How-to on Literature Reviews with Cara Evanson

By Tim Chartier, Davidson College

Literature reviews are an essential part of research papers. They lay the foundation of the work to follow and place the new ideas into context within the field. As such, researchers, students and faculty alike, must complete such reviews. How do we conduct such work? Where do we begin and how do we know when we are done? To help answer these questions, we turn to Cara Evanson, the Research and First Year Experience Librarian at Davidson College. Along with helping students and faculty with their research, Cara researches topics of misinformation and information privilege.

Tim Chartier: A student in a class or a researcher can be asked to prepare a literature review on a mathematical topic. For someone who is entirely new to creating such a document, what’s your advice on first steps?

Cara Evanson: Crafting a literature review is a skill, and just like learning any new skill—dribbling a basketball, whipping up a souffle, sketching a face—observing and analyzing how experts do it can be helpful in figuring out how to do it yourself. In the case of a literature review, experts are published scholars. Find papers in the general area of your own research to see how the authors of those papers have structured their literature reviews. Once you have a handful of examples, take a close look at the cited references and how they are integrated into the overall structure of the paper. What commonalities do you notice? Any shared elements in structure and format across your example papers should be matched in your own literature review. You may notice other key elements as well. For instance, the references in the example papers may draw mainly from the same sub-field or may represent an interdisciplinary body of work. This gives you insight into the author’s research process and, as a bonus, can help you identify journals you may want to submit your own work to in the future.

Tim Chartier: What tools do you recommend to aid in finding relevant scholarly work? Finding a list of articles inherently produces pages and pages of content. What tips do you have for sifting through the digital pile of papers?

Cara Evanson: There are a variety of database options you can use for mathematical research, including arXiv.org, MathSciNet, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Regardless of which database you’re using, there are a few common strategies for sifting through the digital pile of results. One is to be intentional about where your eyes first travel when the results load. It’s easy to be drawn in immediately by the titles in the center of the screen, as they’re in bigger, clickable font. However, looking towards the edges of the results first can lead to more efficiency in the search process. The first element I look for is the number that tells me how many results my keywords have returned. This number is usually located right above the results list and gives me a sense of how much latitude I have for filtering my results. Filters are typically to the left of the list of results, though sometimes you need to click into Advanced Search to see all the available options. Even selecting one filter, like publication dates within a certain range, can remove quite a few results that aren’t relevant to what you want to find anyway. When you begin to browse through titles, you’ll know that everything in your results list meets your filter criteria. Using filters strategically is a time-saver in the research process for sure!

Tim Chartier: So, finding relevant research articles seems akin to scholarly Googling. Some of us find information on search engines quicker than others. What tips do you have on improving one’s process of searching?

Cara Evanson: The databases we use are just machines and can’t read our minds (yet, anyway!). But sometimes the first words we type into a search don’t return the results we want. If I get to the end of the first page of search results and haven’t found any titles that look useful, I’ll ask myself: “what’s missing here that I want to be seeing?” That often prompts me to realize there’s an angle to my inquiry I haven’t fully expressed in my keywords (even though the idea of it was in my brain all along). Related to this, sometimes I’ll find a source in my results that is not quite right, but close. Reading through its abstract will sometimes give me an idea of a term I could add to my search to help my results better approximate what I’m trying to find.

Tim Chartier: When it comes to actually writing a literature review, how does one organize the work and begin writing? Any tips on how to read one’s writing and judge the quality of one’s literature review?

Cara Evanson: It can be perplexing to figure out how to turn the list of sources you’ve collected into an orderly literature review. I’m a big fan of mind-maps for this stage of the process. Mind-mapping lets you uncover connections, find footholds, and prepare for writing. I’ll typically start by scribbling, in various spots all over the page, the different themes I want to cover in the literature review. Then I’ll draw lines radiating out from each theme (like a sun, or a spider) and list the name of an author or source title at the endpoint of each line. After I’m finished, I can see which themes connect to which sources. This helps me to get a bearing on the state of my research and figure out which sources belong where in my literature review. Sometimes, while looking at the mind-map, I realize I still need to do more research in a certain area. Not all literature reviews are organized by theme, but this mind-mapping process can be adapted to any type of literature review. The idea is to create visual connections between the sources you’ve collected and the format you’ll need for the literature review, and it can serve as a helpful stepping-stone to the writing stage.

In terms of figuring out the quality of your own literature review, you may want to go back to the sources you initially found in the research process. Does your literature review seem like it fits in with the literature reviews you’ve found in published work? Is it similar in format and structure? Could you see it appearing alongside the others in the same journal? If so, that’s an excellent sign that your literature review is on the right track!

Tim Chartier: How does one know they’re done with the research stage and can begin the literature review writing process?

Cara Evanson: There is no single answer for this question, but one strategy is what I call “finding your research friends.” As you go through the research process, you’ll start to come across author names you’ve seen before, names cited in previous sources you’ve found. Once you start to see those familiar names pop up—your “research friends”—it can be a good signal that you’re starting to circle the research within a certain disciplinary area and are nearing a stage where you’re ready to start the writing process. That said, it’s quite normal to begin the writing process, and then go back and research a bit more, and then return to writing. Often the research stage and the writing stage feel more like one back-and-forth process instead of two separate steps.

Tim Chartier: If someone wants to learn more about writing a literature review, what resources do you recommend online?

Cara Evanson: North Carolina State Libraries has a great series of videos on different aspects of the research process, including Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students. While it’s pitched towards grad students, the information in it is helpful for anyone writing a literature review. Another resource is a guide on literature reviews from The Writing Center at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. It’s well-organized and provides excellent information about the process.

Tim Chartier: Given your expertise as a research librarian, let’s step beyond literature reviews for our last question. What advice do you have in research for new and experienced researchers?

Cara Evanson: Embrace the messy, circuitous process that is research! I often work with students who worry they are doing research “wrong” since it doesn’t feel like a tidy step A, step B, step C process. In fact, research doesn’t feel like a tidy, straightforward process for almost anyone, even scholars who have been doing research for decades. People who are more experienced with research have honed helpful strategies and have learned to trust the process itself, but there’s usually some degree of uncertainty in the middle, a stage where you’re not sure where things are going and if your efforts are really going to get you to your end goal. That’s normal, and it happens to all of us. Also, while that ambiguous, messy stage of research can be frustrating, it can also be a source of creativity and insight. That’s where you can stumble onto new possibilities and see your research grow in exciting ways.

Additionally, don’t hesitate to reach out to the experts around you. Whether those are professors, research librarians, or more experienced students, most people who have gone through the research process themselves are excited to share their strategies and support you in your research journey.

Tim Chartier is the Joseph R. Morton Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College. He is often found emailing the college librarians for help in his research and teaching.