Your Psychology Dissertation
Written by
Emily Harrison and Panagiotis Rentzelas
Summary chapters: 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 13
July 2023
,Chapter 4: Understanding the Literature
Learning outcomes
- Understand some principles of how to conduct an effective literature search
- Understand how to read a journal article and make effective notes
- Understand how to structure your literature review chapter
Tip
Write down references to papers as you read about them in textbooks so that you can look up
the original papers later.
4.1 Exploring existing literature
The key to a successful literature search is identifying the most appropriate and relevant
papers to read further, minimizing unnecessary work → using the advanced search option to
help.
- If your advanced search term returns too few papers, you’ll need to go back and
broaden your search parameters
Tip:
Create a mindmap of key terms in your chosen topic area. Alternate your use of key term
combinations throughout your literature search to identify all the relevant papers for your
literature review. As you do so, be sure to make a note of the references of these papers.
Through your various searches, you can begin to identify relevant papers by their titles or by
authors whose names you recognize from background reading.
-Ask yourself the following questions to help you identify their significance: Employability
skills -
Is the area relevant to your topic?
Is the focus of the article broadly or more specifically related to your topic?
What methods were used in this study?
What were the findings of the study?
Are there any obvious limitations to this study that could be overcome in future
research?
Caution!
Be wary of focusing too much attention on articles that are more than 10 years old! Chances
are the study may already be done, resulting in a lack of meaningful contribution.
Employability tip: reading and re-reading papers will help you to develop your critical
thinking skills and your basic understanding of an article into a critical understanding. Critical
thinking is also a key transferable skill that will be relevant to the job market.
For each paper you read, you’ll need to make a note of the following information:
- The full reference of the paper
- The research question/aim
- The design variables
- The population being studied
- The key findings
- The conclusions
, As you read more and more papers and record your notes, you will begin to notice links
between different studies. This will provide the backbone for your literature chapter.
4.2 Structuring your literature review chapter
Your literature review should organize the discussion of literature into key points, with each
point becoming a paragraph. Each paragraph should discuss one point and lead clearly into
the next paragraph in order to generate a flow within your writing.
Introducing paper
1. Start by introducing the authors and follow with an overview of their work
2. Start by introducing the paper, and follow by citing the authors
Use subheadings to group discussion of papers into large sections, Using subheadings will
create more manageable subsections for your reader and can be a useful way of aiding the
development of your argument. Subheadings can be particularly useful if you have more than
one research question and/or hypothesis.
One way to ensure your paragraphs follow a clear structure is to start each paragraph with a
topic sentence. This is a sentence which signposts the reader to the content of the paragraph.
Importantly, however, each paragraph should also link clearly to the preceding paragraph.
Organizing the discussion and linking paragraphs will help your reader understand the
argument.
Tip:
Being able to formulate a strong argument relies on two main things:
- Effective structure, and
- Critical analysis
Employability tip: Critical analysis is an important employability skill. Being able to
demonstrate your ability to think critically about situations, research methodologies and
findings within your literature review will help to build a strong argument in your dissertation.
Being able to formulate a strong argument is another important transferable skill.
Written by
Emily Harrison and Panagiotis Rentzelas
Summary chapters: 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 13
July 2023
,Chapter 4: Understanding the Literature
Learning outcomes
- Understand some principles of how to conduct an effective literature search
- Understand how to read a journal article and make effective notes
- Understand how to structure your literature review chapter
Tip
Write down references to papers as you read about them in textbooks so that you can look up
the original papers later.
4.1 Exploring existing literature
The key to a successful literature search is identifying the most appropriate and relevant
papers to read further, minimizing unnecessary work → using the advanced search option to
help.
- If your advanced search term returns too few papers, you’ll need to go back and
broaden your search parameters
Tip:
Create a mindmap of key terms in your chosen topic area. Alternate your use of key term
combinations throughout your literature search to identify all the relevant papers for your
literature review. As you do so, be sure to make a note of the references of these papers.
Through your various searches, you can begin to identify relevant papers by their titles or by
authors whose names you recognize from background reading.
-Ask yourself the following questions to help you identify their significance: Employability
skills -
Is the area relevant to your topic?
Is the focus of the article broadly or more specifically related to your topic?
What methods were used in this study?
What were the findings of the study?
Are there any obvious limitations to this study that could be overcome in future
research?
Caution!
Be wary of focusing too much attention on articles that are more than 10 years old! Chances
are the study may already be done, resulting in a lack of meaningful contribution.
Employability tip: reading and re-reading papers will help you to develop your critical
thinking skills and your basic understanding of an article into a critical understanding. Critical
thinking is also a key transferable skill that will be relevant to the job market.
For each paper you read, you’ll need to make a note of the following information:
- The full reference of the paper
- The research question/aim
- The design variables
- The population being studied
- The key findings
- The conclusions
, As you read more and more papers and record your notes, you will begin to notice links
between different studies. This will provide the backbone for your literature chapter.
4.2 Structuring your literature review chapter
Your literature review should organize the discussion of literature into key points, with each
point becoming a paragraph. Each paragraph should discuss one point and lead clearly into
the next paragraph in order to generate a flow within your writing.
Introducing paper
1. Start by introducing the authors and follow with an overview of their work
2. Start by introducing the paper, and follow by citing the authors
Use subheadings to group discussion of papers into large sections, Using subheadings will
create more manageable subsections for your reader and can be a useful way of aiding the
development of your argument. Subheadings can be particularly useful if you have more than
one research question and/or hypothesis.
One way to ensure your paragraphs follow a clear structure is to start each paragraph with a
topic sentence. This is a sentence which signposts the reader to the content of the paragraph.
Importantly, however, each paragraph should also link clearly to the preceding paragraph.
Organizing the discussion and linking paragraphs will help your reader understand the
argument.
Tip:
Being able to formulate a strong argument relies on two main things:
- Effective structure, and
- Critical analysis
Employability tip: Critical analysis is an important employability skill. Being able to
demonstrate your ability to think critically about situations, research methodologies and
findings within your literature review will help to build a strong argument in your dissertation.
Being able to formulate a strong argument is another important transferable skill.
