This guide highlights print and electronic resources in political science, plus information about Yale University Library's collections and services.
Lay advice on writing theses and dissertations. This article demonstrates in more detail one aspect of our discussion
UB Political Science: Preparing a Literature Review Contains links and two articles on literature reviews, the articles are specific to Political Science
UNC Charlotte: A Guide to Writing Literature Review in Political Science Article with search tips on methods to approach the literature review
Michigan State University: Literature Review Similar guide to this one, provides links to more guides on literature reviews
Preparing Literature Reviews by M. Ling Pan * Illustrates all the steps in preparing qualitative and quantitative literature reviews. * Emphasizes topic selection, locating literature, and avoiding major pitfalls in evaluating and synthesizing literature. * Shows how to improve literature reviews through the judicious inclusion of statistical results found in the literature. * Provides easy-to-follow advice on how to avoid misrepresenting the results of published research in literature reviews. * The numerous examples throughout the text and the nine model literature reviews clarify the process of following the guidelines for writing solid, state-of-the-art literature reviews. * Shows students how to blend qualitative and quantitative approaches to preparing literature reviews without being overly mathematical.
Call Number: Q180.55.E9 P36 2013 ISBN: 1936523116Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review by Andrew Booth; Anthea Sutton; Diana Papaioannou Showing you how to take a structured and organized approach to a wide range of literature review types, this book helps you to choose which approach is right for your research. Packed with constructive tools, examples, case studies and hands-on exercises, the book covers the full range of literature review techniques. New to This Edition: Full re-organization takes you step-by-step through the process from beginning to end New chapter showing you how to choose the right method for your project Practical guidance on integrating qualitative and quantitative data New coverage of rapid reviews Comprehensive inclusion of literature review tools, including concept analysis, scoping and mapping With an emphasis on the practical skills, this guide is essential for any student or researcher needing to get from first steps to a successful literature review.
Call Number: LB1047.3 .B66 2016 ISBN: 1473912458Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences by Kristin Luker "You might think that dancing doesn't have a lot to do with social research, and doing social research is probably why you picked this book up in the first place. But trust me. Salsa dancing is a practice as well as a metaphor for a kind of research that will make your life easier and better." Savvy, witty, and sensible, this unique book is both a handbook for defining and completing a research project, and an astute introduction to the neglected history and changeable philosophy of modern social science. In this volume, Kristin Luker guides novice researchers in: knowing the difference between an area of interest and a research topic defining the relevant parts of a potentially infinite research literature mastering sampling, operationalization, and generalization understanding which research methods best answer your questions beating writer's block. Most important, she shows how friendships, nonacademic interests, and even salsa dancing can make for a better researcher. "You know about setting the kitchen timer and writing for only an hour, or only 15 minutes if you are feeling particularly anxious. I wrote a fairly large part of this book feeling exactly like that. If I can write an entire book 15 minutes at a time, so can you."
Call Number: H62 .L7995X 2008 ISBN: 0674031571"A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. [. ] In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries."
1. Use this guide as a starting point. Begin your search with the resources linked from the political science subject guide. These library catalogs and databases will help you identify what's been published on your topic.
2. What came first? Try bibliographic tracing. As you're finding sources, pay attention to what and whom these authors cite. Their footnotes and bibliographies will point you in the direction of additional scholarship on your topic.
3. What comes next? Look for reviews and citation reports. What did scholars think about that book when it was published in 2003? Has anyone cited that article since 1971? Reviews and citation analysis tools can help you determine if you've found the seminal works on your topic--so that you can be confident that you haven't missed anything important, and that you've kept up with the debates in your field. You'll find book reviews in JSTOR and other databases. Google Scholar has some citation metrics; you can use Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index) for more robust citation reports.
4. Stay current. Get familiar with the top journals in your field, and set up alerts for new articles. If you don't know where to begin, APSA and other scholarly associations often maintain lists of journals, broken out by subfield. In many databases (and in Google Scholar), you can also set up search alerts, which will notify you when additional items have been added that meet your search criteria.
5. Stay organized. A citation management tool--e.g., RefWorks, Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley--will help you store your citations, generate a bibliography, and cite your sources while you write. Some of these tools are also useful for file storage, if you'd like to keep PDFs of the articles you've found. To get started with citation management tools, check out this guide.
1. Consult Annual Reviews. The Annual Review of Political Science consists of thorough literature review essays in all areas of political science, written by noted scholars. The library also subscribes to Annual Reviews in economics, law and social science, sociology, and many other disciplines.
2. Turn to handbooks, bibliographies, and other reference sources. Resources like Oxford Bibliographies Online and assorted handbooks (Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior, etc.) are great ways to get a substantive introduction to a topic, subject area, debate, or issue. Not exactly literature reviews, but they do provide significant reference to and commentary on the relevant literature--like a heavily footnoted encyclopedia for specialists in a discipline.
3. Search databases and Google Scholar. Use the recommended databases in the "Articles & Databases" tab of this guide and try a search that includes the phrase "literature review."
4. Search in journals for literature review articles. Once you've identified the important journals in your field as suggested in the section above, you can target these journals and search for review articles.
5. Find book reviews. These reviews can often contain useful contextual information about the concerns and debates of a field. Worldwide Political Science Abstracts is a good source for book reviews, as is JSTOR. To get to book reviews in JSTOR, select the advanced search option, use the title of the book as your search phrase, and narrow by item type: reviews. You can also narrow your search further by discipline.
6. Cast a wide net--don't forget dissertations. Dissertations and theses often include literature review sections. While these aren't necessarily authoritative, definitive literature reviews (you'll want to check in Annual Reviews for those), they can provide helpful suggestions for sources to consider.
