Course Number: SK432
Subject: Social Work
Table of Contents
1. Literature Review 2. Searching 3. Preliminary Searching 4. Research Question 5. Worksheet
Introduction
This guide accompanies an in-class workshop about literature review. Go back to it when working on your Social Determinants of Health Research Assignment.
OBJECTIVE: draft a working plan for reviewing the literature around your topic.
1. Literature Review
THE PRODUCT: A literature review is a survey of research about a particular topic.
- It's specific - focuses on a well-defined research question.
- It's selective - includes a curated selection of research.
- It's a synthesis - brings together discussions from across the research.
- It's a starting point - identifies where your research fits into the picture.
- It shows accountability - demonstrates how you're tuning-in to others' work and voices responsibly.
Traditional literature review, also called narrative review, can be part of a larger work (e.g. research paper), or a standalone study.
Example: see "Beyond the Family Binary" in The Journal of Marriage and Family (p. 942-946).
Tip! Adapt a synthesis table template to compare studies.
Question: How many sources should a literature review include?
THE PROCESS: There are different ways to review literature. Your methods need to fit your goals for the project at hand. For your assignment, you need to describe your literature review process.
- Where's the best place to search for your topic?
- What keywords will get you good results?
- What search tactics will help you identify relevant studies?
Question: Where do you currently search for peer-reviewed articles?
Question: Where might you search for: (i) 8 peer-reviewed articles versus (ii) 8 of the most recent and/or influential peer-reviewed articles by researchers in your field?
What is a Literature Review?
Why is Process Important? Let's Try Something!
For the next 10 minutes, please follow the 3 steps below individually. Then, we'll review together.
- Copy the following search: "housing first" Canada
- Paste the search into each of the following tools, and run it.
- Answer these 3 questions:
- How many results did you get?
- What are the dates for the first 3 results?
- What journals are the first 3 results from?
2. Searching
a. Article Databases
There is a list of databases relevant to Social Work. Choose databases to search for your topic based on the descriptions.
- Limit results to peer-reviewed.
- Discover key articles.
- Recognize key scholars.
- Avoid missing important results.
- Cut out irrelevant results.
Question: what's 1 database I might search for a topic about children experiencing PTSD following a natural disaster?
b. Keywords
What are the major concepts in your topic? What are some synonyms or alternate terms you can use?
- Consider the terms typically used in research literature.
- Google "synonyms for ..."
- If you have an on-topic article, see what terms get used in the title/abstract.
Major Concept | Keywords |
---|---|
Natural disaster | Natural disaster, hurricane, flood, earthquake, tornado, fire |
c. Field Searching
- Use the drop-down beside a search box to find terms in specific areas of results. Codes beside each field tell the database where to search for a term.
Example: ti("adverse childhood experiences") in PsycINFO (all results will have the term in titles).
d. Limits
- You can limit results to peer-reviewed or scholarly.
- A date limit is also sometimes useful.
e. Search Tactics
Try using some of the following database search tactics to get better results.
What is the tactic? | What does the tactic do? | Examples |
---|---|---|
Boolean AND | Use AND to ensure that all terms appear in every search result. | depression AND home care |
Boolean OR | Use OR to ensure that at least one term appears in every search result. | transgender OR LGBTQ OR GLBT |
Phrase searching | Use βquotation marksβ to find more than one term in a row. | βbrain cancerβ |
Truncation | Use an asterisk* at the end of a term to include multiple endings. | trauma* trauma, traumatic, traumatically, traumatize, traumatized, traumatizing |
Wildcard | Use a question mark ? within a term to search for variations of a single character. | decoloni?e decolonize, decolonise |
Subjects | These are controlled terms from a database thesaurus that are assigned to articles. Databases have different thesauri, which affects the subjects you use. | MESH.EXACT("Health Services for Transgender Persons") in MEDLINE (MH "Transgender Persons+") in CINAHL |
Question: What is the CINAHL subject for teenager?
3. Preliminary Searching
- Before brainstorming a research question, it's helpful to learn a bit about your topic.
- Do some preliminary database searching: what questions are researchers are asking?
- From your search results, read just article titles and abstracts where the titles sound interesting.
- Do some preliminary database searching: what questions are researchers are asking?
Example: ab("natural disaster") AND ab(child*) in Social Services Abstracts.
4. Research Question
- A well-defined research question gives direction to your searching.
- Frameworks can give guidance about what to include.
- Pick any elements from the frameworks below that work for your topic.
PICO (for clinical topics)
Patient, population, or problem - Who is my question about?
Intervention - What is the intervention?
Comparison - Is there a comparison intervention?
Outcome - What is the outcome?
PEO (for qualitative topics)
Population - Who is my question about?
Exposure - What issue am I interested in?
Outcomes - What do I want to examine?
CLIP (for health policy topics)
Client - Who is the service aimed at?
Location - Where is the service sited?
Improvement - What do you want to find out?
Professional - Who is involved in providing the service?