosen niche topics that have been trendy for awhile.  Then they apply the theories to a well-worn topic and cite the major works that I mentioned in No. 1  But I never had time to getting around to reading the theorists.  I got stuck reading the nineteenth-century European historians mucked up my field to begin with.  So I can tell you a whole lot about 19C theory and historiography and politics but paltry little about today.  Not to say that I didn't have a good foundation, but it's going on 15 - 20 years since I have sucked in theory like candy.

3)  Add to this, in my major area, in the last 12 years, there were a couple thousand titles which cited the people and events that I deal with. That's stuff published in the last 12 years.  Monographs.  I checked in WorldCat last fall.  There are three or so bibliographies covering what has been published in the last 100 years - and these run to thousands of pages total.  I am sick to death of book chapters covering my topic because you just sorta had to kinda include it or you overlook the elephant in the room.  And most of these chapters spin off in all different directions.  It's amazing what you can make Single Set of Events and People in One Single Country say.  I never know if I should read these book chapters, and I feel silly reading a chapter and not the entire book. 

4)  I may have counted wrong last time I counted, but I counted at least 1,000 journal articles come out on the people/events each year.   And these are mainly scholarly/reviewed things.  And lots of it is crap, about how Single Set of Events and People in One Single Country appears if Another Set of Events and People in Another Country or Even Planet or Maybe a Fictional Universe is compared to it, you know, to "complicate" the discourse. 

5) I calculated how much time it would take me to read all the Current Lit on my Single Godforsaken Set of Events and People in One Single Freaking Country  - every year it would take 240 hours.  That's just the articles.  Unless I learn to read faster.  And that doesn't mean taking notes.

6) Not including reading anything written by a peer that I would like to know or use on, god forbid, another Event or Set of People.


And I work a 4:4 load at a school with about $300 per year funding for interlibrary loan. I have to travel to get access to most of the books and journals.  I photograph them there or drag them home to pdf.

I am trying to dig myself out from under the first project  and get a new project started and published in much less time, but it's the lit review that is killing me.  I don't know how I will ever have time to read everything that comes out on my topic.  Much less develop a second one.

I get dinged regularly on not having a "conversation" with current methodological and theoretical approaches.  But frankly I have never had time to read them.  If I read this stuff, I can't keep up with the drek that gets published each year on my topic.  I know I have to start this conversation, but then when do I have the time to actually write/work on my topic? 


I feel extremely like my lit review is a giant clusterf - k that my profession planted in my life.

[praise_of_folly]

Thanks, Mountainguy, for describing your table method for the literature review. You mention taking notes about "books or articles that I want to cite." How do you decide what's worth citing? Are the five or six sources selected in such as way that you can use your material to address a "gap" in the literature? Are they a group of conversants focused on a specific theme that you feel your material can help further develop? 

[praise_of_folly]

At the request of a PM, I'm posting an explanation of what I mean by "putting literature into tables."  It's a process I devised based on combining advice from my advisor and from Sonja Foss's book Destination Dissertation.

Here's my process:

1) I make typed notes in MS Word about books or articles I want to cite. Sometimes I use direct quotations and sometimes I paraphrase. I always make sure to include a complete parenthetical documentation with the author's last name and page number for each note. (If you're having a hard time visualizing what this looks like, PM me and I'll e-mail you an example).

Thanks, Mountainguy, for describing your table method for the literature review. You mention taking notes about "books or articles that I want to cite." How do you decide what's worth citing? Are the five or six sources selected in such as way that you can use your material to address a "gap" in the literature? Are they a group of conversants focused on a specific theme that you feel your material can help further develop? 
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