I tend to take a different approach. Your paper should be trying to tell a story and presenting an argument. You should decide on the story and the arguments you are going to present. You then look at the available literature and decide which serve your purpose best. You use the papers which are best and most authoritative to support your argument and any counterarguments needed to tell the other side of the story. While the big names in the top journals are you logical picks, lesser ranked journals which specifically test the exact thing you are talking about are crucial. It is also good in many circumstances to show how the ideas developed over time as authoritative older papers may now be discredited by subsequent papers often published in less authoritative journals. I always feel that a literature review which is just a summary of the knowledge is a waste of the readers time. Those who will actually use your paper will invariably be studying the subject themselves and will be aware of the literature. It is your arguments which make the contribution to their knowledge.

writing continuously gives you the experience and the necessary instinct, even if at the beginning it is difficult, the recommendation is to write, write and write the practice   It makes the teacher, since there are no clear rules about it, it also helps to read review articles.

Please check the reputation or professional standing of the two authors, and then quote the one who has better reputation. The citation from a better Journal is always better. On that there is no question!

Many thanks to Jaime, Emmanuel, and Richter. All of you have inspired me on how to conduct a research and write a literature review.

Wish you all the best in your researches!

I tend to take a different approach. Your paper should be trying to tell a story and presenting an argument. You should decide on the story and the arguments you are going to present. You then look at the available literature and decide which serve your purpose best. You use the papers which are best and most authoritative to support your argument and any counterarguments needed to tell the other side of the story. While the big names in the top journals are you logical picks, lesser ranked journals which specifically test the exact thing you are talking about are crucial. It is also good in many circumstances to show how the ideas developed over time as authoritative older papers may now be discredited by subsequent papers often published in less authoritative journals. I always feel that a literature review which is just a summary of the knowledge is a waste of the readers time. Those who will actually use your paper will invariably be studying the subject themselves and will be aware of the literature. It is your arguments which make the contribution to their knowledge.

The following sources should also be helpful, namely : focus on recent studies that are sourced from high-prestige sources/are most relevant and helpful in relation to your research topic…(see: rules of thumb for literature search, Knopf, 2006, p. 131); searching the literature - the stages of the literature process (see: Booth et al, 2012, pp. 70-96); how to find the studies - the literature search (see: Petticrew and Roberts, 2006, pp. 79-124); scholarly analysis of selected sources by means of the chart method (see: Rocco et al, 2011, pp. 151-157).

• Booth, A., Papaioannou, D. and Sutton, A. (2012) Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Knopf, J. W. (2006) Doing a literature review, Political Science and Politics, 39, 1, pp. 127-132.
• Petticrew, M. and Roberts, H. (2006) Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practice Guide. Australia: Blackwell Publishing.
• Rau, J. L. (2004) Searching the literature and selecting the right references, Respiratory care, 49, 10, pp. 1242-1245.
• Rocco, T. S., Hatcher, T. and Creswell, J. W. (2011) The Handbook of Scholarly Writing and Publishing. First edn. USA: San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p. 335.
• Choosing a journal to submit a literature review for publishing?: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Choosing_a_journal_to_submit_a_literature_review_for_publishing

I choose literature by

1. Relavance to my issue

2. How recent

3. The number of citations it has had

4. The journal it was published.

5. The Authors

Thanks for sharing @ John, Kenneth, and Borden. All the three answers are quite helpful. I feel so lucky to meet warm-hearted researchers like you guys in researchgate.

I am just learning to write my first research paper. All the help I get here makes the acedamic career more worth chasing to me.

Wish you all the best with your researches.

A good discussion indeed! Before using the sources for review, consider the following critical questions, sift through the information, and reflect on all possible aspects that may affect your assessment ( Apologies for some repeats).

Who are the authors?

