Starting Strong With An Amazing Literature Review
Hello Qualitative Mind,
Today, we’re going to start talking about specifics of writing qualitative research proposals. It seems fitting to start with the literature review. Generally speaking, research proposals start with or include a short literature review that leads to the overall purpose of the study and/or research questions/objectives.
I have a confession to make before moving forward with this post: to me, writing an effective literature review has always been the most challenging and least pleasant. However, I’ve used a set of strategies that, over the years, have helped me to better tackle this common section in academic writing.
I recently came across “The Writer’s Craft” series written by Dr. Lorelei Lingard and published in the journal Perspectives on Medical Education. It’s incredibly helpful, and these next paragraphs are inspired by “Writing an Effective Literature Review: Part I: Mapping the Gap.” Dr. Lingard discusses that an interesting literature review emphasizes what IS known about the literature in one’s area as much as what IS NOT known. We commonly read literature reviews that seem like a list of facts. Although these facts can be interesting, they don’t come together in a way that makes sense to the reader and enables our understanding of why the research proposed or presented matters.
In order to explain this, Dr. Lingard used the colouring a map analogy. So, when writing a literature review, we want to colour the areas around the “blank” area our research intends to fill by situating the knowledge that already exists and showcasing what we are aiming to explore and advance. The reader needs to feel pulled towards the blank area, and understand why they should care about the purpose of your research. Personally, I always thought of the inverse triangle when writing my literature review. I start with the big picture, often with statistics from population-based studies, and then gradually move to the local context. However, I can see how the colouring the map analogy may lead to a more fluid and engaging literature review.
The reader needs to understand why they should care about the purpose of your research.
We’re talking here about writing qualitative research proposals, so what do you need to do in the literature review when it comes to balancing quantitative and qualitative studies? I believe the answer to this question will vary from area to area. I have a health sciences background and, as a result, my literature review tends to have a good balance (I would say 40/60) between quantitative and qualitative research. Depending on the topic, it might be more or less of one or the other. In some fields qualitative research might be all there is while, in others, you might literally be one of not-too-many.
One of the things I learned from Dr. Alex Clark, a professor at the University of Alberta and current Associate Vice-President (Research), in a workshop about writing successful qualitative proposals is to showcase the theoretical underpinning or framework that is guiding my work. {You might not have that and, if you don’t, please DO NOT go crazy looking for one.} This isn’t always clear to us at the beginning of a qualitative research project but as the research happens we might be able to better recognize elements of theories or frameworks in our findings. At this point, it’s worth adding the theory or framework connected to your work to your literature review. You need to remember that your theoretical underpinning or framework could be what sets you apart from someone who is doing similar work elsewhere.
Another scenario to consider when writing the literature review is that you might have something that you are brushing off in your proposal {and coloring too lightly}. In that case, consider revisiting your writing and “coloring” that section with a brighter, more strategic color.
As I said in the introductory paragraph, your literature review will naturally lead to the overall purpose and objectives of your research. You’re doing qualitative research, so there will not be a hypothesis yet a reviewer out there might be looking for that. Unfortunately, my early experience as a PhD Student taught me that uncomfortable lesson (as I mentioned in the previous blog post). Because of that, I try to make my overall purpose and objectives/research questions visually obvious. As such, I commonly use subheadings and numbered bullets that try to convey the message “This is important. And I didn’t forget a hypothesis!” One of the things that I learned in that uncomfortable lesson was that I could format paragraphs in a way that would offer my reader the sense of “breathing room” they might need. That meant an extra space between sections (if possible), bold words where it mattered and headings and subheadings.
Last but not least, I did say earlier on that I’ve struggled with writing literature reviews. I think part of my struggle comes from reading something and writing about it without coming too close to the original source (and risking being too similar; a euphemism for plagiarism) while keeping my thoughts truthful to the source. One strategy I’ve used to curb this problem is breaking my reading and writing time up. I usually read a certain number of papers about an area of my map (going back to Dr. Lingard’s analogy), make extensive notes, and then summarize and reorganize them before my writing time.
This post has a lot of information so let’s recap some key things we discussed today:
Use your literature review to map the gap effectively by including both known and unknown facts/areas in your literature.
Create a storyline that pulls the reader to the “blank” area your research intends to fill. In other words, help them to easily understand why they should care about your proposed project.
Include (or don’t include) quantitative studies in your literature review by understanding your own field of work.
If you have a theoretical underpinning or framework that is shaping your qualitative research, consider emphasizing it.
Be strategic in your formatting, especially when presenting your purpose, research questions, and/or objectives.
Try to learn what works best for you when it comes to balancing reading the literature and writing about it.
You CAN write an effective qualitative research proposal and we are here, rooting for your success!
Talk soon,
Maira Quintanilha