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SOSC 5110 - Social Science Research Design and Methods: Literature Review

This guide is designed to help students of SOSC 5110 complete their assignments

Introduction

This guide is created to be a resource to you as you work on your assignments for SOSC 5110.  It is especially related to doing a literature review.

Look at this in-depth guide from the University of Southern California: "The Literature Review".

Excerpts from SOSC 5110 syllabus (fall 2022):

"Paper presentation From week 6, some lecture time will be reserved for presentations. The topics of the presentations will be chosen by the students from recently published papers in leading social science journals, which should highlight novel research methods and design in relevant disciplines.

Research Proposal

...The proposal should reflect what you have learned in class about social science research design. The proposal should be for
research that could be carried out assuming availability of adequate funding.

  • It should not be trivial.
  • Nor should it be impossible, implausible, or require infinite resources.
  • The object should be generalizable social science knowledge.
  • Case studies, whether of specific places, firms, organizations, or other entities, are only acceptable insofar as the goal is generalizable knowledge

Interim Report Requirements

  • Broad and up-to-date understanding of the literature: Although your interim report won’t contain your full literature review, it should show depth and breadth. The reader will want to be able to see you understand the field.
  • Relevance of literature to your project: Your interim report, like other reports and essays, needs to connect the literature clearly to your project.
  • The danger when writing a literature review is that it contains a series of paraphrases or summaries, but lacks the analysis that develops the argument to show why this is relevant to your project.

Definition

You select documents on the topic that contain information, ideas, data, & evidence

You write it from specific standpoints - express views on the nature of the topic & how you will investigate the topic or question(s)

You effectively evaluate  (appraise critically, not just summarize) the documents you selected in relation to the research you propose.

(Hart 1998, p.13)

Generating & Communicating Research Information & Knowledge

Research is Conducted by:

Associations | Businesses | Charities | Governments | Individuals (people)  | Institutions (universities, think tanks, etc.) | Pressure groups | Trade Unions  

►    Information is Generated from:

Research  |  Critical evaluations  | Interperative work

►   Information from, on, or about Research is Communicated  via:

Anthologies | Blogs | Books (monographs) | Book chapters | Conference Papers |  Emails | Journals |  Journal articles | Lectures | Letters | Meetings | Newsletters  | Newspapers | Reports | Seminars |  Textbooks  | Theses | Tweets

► Information from, on, or about Research is Organized  in:

Article Databases | Bibliographies | Data Repositories |  Dictionaries | Encyclopedias | Library Catalogs

(Hart, 1998, p. 4)

Why Do a Literature Review? 4 min 35 sec

Purpose

  • Demonstrate your skills in library (research literature) searching
  • Show your command of the subject area ("I know my stuff!")
  • Show you understand the research problem
  • Justify your
    • research topic
    • research design
    • research methodology

(Hart 1998, p. 13)

Questions your Literature Review can answer about your topic

  • Key concepts and theories & ideas?
  • Main questions & problems answered up to now?
  • Major issues & debates?
  • Origins of the topic?
  • In what ways has the topic been defined or limited?
  • Key sources (authors, books, articles, data, etc.?)

(Hart 1998, p. 14)

Scholarship

Scholarship as an activity = thinking systematically

  • Systematic questioning
  • Searching
  • Looking  deep and long =  Scrutinizing -   詳細地檢查

Integration (making intellectual connections) between  ideas, theories, & experience = key to good scholarship

  • Applying a method from one area to another
  • Place a situation or phenomenon into larger theoretical framework
    • Drawing elements from different theories into a synthesis
    • Make new insight
  • Re-examine existing knowledge based on new or more recent development

(Hart 1998, p 8-9)

Research Apprentice - 學徒,徒弟,見習生

Social Science has many sub-disciplines and methods - but has some core skills,  attitudes & abilities . As an apprentice sopcial scientist you will learn to...

  • Integrate theory & method:
    • Understand the relationship between   theory, method, & research design and practical skills & particular methods
    • Understand the knowledge base of your discipline
    • Understand your disciplines methodological foundations

 

(Hart, 1998, p. 5)

References

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage, 1998.  (HKUST Library H62 .H2566 1998)

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