Literature review: examples of writing for the thesis, thesis, research and articles

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Scientific work is the creation of new knowledge. The new is always relevant and socially significant, but the correct compilation and design of a literature review is an example of painstaking and hard work. Even before the moment when there is a reason to apply GOST, methodological instructions of the department or recommendations of the academic council for the list of sources, you need to know what to collect, how to collect and in what sequence to apply. Novelty, relevance, social significance and real usefulness are all increments to what is already there. What exactly this increment of the space of knowledge consists of, it is important to show correctly.

Two sides of quotation

Review of the literature on the research topic - an example of Janus Two-faced in actual practice. In Latin, it is a door, meaning a door between the past and the future. Sources are an important component of not only scientific work.

Even at school, students declare their knowledge by citing textbooks or "rules" of their parents,provide other grounds for the conclusions or decisions made. Each person creates new personal knowledge on the basis of what he already has and does this in a double context:

• systematization of knowledge - the ability to use a range of sources;
• formulation of knowledge - the ability to correctly sort out sources.

The first one prioritizes what mom said and what grandfather or school friend said, whose knowledge is still in question. Sometimes the opinion of a neighbor on the floor or a passerby on the street will have a far from zero value. Knowledge can come from a school event or observation of natural phenomena.

Science is more complex and multifaceted than life. There is creativity here, there is “no logic at all”, there is absolutely “no law”, but there is intuition and a special style of cognition of reality, which only the authors call logical and reasonable.

In the scientific world, the amount of information is large and growing catastrophically.

The second aspect (design) is absolutely clear: GOSTs, guidelines and the custom of how to review literature using the example of a list structure, hierarchy system or relational model have developed and become the foundation.

The first aspect (systematization) is a personal, authorial, creative action in itself. The author's knowledge lays the sources in the system, like bricks in the foundation of a building of new knowledge, often subconsciously. A review of the literature on the research topic is an example of a task that will be solved by each person in his own way in such a context, but not alwaysknowingly.

Simple but essential representations of knowledge

The simplest option (A) is an article (a report, just a "sheet" of handwritten text), not necessarily correctly formatted information in terms of sources. It is absolutely indifferent to the author how to designate his knowledge and ideas of his predecessors, but the declaration of the new is visible to the author only against the background of the old. Here the literature review is an example of semantics, not syntax.

Another sheet, born in high school, by an unknown artist, is more expensive and significant than many years and multi-volume dissertation work.

A scientific article is an entry into the world of colleagues' ideas through the editors of a scientific journal. Here, the existing knowledge will resist the new, and the editors will first go through the sources according to the criterion of compliance with the rules, and then make every effort to see something interesting, new and relevant in the author's article, and more often, on the contrary, they will find something to complain about.

Thesis is a duty to demonstrate knowledge, ability to solve problems and formulate results. This is the first "going out to the people" of yesterday's student. The percentage of graduate students who go to graduate or scientific work is always low, otherwise there would be no one to just work.

Why does society need 100% of creators and scientists in each educational institution? In the field of primary higher education, a critical review of the literature is an example of loy alty. It is important to simply evaluate the fact of obtaining knowledge and test it in practice. Mistakes in quoting are not allowed, but priority here is inother.

A speech at a conference is a report, and it cannot be attributed to a scientific article, but the organizing committee of the conference usually requires a written statement of the essence of the speech, and therefore, it will be necessary to indicate the sources. The organizing committee of the conference does not care who speaks: a scientist, a student or a schoolboy. Taking as a basis the example of a review of school literature or methods of secondary education will not work even in the first year: you will need to do everything in an adult way.

Mandatory Knowledge Representations

Simple option (I) - an article completely (subconsciously) incorrectly formatted, but the author always chooses the sources sensibly. Errors in the syntax of links are acceptable, but here the meaning is already far from logic: creativity has earned. No longer a schoolboy, yet a student, but already a real future scientist. The review of the literature is an example of an independent "compote" of knowledge, which is studied in order to criticize, destroy and create one's own.

Master's level is not a candidate's or doctoral dissertation, but already a scientific work created for the purpose of qualification. Here, the bibliographic review of the literature is an example of a tough approach both on the part of the department, the Academic Council or the Higher Attestation Commission, and the author himself. It is fundamentally important for the author to perform the citation correctly both in terms of systematizing knowledge and designing sources.

