1. Putting together your
introduction/
literature review
Cooper Library Drop-In Workshop
Peggy Tyler

2. Your introduction is:
• To tell the reader what problem you attempting to address
or what are you trying to find out
• To say why it is important that this issue or problem is
investigated
• To preview your hypothesis - what do you think is going
on
• To briefly highlight the benefits of your study

3. Your literature review is:
 A summary of relevant previous works.

4. Why?
 To establish your work as a link in the chain of research
that is advancing knowledge in your discipline
 To show that you are basing your hypothesis on the
previous work of experts in that subject
 To show that you know both the most significant and the
most up-to-date literature relevant to your topic
 To establish that your research question is important
 To provide the reader with information from other sources
that they will need to understand your study.

5. • Used in scholarly papers OR
• in theses and dissertations

6. Driver fatigue
Definitions/history of
relevant research/ costs Eye tracking
research primarily in
vehicles
Driver Warning Systems (DWS)
DWS fatigue
DWS using
eye tracking
DWS
fatigue
using eye
The Literature Review tracking
as a Funnel

7.  But the key is deciding on your headings and sorting your
articles into folders for each heading:
Biological
Kudzu history Herbicide control control

8. Author vs. information
 Which is more important – the author or the information?
• AUTHOR
• Liberman, Sagristano, and Trope (2002) found that people
predicted more accurately mixed emotions for near-future events,
but used more basic (and inaccurate) forecasts of affect for far-
future events.
• INFORMATION
• Another mistake that people make in predicting their future
emotions is overestimating the intensity of their reactions to
situation or event. This bias was best shown in a study where
students were asked to predict how they would feel the moment
they learned their final grade in their psychology class, on
Christmas day, and other events in their lives (Buehler &
McFarland, 2001).

9. Choosing Verbs
You are summarizing the work of others AND expressing your opinion.
Smith and Jones ____
Accounted for Focused on Rejected
Acknowledged Held the view Remarked
Argued Insisted Stressed
Assumed Maintained Suggested
Challenged Noted Supported
Claimed Observed Took for granted
Contended Pointed out Underlined
Disputed Proposed
Drew attention to Proved Shift-F7 is your friend!
Emphasized Recognized
Established Recommended From:
http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/
general/lit-reviews/3.4.xml
Found Reiterated

10. Conclusion
Usually the conclusion of your literature review is your
“now-inevitable” thesis statement or hypothesis:
• Based on this previous research, it is important to more closely examine the
role of peers in the college selection process.
• In general, studies have compared driving behavior of different drivers in
terms of aggregate measures. In this dissertation, an attempt was made to
compare driving behavior on a micro-scale (second-by-second) level.

11. Finding help
 Look at exemplars
 Undergraduate research journals
 Dissertations and theses
 Style manuals
 Useful e-books
Getting it right : the essential elements of a dissertation
McGraw-Hill's concise guide to writing research papers
Writing for science and engineering