Lit Review

General Comments:

A literature review is often the LAST thing which is written in a thesis, even though it is usually the first or second chapter. The reason is that the literature review is CLOSELY related to the research that is completed, so it cannot be written until the full set of results from research is available. In a research proposal, there need not be any literature review; literature can be discussed in the process of explaining the proposed research. It is also possible to give a separate lit review -- it is a matter of style and choice. The Lit Review of the proposal has a different purpose from the Lit Review of the thesis. We will try to explain these issues by giving several examples below.

The final literature review for the thesis has somewhat different structure and objectives. This is covered HERE

Writing the Lit Review for a PROPOSAL

How to write the INTRODUCTION of a research proposal has already been described. In the second section, a literature review is often done. In a research proposal we should review ONLY literature DIRECTLY relevant to the topic of research. There are THREE purposes for a lit review in a PROPOSAL:

  1. To describe the background information which is NECESSARY to understand the research which is planned. This includes covering methodology, data sets, techniques which are planned for used in the research -- articles which use methods which are basis for our research should be covered carefully.

  2. To clarify/demonstrate that there exists a GAP in the literature, something which is not known or studied or discussed in the previous literature.

  3. To establish the IMPORTANCE of the research being carried out, either from the theoretical or applied point of view.

Any item which is not directly relevant to the proposed research, and which does not fulfil at least one of the three objectives above, SHOULD NOT BE IN THE PROPOSAL.

FIRST AND MOST COMMON MISTAKE: Writing an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY in place of a literature review. For example

Wasif (1999) says bla bla bla about poverty.

Barton & Cramer (2003) say x y z about poverty in Pakistan.

Rao and Thieu (2007) write about the determinants of Poverty in Nigeria that these are ....

A research proposal SHOULD NEVER contain a list of articles with one paragraph describing each article. EVERY SENTENCE in the research proposal MUST SERVE A PURPOSE. Students just want to fill up space -- they think that the more they write the better. THIS IS NOT TRUE. For example, a recent proposal starts the literature review as follows:

i. According to Chowdhury and Khandker (1995b), the micro-lending as practiced by Grameen Bank (GB) has been fertile in eradicating poverty among the lower income communities, as observed worldwide. The study shows that it takes 5 years for raising income level above the poverty line in case of GB participants and 8 years for economic graduation [Graduation, in Grameen’s terminology, means that borrowers stop taking loans because they have accumulated enough resources for self-finance.]. So Micro-credit programs are gradually changing the lives of people and bringing the society out of poverty gradually.

ii -- another article

iii -- another article

iv. Hashemi (1997) focused on female empowerment. He conducted survey in Bangladesh and used statistical techniques to assess the impact of micro-credit programs on the status of women. The study found sufficient evidence that participation in the microfinance programs produced statistically significant impact on women empowerment.

This is a list of articles, which is an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. This is NOT a lilterature review.

Item iv: Hashemi reference can be CITED ONLY IF the author of the proposal plans to do research on Female Empowerment. Otherwise it is irrelevant, and CANNOT BE PUT in the research proposal.

Item i - Chowdhury & Khankder --, the second sentence is relevant only if author of proposal plans to look at HOW LONG it takes for microfinance to be effective. The last sentence can be used to establish the IMPORTANCE of microfinance and so is potentially relevant. However, we need to organize the LIT REVIEW DIFFERENTLY;

Now TOPIC is: IMPORTANCE OF MICROFINANCE IN CHANGING LIVES: A SAMPLE of how the proposal could be revised to make the lit review better is:

Under this heading we mention that, Chowdury and Khandker (1995) show that in Bangladesh it takes 5 to 8 years to repay loans, and thus GRADUALLY microfinance programs are changing lives of poeople. Mckernan (1996) also have the same finding for Sri Lanka and Nepal. However, Duflo(2010) writes that evaluation of pre and post program status of the poor shows no significant difference in poverty levels, disputing the finding that microfinance alleviates poverty. THUS WE AIM TO ASSESS whether or not microfinance programs have been effective in alleviating poverty.

Note that the literature review is integrated BY TOPIC -- topic is IS MICROFINANCE IMPORTANT IN CHANGING LIVES?. All finding for, against, are discussed under this heading. This issue is relevant to the research BECAUSE it motivates us to find out. The GAP is also pointed out here -- there is a controversey in the literature about whether or not microfinance helps the poor. So we want to find out which side is right, since this is not know or established.

To re-emphasize: the literature review should accomplish the following goals:

  1. Explain WHY my research is important. What problems will be solved by my research? ANSWER we will learn about how much potential micro finance has to change lives of people and to lift people out of poverty. THIS IS A HIGHLY DISPUTED TOPIC and so lit review should cover both pros and cons, to show the controversy.

  2. Establish HOW it will contribute to the literature? There is a controversey about how helpful microfinance is in lifting people out of poverty, so we will try to gather evidence in favor of or against this to find out which party is correct.

  3. WHAT methodology is to be used. The methodology we plan to use in order to answer this question should be based on something already present in the literature. For example, if we plan to do surveys, then we should look at other research which has done survey in the past, and how they have done it. Then either we copy or we improve or we otherwise modify their methodology. The lit review should establish which methodology has been used in the past, and later on in the proposal we either adopt a methodology which has already been used, or explain how we plan to improve on existing methodology in the literature.