Hint No 9. Literature Reviewing Overview and Plagiarism
Purpose of the Review
You do a literature review because unless YOU become really knowledgeable and expert in your topic area it is impossible to do the research itself. It would be like going to the doctor with a chest infection and he tells you he knows anything about infections but he will have a go anyway. No one would regard that as satisfactory or safe. The central reasons for thorough preparation are.
Formulation - Unless you know the topic area well you may NOT be able to properly formulate the presenting problem
Definition – Unless you know the topic well you will NOT be able to sort out what data you need because you simply will not know enough. Think of it like this. Your topic is problem solving architectures and you decide to use a questionnaire but if you know nothing about this topic area then how will you formulate or even know what primary data to search for.
Processing – When you have collected all your data and try to process it again unless you are a topic expert there is no way you will be able to process and interpret the data – again you simply will not know enough to do it. Think of it like this. I send you all my data on problem solving architectures but it’s going to be largely meaningless to you because you are not expert in this area so you CANNOT generate any outcome from it
Common and serious errors
Currency – the sources listed are out of date (generally meaning over 10 years old)
Coverage – the sources listed give only limited or very limited coverage of the topic area and implies you have not thought about all relevant aspects of your topic area.
Primary Sources – this means journals, position or research papers and works of that kind. We do allow you to use books here but once you get beyond that into general Internet pages or magazines then those sources will be mostly be disregarded and point to serious inadequacies in your preparation.
Displacement – the review is about preparation of your mind for the topic area not the problem scenario. However, what many students do is introduce material from the problem or use the review to talk about what they will do in the project but such action will be regarded as a complete failure because it implies you have no real knowledge of the topic area.
Suggested Format for Literature Review Outline
Here are some ideas to use when constructing the outline. Please be aware that the template has very limited space so you must be concise.
Topic – write a brief description of your topic area.
Originality Theme – the review must have something in it that is original to you and based usually on an idea or viewpoint of your own that connects the materials that you find. If there is no originality then all you have done is tell us what someone else said without comment or critique and frankly that is regarded as next to worthless in research.
Content Map – list 5-10 sub-headings and associated very brief descriptions that will be used to structure your review. It may help you to think about general strands such as: organisational, administrative, functional, social, technological, cultural, ethical and so on or some other structure best suited to your topic; but it must be progressive and logically take you through the topic area. This is about giving your readers a focused and lucid discourse on your chosen topic area. So possible specific areas might be:
Area of application – examines where a particular technology might be used.
History – it might be useful to review the way a business area enveloped or the way a technology has been constructed or used. This needs care as often this kind of material is often of little value (because it is always out of date). For example, if you were looking at credit card security one might talk about the birth of the credit card but it is obvious that kind of information is of very little value.
Relevant definition/theories – these might be worth listing and or exploring unless they are regarded as common knowledge or just plain obvious.
The technology – show that you really understand and know what it is and how it works in practice.
Strengths and Weaknesses – show that you understand that every technology has certain benefits and drawbacks and what they might be in your specific case.
Technical difficulties – show that you appreciate the technical difficulties associated with a technology as far as use, support or integration might be concerned
Statistics – show that you are aware of take up rates or failure rates and future trends
Support – consider supporting IT infrastructures, systems and applications, support needs or help-desks and training
Documents and Tools – You might look at international standards, codes of practice, manufacturer data sheets or support tools
Case Studies and Research Papers – you might look for case study materials for an evaluation of the technology or the area of application as well as any research papers in the topic area.
Psychological – consider user needs and profiles
Costs – associated with technology introduction, uses or enhancement through its full logistical life cycle
Some outline Literature sub-topic Review Headings
Here are samples that were provided by students. The first one is a full sample so you can see what we might look for and the remainder just outline the content maps which is often the hardest part to do.
Essentially this is all about working out what you are going to cover as preparation for the project and it must be comprehensive and ensure that when it is finished in the final project document YOU are indeed expert in the topic area. Try to use the available literature and mould what you find using your own ideas. Work out an originality theme to run through the whole thing. This is an idea YOU have that forms the focus of your thoughts. You may find that as you dig deeper your idea and focus changes and that is fine as long as what you then write is consistent. In these examples they are all written in slightly different ways but that is not important as long as you are clear and it’s obvious you have covered the topic area well.
Example 1 – Real Estate and the Place of IT in that Industry
Topic Area – real estate in the UAE and the IT that supports it
Originality theme – my theme centres round the idea that Real Estate is changing rapidly because of widespread use of the Internet implying the effective removable of national boarders and therefore the business model may have to change as well as the IT systems that support it.
