DTW literature review

See web site at http://www.sagepub.co.uk/potter/and and chapter 7 of Doing Postgraduate Research

Why do a literature review?

• to know what's been said
  
• to find gaps
  
• to clarify the research question
  
• to 'locate' research in context
  
• to find who is doing what
  
• to facility your learning about the process about how people do research.
  

Compare Potter's slide on the purpose of a literature review, which includes using the literature review to choose a research method or approach.
We discussed Woodley's 1980's review for the literature on the success rate of mature students. (I hope his more recent work indicates that mature students are successful.) He writes a story of the emergence of information on the topic, not a list of the papers that he's read.

Sources of information that we thought of include:

• journals
• books
• grey literature: organisational reports, blogs
• technical reports
• web
• people

See Doing Post Graduate Research Chapter 7.3