| I went to a WONDERFUL event yesterday at the McNamara Alumni Center to welcome Dean Darlyne Bailey to campus and to officially kick off and celebrate the New CEHD. While there I was able to reconnect with several colleagues I hadn't seen since my defense or shortly before. (Seems like a lifetime has passed since then, but it has only been a couple weeks or so...) Anyway, a few of my grad school pals are busy working on their critical review paper, and that reminded me of this entry I posted last year. Hopefully this may be of help to them, and to anyone else working on a similar scholarly project. This kind of strategy of framing a review around a specific question, I was surprised to find, also works wonders for writing an effective lit review chapter for a dissertation. So with that, Happy Writing! No matter how painful your own writing project seems right now, just imagine how good it will feel once you're done with it.
(Originally posted 12/5/05) |
I will be out of town (in warmer climes--YAY!) when a panel of grad students visits the Quantitative Methods class to discuss the Critical Review Paper (CRP). But since being invited to participate on the panel, my mind has occassionally drifted back to my experiences with this paper and departmental program requirement. At first my reactions were something akin to what someone suffering war-related PTSD feels when suddenly hearing a car backfire. Yes, I am exaggerating a little here. But not by much.
A colleague in my cohort famously said that trying to complete the CRP was like being constipated, and finally turning it in was like finally getting some...eliminatory relief. This description is apt. However, if for my colleague the CRP was a bout of constipation, for me it was full fledged chronic irritable bowel syndrome. (Please excuse my scatological metaphors. I am inspired by spending much of yesterday with a dozen 5 and 6 year olds, and if you've ever spent any time with that age cohort you know that all conversational/humor roads lead eventually to talk of the potty.)
Where was I? The Critical Review Paper.
For those who do not inhabit the third floor of McNeal Hall of the U of Minnesota, for our department the CRP is part one of our written preliminary examination requirement. According to the FSoS handbook, the CRP is "a measure of the student’s ability to critically analyze existing literature focusing on theoretical concepts, research methodology, and application of the findings on a specific topic."
I think a turning point for me in finally "getting" exactly how to go about this task was when my advisor (your prof, for those of you in the Quant Methods class) asked me "What research question are you attempting to answer with your review?" Prior to that I had been looking to review articles such as those found in the Journal of Marriage and Family decade review issues for guidance. Mistake. These are generally not critical reviews, but more like comprehensive reviews.
Once I thought about that research-question question, I conducted another literature search. This time I looked for articles--on any topic--in which the title was in the form of a question and that also contained "a review" or "literature review" in the title. By skimming some of these articles I was able to get a sense about how one goes about organizing a critical review paper that seeks to answer a research question. Thinking of the CRP in this way allowed me to limit my efforts: No longer was I trying to find everything written in my subject area. Instead, I was able to develop a single, focussed question in order to review articles that shed light on this question and this question only. Finding those articles was simple once I had this question in mind. And as a result, I can generally now look upon my time of CRP-ing a lot less critically than when I was in the midst of the process.
Examples
For that first crucial turning point I really had to read other articles that seemed to take the research question approach to a literature review article. It did not matter what the subject was, or even if I could understand the content. For example, consider the following examples of real journal articles and note how each one poses a specific research-type question:
(1) External cephalic version: a safe procedure? A systematic review of version-related risks(2) Is Self-Complexity Linked to Better Coping? A Review of the Literature
(3) To justify or excuse?: A meta-analytic review of the effects of explanations
(4) What do we know about child neglect? A critical review of the literature and its application to social work practice
(5) Is Self Special? A Critical Review of Evidence From Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Now, in the first example I haven't the foggiest idea what external cephalic versions are let alone whether they are safe. But whatever they may be, I presume that what the author will not do in the review is present a full decade-long treatise on the history, development, and measurement of all cephalic versions, internal, external, and other. It is more likely that the author will review articles in which results indicate that these types of versions are OK and contrast these with articles claiming they are risky. Ideally the author will present a clear argument for one stance or the other--based on the research reviewed. Are the studies reliable and valid? What instruments were used? What were the sample characteristics? What about the theoretical assumptions? If no answer to the title question can be drawn, what does the reviewer suggest with regard to directions for future research that might answer this question?
The same thing goes for the second example: Either self-complexity is or is not associated with better coping. (Note: Not a review of self-complexity generally, or of coping generally.) An author poses this as a legitimate question and might come down on one side or the other based on the quality of the studies reviewed. Or more complexly, it may be that the reviewed research seems to suggest that under circumstances involving X the answer is affirmative while under Z types of circumstances the answer is negative. In the third review article example, it may be that there are five or so effects of explanation recognized in the literature. But perhaps the author has some reason (which she or he would, if she or he were completing this review for the CRP assignment in the Department of Family Social Science, articulate clearly in the "delimitations" section of the review) for choosing just these two possible effects. In this case, it appears that in addition to reviewing articles that address this question, the author is also doing some re-analysis of the data--perhaps computing effect sizes, for example--to bolster the concusion.
In the fourth example, perhaps the author groups "what we know about child neglect" into a trio of answers. Then the articles being reviewed might be organized under these results. "Some research finds that we know X"...then an integration of discussion of the several articles that typify this conclusion; "Other research, however, has concluded Y"...then a discussion of these studies, perhaps contrasting them with the first group; etc. Also what this example does is specify the intent of the article: not methodological analysis, not theoretical critique, but what the articles reviewed might mean for practice in a specific field.
Finally, in the fifth example the author seeks, again, to answer with the review a research question. In this case the title does a nifty job of specifying the two fields that the literature is drawn from. The author might briefly discuss why these two fields were chosen and not others. And in this case it may be that the idea of self being special is given a different spin in these two disciplinary traditions. Perhaps the author is affiliated with one discipline and wants to argue that conclusions from the other one provide greater insight. Or perhaps the author is in a third discipline, one in which self-specialness is taken as a given, but she is providing evidence from reviewing articles in these two disciplines that such a view ought to be abandonned.
At any rate, these are just hypothetical examples but hopefully they illustrate my point. Your CRP issues may not involve this difficulty at all. But for me, this tactic provided much needed clarity that helped me complete this program requirement. Best of luck!
Useful article on writing literature reviews in the family field:Posted by perry032 at October 10, 2006 06:19 PM | TrackBackBenson, M. J., Sporakowski, M. J., Stremmel, A. J. (1992). Writing reviews of family literature: Guiding students using Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive objectives. Family Relations, 41, 65-69.