ABSTRACT
Researchers carry out a review of the literature to inform and refine their research questions, as discussed in Chapter 4, and also because they need to demonstrate their
awareness of the state of knowledge on their chosen topic. It is really important that reviews are critical as this will ensure that you demonstrate your ability to analyse the sources you have identified as important as opposed to just describing them. As Bell and Opie (2002: 137, citing Haywood and Wragg, 1982: 2) point out, it is fairly easy to produce a descriptive review but it’s quite another thing to produce a review which demonstrates ‘that the writer has studied existing work in the field with insight’. In practice this means that when you are preparing to write your review notes you should not simply outline what has been said but you should also record your own response to what has been said, such as what might be missing or which authors disagree with that position. So, we now turn to the task of helping you to read critically as this in turn will enable you to make the move from descriptive to analytical writing. You will need to read theoretical literature as well as empirical studies so that you become familiar with the ways in which researchers use theory in their research. Empirical studies will, of course, include discussions of methodology too, which will include important references that you should note as you will need to chase up some of these so that eventually you will be able to justify your own methodological approach – more on this in Chapter 6.