Check whether the authors are real experts, and determine whether the material is a fact, interpretation, imagination, or simply opinion. Verify the facts with other sources to see how accurate or how trustworthy the source is. If available, author impact factors such as the h-index or the g-index are good indices to assess the scientific value of a given author.

Who are the publishers?

Well-known national and international publishers, especially, those affiliated to reputed universities and those who have a long tradition of publishing are likely to be more reliable because they have reputations to uphold. Most established publishers have expert editors and have a peer review system to upkeep the quality of their products.

Consider the impact factor or rating

The first thing you have to confirm is whether the journal is following a peer reviewing system. Peer reviewed journals are assessed based on their impact factor or a rating system. A journal with high impact factor is supposed to be of good quality and standard.

Identify the purpose of the publication

Before you start taking notes, think for a while, and identify why and for whom the material was written. You will be able to understand easily, if it is a propaganda material. The significance of the article or book must be clearly established.

The subject matter coverage

Read the material critically and find out the focal point of the article. The findings, discussions, and conclusions must be logically arranged.

The treatment given to the content

Try to find out the theoretical perspective of the author, and check whether this differs from the current understanding prevalent among the research workers about the topic. Check whether the author has included any literature taking positions s/he does not agree with.

The structure followed

The article should evaluate the designs and methodological issues sufficiently well. Conflicting and complementary ideas should be presented and discussed. There must be an objective basis to the reasoning.

Avoid biased sources

Avoid sources that appear biased such as those from lobbyists and advocacy groups, which tend to present only evidences that support one interpretation. Beware of sources that depend upon logical fallacies or false arguments that tend to divert or mislead readers instead of material evidence or logical reasoning.

Consider timeliness of publications

Current literature, including those published recently, is likely to be more reliable and convincing than older sources.

Maintain extra vigil on electronic sources

You may come across innumerable web based resources, which are relatively easy to access. Online journals must have ISSN, DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and impact factor.. In any case, avoid predatory journals. Consult the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) for reputed open access, peer-reviewed journals.

The above critical questions for evaluating a source for including in a literature review are not comprehensive. However, an assessment of above aspects will help you to form a good basis for your written review.

Joy Yang, I am sure that you have by now everything that you need to write a good, well informed literature review.

Not quite, Ana Maria.

I suggest good old fashion logic. If you are looking at two articles that are addressing the SAME point, you should do the following:

1. Do the true agreed? If so, try to present in a chronological perspective.

2. If not? Then you should present both points of view.

A general literature review leading to the presentation of primary data research which not be the location for any definitive conclusions. It should be a section of the paper for giving the reader a wide presentation of the subject matter.

As to the age of an article, in general, you should be addressing material within the last 10 to 15 years. However, any iconic work from that subject should be incorporated as well.

I think selecting proper paper in writing litreature should depend on filling the research gap and related research variables . Then you can think which is recently published or old one.

hi

Nine Steps To Writing A Literature Review:

https://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/get-assistance/writing/specific-types-papers/writing-literature-review

Hi Joy,

This link may be helpful:

https://books.google.com/books?id=YTUlDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=write+literature+review&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhz7KtuqjeAhXEVN8KHfGOACAQuwUILjAA#v=onepage&q=write%20literature%20review&f=false

Have a great day!

--Adrian

Hi,

Actually one question to highlight is that, from where to collect the LR papers?

why only use google scholar, or scopus or a certian database to collect articles.

After i finished my LR, and at the edge of publishing my LR review paper, my supervisor questioned me why I only used Scopus, Science direct, T &F as my only data bases for collecting LR articles. and now I kinda have to restart from scratch again

Of course there are very many sources to have information for writing your literature review that is for those who believe it should be incorporated in a research study. However, it must be worthwhile to consider the dynamic nature of research because the whole effort is trying to discover the unknown. That said, I think you should look in for high quality articles (from many sources) positive or negative that has to do with your variables of study, review each and bring out the various arguments which will help in your own analysis, interpretation and final concluding remarks.

Best regards.