Content Map
What is real estate? (Covering both commercial, private and Government areas)
Real Estate business, it structure and organisation (you might focus on one sector or several)
Personnel and customers
Business Planning and policies
The changing nature of real estate (looks at some stats and peer into the future)
Privatization/liberalization in national policies
Real estate codes of practice and legislation
Real Estate regulation and standards
IT systems and their place in real estate
The place for IT training
Existing research in this area
Conclusion – Real estate is changing rapidly and will continue to do so perhaps at an increased pace with virtually no national boundaries and it is only possible to maintain such a business by the efficient and ethical use of modern IT technology and communications so that the necessary transaction speeds are in place and the whole process is transparent.
Literature Sources
Bouwman, H et. al. (2005). Information and Communication Technology in Organizations. Great Britain: Sage Publications
Dehning, B and Stratopoulos, T. (2002). Determinants of sustainable competitive advantage due to an IT-enabled strategy. Journal of Strategic Information Science. 12 (2003), 7-28
etc
In the remaining examples I just show some sample content maps as these are really the way you show that you have covered the topic area well.
Example 2 – Business Needs and IT qualification in hiring
Content Map
IT Qualifications and their Purpose
IT Qualification authorities: academic and manufacturer based
Defining and verifying suitable hiring criteria for IT staff
General Industry based overview of needs and trends
IT Skill benchmarking process related to insufficient skills to face business risk
Industry Certifications and their contribution in bridging the IT Skills gap
Industry based Qualifications; their nature and purpose
IT Training needed to meet job demand
ITIL as Best Practice to improve IT Staff skills
Defining IT Skills Gap in organizations
Efficiency of IT Staff screening and Hiring Process
Qualifications and business needs
SFIA as Framework to identify job description
KPI and baseline skills assignment
Mismatch between actual IT skills and planned strategic business goals
RFID in Retail Business
My review will cover all of the following points in preparation for this study. Therefore my main topic headings are: the technology itself, its good points its weaknesses, its area of application, what application software might be needed, technological difficulties, what IT infrastructures are required to support it, what international standards there are, what are the costs involved, what kind of support is needed, what kind of training might be required, psychology of use and security and possible impact on customer privacy
IT and Fund Raising Campaigns
Scene setting and a short statistical review
Philanthropy and Fundraising
Charitable status and regulation including tax concerns
Ethical consideration in use if funds and fund collection methods
Fundraising methods: cash, gifts in kind, sponsorship etc
Fund raising campaigns
Campaigns: annual giving programmes, capital campaigns, major gifts, etc
Fund raising cycle
Fund raising audits and methods of evaluation
Donors and giving behaviours plus motivation
Impact of IT on Fund Raising
IT based fundraising
Critical issues in IT for fund raising
Possible IT infrastructures and systems
IT management and its relation to fundraising
Software Defect Management
Introduction to software defects and testing
Definition of keywords and terms identified above.
Software defects and its implications to business.
Categories and causes of defects in applications software.
Discussion on the importance of software testing and the delivery of quality software.
Association of defect prevention with the software testing phases and models.
Development method and the psychology of attitudes to testing.
Management in development
Metrics and Measurement
Supporting IT infrastructures
Some samples of a List of Keywords
These are just words or phrases that encapsulate a major theme in your work and in general look for somewhere between 5 and 7 keywords – if you have less you may not be adequately identifying key ideas and if too many it implies that you have no theme at all so list everything..
Keywords – software testing, software quality, testing model, test strategy, defect analysis, defect prevention.
Keywords – zero defects, Testing Maturity Model (TMM), V-Model, verification and validation (V & V) testing.
Plagiarism
All your work will be automatically checked for plagiarism and if it is detected I will inform you that you have been referred to the course leader for possible disciplinary action as plagiarism is regarded as cheating and if detected may go as far as resulting in your exclusion. To guide you as to what than means and what we consider as proof of wrong doing the rule is very simple.
If 6 or more consecutive words are extracted from a source they must be acknowledged and 10 consecutive words that are unacknowledged will be regarded as proof of plagiarism.
Be aware that you can copy, paraphrase, summarise or other appropriate mechanism related to the use of another author’s work if has been properly acknowledged in accordance with normal scholarly conventions.
Be aware that putting something in your own words is plagiarism also and is just as much an offence as exact copying if it is not acknowledged.
Be aware that if you fill up your work with quotes or paraphrases and properly cite all of it, it may still be regarded as worthless. That is, it is not ultimately how much you use of another authors work that matters or correct citations because the real value is in what YOU do with it and how you comment, explain and expound it as well as introduce your own ideas viewpoints to structure what is being said.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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