I help a lot of doctoral students to figure out how to write their dissertations. (That’s dissertation coaching.) I have found over and over again that they do not understand the purpose of the the literature review.
Academic research can be quite different than other research that many people do. In much of our lives, we are looking for support for our position. Trying to find the evidence and ideas that will help convince others to our position. But that is not what academic research is about, at all. (Or at least, it never should be.) At other times, we are trying to learn, for ourselves. What is out there? What is known. Or, what can I learn from doing this? Again, that is not academic research.
Instead, academic research is about building knowledge. Not one’s own personal knowledge, but rather the knowledge that we — as a field or discipline — have. Academic research is about contributing to that knowledge of the field. It is about real discovery of something new, or deeper or more specific examination of something we don’t quite have nailed down, yet.
This means that the researcher — in this case, the doctoral student — must know what has already been done. That is, they must know investigate what has come before to make sure that they are unintentionally reinventing the wheel. The fact that this researcher does not know what others have done is simply not not an excuse. Instead, it is their responsibility to do the library research and investigations to find out what has come before.
I call this dynamic of building on and contributing to the literature scholarship. That is, there is a scholarly conversation going on through journal articles and academic conferences. When young or new researchers — like doctoral students — conduct and write up their research, they should take part in this conversation. The first way that works is to acknowledge what has already been said by others, so that the researcher can build upon it and respond to it. That acknowledgement is the literature review.
This allows researchers to stand on the shoulders of the giants that have come before them. This goes to the old aphorism, if I have seen further than other men, it's because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. Heck, Google Scholar — an invaluable tool for anyone conducting or writing a literature review — adopted he motto, Stand on the Shoulders of Giants!
So, the literature reviews tells the reader, this is what has come before, this is what we — as a field — already know, and this is what I am building on. This is the scholarly context for my research.
The doctoral dissertation’s literature has an additional dimension, as well. The doctoral dissertation is a masterpiece, in the oldest sense of the word. That is, it is work done by a aspiration to be reviewed by the guild to determine whether they have have the skills to be deemed a master, to be accepted as a fellow master. Therefore, the doctoral dissertation must do all the times, and do them better and more completely that typical work. Being subject to that kind of examination, the doctoral dissertation must make all the skills and knowledge clear.
This means that the doctoral dissertation’s literature review must be more complete and in-depth than the more typical literature reviews one might see in journal articles. Doctoral candidates must show make clear to their committees that know how to take part in the scholarly conversation, that they have the skills to find the scholarly conversation and understand it. They do this by showing off how well they have done and written about this one.
That’s a lot. In my view, it is the most intimidating part of the doctoral process. It is ok to be intimidated by it. But there are way to make progress. Your program — or dissection coach — should be able to get your started, help you to strategize and help you to reorient. Then, they should help you to figure out how to write it all up.
I will write more about some smaller issues with literature reviews next week, but there’s one more thing to say here: what the literature view is not.
Doctoral dissertations are not a student’s personal or professional philosophy. They are not a life plan. They are not everything that the student wants to say. They are a very completely and clearly executed piece of research. There are places in the dissertation for the students to opine, philosophize and even rant, but those are quite specific, and none of them are in Chapter II (i.e., the literature review). Chapter II is about what others have researched, written and reported.
Literature reviews do have room for the student/author, but it is really mostly implied. The organization of the review is full of implied judgments. What is mentioned first? How in depth is the explanation of this study or that article? What is is reported about this project or that book?
Furthermore, no studies or articles should be excluded simply because the student/author does not like how they came out. The literature review should not designed simply to support the author’s desired conclusions. They should not cherrypick the literature that they like. Not only is that unethical, it is actually counterproductive. If this project works out as the author expects, it can be more powerful for offering evidence against prevailing ideas in the literature. If there are division in the literature, that only serves to justify the need for this study.
And so, doctoral dissertation literature reviews should play it straight, without being slanted to support desired conclusions. They are not about convincing anyone of a results, but rather just to inform the reader about what is known and that the doctoral candidate has truly investigated what the state of the scholarly conversation on the topic