Literature review made easy

 

The pen is mightier than the sword but to many, writing is difficult.  Researchers lament that running experiment in labs is peanuts but reporting is hard.   However, believing to first attain skills, creativity comes later, Dr Teoh Sian Hoon of the Faculty of Education, has created an Integrative Literature Review Software to assist academics and students to write the literature reviews of their research.

Though important, reviewing an article or synthesizing a model is unfortunately not as tangible and clear-cut as a research design.  Hence many encounter difficulties in writing a comprehensive literature review and synthesizing a conceptual framework.   Unlike a literature review, a research design has a concrete outline of the method of data collection and data analysis, thus this forces university students to attend courses on writing it.

Although most university students attend training session to write research paper during their studies,  Teoh  said, despite the training, writing a good literature review still poses major challenge to most of us.
 

Teoh’s survey on university students’ description and understanding on literature review revealed that the supervisors of postgraduates need to accept literature reviews as a problem area for students. She noted there is a need to develop strategies and tools to help the students have a clear picture on writing.

read more: RMI website