LibGuides: IECO-4970 Research Project Design: Reviewing the Literature

Literature Review

A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis). The literature review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research (scholarship) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” mainly used interchangeably.

Refer to Purdue Online Writing Lab full explanation of WHERE, WHEN, AND WHY WOULD I WRITE A LIT REVIEW

Locating Literature

First, do it in the old way: look for an appropriate handbook chapter. You might be lucky to find a recent handbook chapter in your field.

Second, find a meta analysis (paper reviewing major works in the field): some of them are published in Journal of Economic Perspectives but most are working papers available online.

How to locate these (or any) published or unpublished papers, use online search engines:

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Full-text business publications and hundreds of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals covering all aspects of business. Coverage goes as far back as 1886. Additional full text, non-journal content includes financial data, case studies, investment research reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analysis, books, videos, major reference works, book digests, and conference proceedings.
Covers management, economics, finance, accounting, international business and more. Titles include Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, MIT Sloan Management Review and Administrative Science Quarterly.
EconLit This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts worldwide economic literature. Has article citations from over 400 major economic journals since 1972. Includes indexing of some book reviews, dissertations and working papers.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text (in PDF format) of selected, important scholarly journals in a number of fields. Note: journals in JSTOR usually do not include the most recent three to five years.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Combines several of the Library's heavily used databases, including ProQuest Research Library, into one easy-to-search interface. Thousands of journals, newspapers, magazines, dissertations, working papers, and other scholarly content on a very broad range of topics and sources.
ProQuest Social Science Database This link opens in a new window
Collection of articles from over 180 social science journals. Disciplines covered include: anthropology, area studies, community health and medical care, economics, family studies, gender studies, geography, gerontology, international relations, law, public welfare, urban studies and more.
minority studies, planning and public administration, policy sciences, political science, psychiatry, psychology,

IdeasRePEc
IDEAS is a bibliographic database dedicated to Economics and available freely on the Internet. Based on RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), indexes a substantial amount of research that can be downloaded in full text.

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Searches across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. For on campus or GU-authenticated users, results contain links to electronic full text from GU-subscribed content, especially journal articles. (If off campus, click on Settings and then on Library Links. Type Georgetown in the search box.)

Search backward and forward in time by citations.
Try to find articles published in reputable journals as a start.
Extend your literature search once you find a relevant paper or an author: Back to #1

Keep track of your work: Save papers on GU Box, and save citations online on Refworks, so that you can easily output them in a format you want

Write summary of each paper or review:

What's the main hypothesis?
What's the economic theory behind it?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the data used?
What is the estimation /identification problem?
What method(s) do the authors use to overcome this problem?
Does the method overcome the problem? Why or why not?
What are the findings?
Link this paper to your own idea and build your argument upon this paper.

Synthesis Matrix

A synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other

Literature Review: Synthesizing Multiple Sources
Writing a Literature Review & Using a Synthesis Matrix
Use this matrix template
Using a Matrix to Organize Research: (Saint Mary's University of Minnesota)

Literature Review Resources

The Literature Review: a few tips on conducting it - University of Toronto

Write a Literature Review - University of California - Santa Cruz

Writing a Literature Review - University of Canberra

The Literature Review - a youtube excerpt from a lecture by Lisa Dierker (Wesleyan University, 2010)

Writing the Literature Review - a youtube by David Taylor (University of Maryland, 2010)