Writing: Literature Reviews for Culminating Project

All disciplines have books and articles that discuss research methods.  Many of these books will contain a chapter on literature reviewing.  They may also discuss problem formulation, or how to define your topic well enough to know what literature to include in your review. 

The CORE Library, at present, does not have an ebook on research methods.  However, that just means you have to get a bit creative in tracking down the appropriate book for your discipline.  Here are some suggestions:

• Try Google Books.  Search "research" or "research methods."  When I started to type "research methods" into the Google Books search box, it immediately brought up several suggested terms for honing the search:

• If one of these fits your area of need, choose it!  From there, look at individual books within the search results.
• Examine the publisher and copyright information of a book to be sure that it is current.  Sage Publications is often a good publisher to look for as they have a large collection of resources for carrying out research, especially in the social sciences.
• Within that book, search for "literature review."  If the topic is in the book, results will appear with the term highlighted in yellow.  Google Books often gives enough of a preview that you can get what you need right there, or you know whether you want to try to request the book from your local public library via interlibrary loan.

At present, the CORE Library is unable to perform interlibrary loan requests.  However, all you need do is contact your local public library and they should be able to help you.