University of Benghazi Faculty of Engineering

ES505 - Research Methodology – Spring 2018

Topic: 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature

• Why Should You Do Literature Review?
• Research- Application cycle
• Sources of Literature Material
• Evaluating Web Sources
• Useful Sources for Industrial Engineering
• What Should be Covered in Your Literature Review
• How to Read and Critically Assess the Literature

Most of the material presented in these handouts were obtained and summarized from:

• Walliman, N., Research Methods The Basics, first edition, Routledge, 2011.
• Blaxter, L., Hughes, C. and Tight, M., How to Research, third edition, Buckingham: Open University Press., 2006.
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Why Should You Do Literature Review?

• The most important reason for doing research is to produce

new knowledge and understanding, and to publish it to make it
available to everyone.

• When planning a research project, it is essential to know what

the current state of knowledge is in your chosen subject as it is
obviously a waste of time to spend months producing
knowledge that is already freely available.

• Therefore, one of the first steps in planning a research project

is to do a literature review.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 3

Why Should You Do Literature Review?

More specifically:-

• It can works as an important introduction to the research project

and underpins (supports) the argument about why the project is
worth doing.
• Understanding how research has been conducted will provide
a useful source of experience in using relevant research methods
for collecting and analyzing data.
• It can also demonstrate that you have a good understanding of
the current conceptual frameworks in your subject, and that you
can take a stance (position) in placing your work within them.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 4

A research literature review is a systematic, explicit, and reproducible

method for identifying, evaluating and synthesizing (making) the existing
body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars
and practitioners.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 5

Research- Application cycle

Research Translation and integration Application

• New knowledge

• Journals articles • Theories and Laws

• Technical reports • Principles and Guidelines
• Data and Information
• Methods and Techniques

• Textbooks • Design, analyze, improve,

• Handbooks products and systems
• Other teaching and • Understand and control
training material environments

• New methods, principles,

techniques, etc.
• New problems and
challenges
Adopt from: Bailey, R., Human Performance Engineering, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1982.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 6

Sources of Literature Material

Sources of literature material may include ..

• books: of all kinds;

• Journals: practitioner oriented (expert) or research-based,

popular and academic, and conferences and seminars
proceedings;

• reports: produced by different institutions or organizations;

• computer-based materials: may include both textbook and

journal materials as well as discussion groups and websites.

• popular media: newspapers, magazines, radio and TV;

 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 7

Sources of Literature Material

Source: Laplante, P., Technical Writing a Practical Guide for Engineers and Scientists, CRC press, 2012.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 8

Sources of Literature Material

Literature material could be found via:

• Libraries: Library catalogue, electronic databases and Librarians.

• People

• Intranets (internal nets)

• Information services

• The internet
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Sources of Literature Material

 Eight stages for finding what you need

1. Take advice from available sources: your supervisor, manager,
fellow researchers or students.
2. Locate books, journals or other materials that appear
relevant by asking advice, browsing around, or using a library
catalogue or Internet search engine.
3. Once you have identified relevant shelf or Internet locations,
look at other materials there which are relevant to your
topic.
4. Once you have identified relevant journals – in print or online
– look through recent issues to find the most up-to-date
writing on your topic.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 10

Sources of Literature Material

 Eight stages for finding what you need

5. Read outwards from your original sources by following up

interesting looking references.
6. Identify key texts by noting those that are referred to again
and again. Make sure that you read the most popular or
relevant of these. Seek out the latest editions.
7. As you develop a feeling for the literature relevant to your
field, try and ensure that you have some understanding,
and have done some reading within, its different areas.
8. Use the time and resources you have available to do as
much relevant reading as possible.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 11

Evaluating Web Sources

Anyone can add pages to the World Wide Web, so how can you
judge if the information you have found is reliable? Here are six
different tests you can make to judge the quality of the contents.
1. Is it accurate? Does it say what sources the data are based on?
Compare the data with other sources. If it diverges greatly, is
there some explanation for this?
2. What authority is it based on? Find out who authored
the pages, and whether they are recognized experts or are
issued by a reputable (reliable) organization.
3. Is it biased? Many pressure groups and commercial
organizations use the Web to promote (support) their ideas and
products, and present information in a one-sided way.
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Evaluating Web Sources

4. How detailed is the information? Is the information so general

that it is of little use, or so detailed and specialized that it is
difficult to understand?
5. Is it out of date? Pages stay on the Web until they are removed.
Some have obviously been forgotten and are hopelessly out of
date.

