Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination

′This book can provide an excellent framework for bolstering what is often an experiential process - doing a literature review. It is best seen alongside the supervisor, as a guide, through the multidimensional sea of academic literature′ - British Educational Research Journal

Reviewing the literature for a research project can seem a daunting, even overwhelming task. New researchers, in particular, wonder: Where do I start? What do I do? How do I do it? This text offers students across the social sciences and humanities a practical and comprehensive guide to writing a literature review. Chris Hart offers invaluable advice on how to: search out existing knowledge on a topic; analyse arguments and ideas; map ideas, arguments and perspectives; produce a literature review; and construct a case for investigating a topic.

Doing a Literature Review contains examples of how to cite references, structure a research proposal and present a Master′s thesis. It is published as a Set Book for The Open University Postgraduate Foundation Module (D820) The Challenge of the Social Sciences.

`I have been waiting for this book for five years. It sets out a number of important dimensions involved in the process of literature review and by clear signposting, diagrams, and examples will help the student to carry out her or his review more systematically. Learning how to carry out a literature review has always entailed the experiential. While this is a the best way of learning, it is only so providing that learning actually takes place during the experience (or by reflection afterwards). This book makes explicit those dimensions which could remain implicit or even missed by the student as they wade through all those books, papers, articles, and print-outs′ - Kevin Maguire, Nottingham Trent University

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