6. Have you cross-checked? Compare the contents with other

sources of information such as books, articles, official statistics
and other websites. Does the information tally with or contradict
these. If the latter, can you see why?
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 13

Useful Sources for Industrial Engineering

• One of the most useful source of information is the material and
publications produced by many of professional and scientific
societies, institutions or associations concerned with various aspects
of industrial engineering.
• Here is a list of some of these societies:-

• Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE)

‫معهد المهندسيين الصناعيين ومهندسي النظم‬
• Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
‫معهد بحوث العمليات وعلوم اإلدارة‬
• American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS)
‫الجمعية األمريكية للتحكم في اإلنتاج والمخزون‬
• American Society of Quality (ASQ)
‫الجمعية األمريكية للجودة‬
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Useful Sources for Industrial Engineering

• Human Factors and Ergonomic Society (HFES)

‫جمعية العوامل البشرية واإليرغونامكس‬
• Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME)
‫جمعية مهندسي التصنيع‬
• Society of American Value Engineers (SAVE)
‫الجمعية األمريكية لمهندسي القيمة‬
• American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE)
‫الجمعية األمريكية لمهندسي السالمة‬
• Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
‫جمعية اآلالت الحاسوبية‬
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Useful Sources for Industrial Engineering

 Publications of IISE

Source: Publications, Institute of Industrial and System Engineers,

URL: http://www.iienet2.org/details.aspx?id=1486 ,
retrieved from the web on May 23, 2016.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 16

What Should be Covered in Your Literature Review

• Doing a literature review means not only tracking down all

the relevant information but also taking a critical position on
the ideas contained therein.

• The latter is an important step in determining the quality of

research evidence.
• The process involves an objective evaluation of the strengths and
weaknesses of a document, to determine its design quality and
merits, and its relevance for your research topic.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 17

What Should be Covered in Your Literature Review

The literature review will need to be carried out in four major

directions:-
1. Research theory and philosophy – to establish the intellectual
(academic) context(s) of research related to your subject.
2. History of developments in your subject – to trace the
background to present thinking.
3. Latest research and developments in your subject – to inform
about the current issues being investigated and the latest thinking
and practice, to discuss the conflicting arguments, and to detect a
gap in knowledge.
4. Research methods – to explore practical techniques that have
been used, particularly those that might be relevant to your
project.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 18

How to Read and Critically Assess the Literature

 Tips for effective reading

• Note down the author(s), title, publisher and date of the book,
report or article. Record this, and any notes on the content.
• Look for an introduction, concluding chapter, abstract or executive
summary. If there is one, read it quickly, scanning the contents.
• If it is a book or report, look for the contents page. Identify any
chapters which you think may be of particular relevance and focus
on them.
• If it is a book or report, look for an index. If there are specific
points you are interested in, you should be able to locate from the
index where they are discussed in the text.
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How to Read and Critically Assess the Literature

 Tips for summarizing your assessments
• You will need to make a summary that briefly covers your critical
assessment and assessment of the quality of each research paper.
• It is a good idea to standardize the form of your assessments
using standard headings, such as:
• Study objectives, purpose, design and assumptions.
• Methods of data collection and analysis.
• Main findings and conclusions.
• The study’s strengths and limitations
• Using this list of headings you can produce a table with
the summaries of the results of your critical assessment of each of
the studies so that you can scan across the set of papers.
 4- Finding and Reviewing the Literature 20

Assignment 4

• Conduct a simple literature review for your research project,

including at least a general coverage of the context or the area of
your research topic.