Research work - these are reports, problem statements, articles, books, dissertations. For a proper literature review in a research paperexamples of such work are important - they often become sources, but require adaptive application. The development of science does not stand still. If the design moment (the link itself) changes little, then the systematization of knowledge sources is characterized not only by dynamics, but also by a “reverse move”.

(A) and (I) - from simple to complex

A novice author (A) and a student confidently leaving for science (I) must always follow the rules for applying knowledge and performing citations. In both cases, the general GOSTs and the rules of the educational institution are the same, but the levels of obligation to comply with the rules and norms are different.

You can find plenty of examples on how to do a research area analysis and literature review in your own educational institution. It is permissible to use the Internet at a discount for the time of publication: not every web resource considers it his duty to fix the date of appearance of information that he considered significant. The author's version is preferable.

The imbalance in the author's perception of reality, noticeable from the literature review in the research work, on the example of the objective facts of this reality, according to the reviewer (reader, supervisor, department, academic council), is obvious.

The author can continue to stick to his point of view, but muchit is better if he shifts his (I), in an inconspicuous time for others, to the beginning of the range of skills to analyze, systematize and present knowledge, for example, to the position (F) - life, (I) - research or (N) - science.

Citation style

In scientific work, when writing an article, dissertation or just a research report, the amount of information studied as sources is important. But the amount of knowledge extracted from sources is always much less. The logic behind the use of source material is as important as the style of its analysis and presentation.

1. The scientist worked all his life, spoke, wrote articles, books, defended two dissertations, published a monograph and became an academician, and a simple student will extract only one phrase from an authoritative heritage. It’s good if he considers it worthwhile, but he can easily write: “Okunev S. Ya., automation of workflow in the PL / 1 language - no result.” At the same time, he will immediately refer to several articles and the monograph of the academician without indicating the pages and reasons for the categorical conclusion.
2. Another student will approach more responsibly: “A. P. Ershov was engaged in C/C++ automation of program production, developed methods and technologies for software development, made attempts to use production systems and the Prolog language. The work turned out to be futile and laborious, they did not find any application. In the creation of expert systems, Prolog showed the absolute unattainability of a positive result. At the same time, both Ershov and Ashley, Pospelov, Ivanov and Petrov will be quoted. There are many different sources from different authors, butquoting them led to one conclusion and the most significant result.
3. The third student will spend even more time, read not only books, reputable professors, look through hundreds of articles and conference materials, but also do his own parsing on the Internet. Here the volume will be narrowed down to one phrase: “The theory of object-oriented programming and cloud technologies in a meaningful and complete implementation is 1991 [1], and not 2005-2006, as [Amazon company] claims, and not 1960, when D. Licklider voiced the idea of cloud computing, since in 1960 not only did the Internet not exist, but no one even dreamed of a smartphone. Although the idea of virtualizing data and applications is as old as the world, even for a cleaner from any modest company in the early 80s of the last century.”

The last paragraph was quoted:

• [1] - link to the publication “Object-oriented programming: state and prospects / Slava Chip; Scientific-technical firm "PRINT", Issled. lab. S. Chip. - Minsk: B. i., 1991. - 58 p."
• [Amazon] - a reference to the company, which is considered the main ancestor of cloud products. This is important, because no one knows and will not know how, when and by whom the cloud was created. The modern cloud concept is as vague as the cloud idea itself.

Quote "D. Licklider" from the series "Such are the names remembered and mentioned." As a rule, for the 60s, you can come up with and safely designate a lot of surnames both in programming, and in virtualization, andfor cancer treatment - difficult to verify.

Citation emphasis and authorship

The use of the figurative reference "cleaning lady" is a characteristic way of emphasizing the wrong development of thought. The faster and more objectively the future scientist goes forward in his research, the more critically he analyzes other people's knowledge and the more rigidly his own, the more succinctly the author tries to place accents. It's a shame or not a shame, but even the monsters of Oracle or Microsoft have work that could not be done, and decisions that it would be better not to take.

You can reasonably find fault with anything, but in the field of scientific creativity and research work, an analytical review of the literature is an example of how an existing fact or knowledge is dissected in a certain way under the scalpel of an achieved goal.

Science and scientific and technological progress is not personal, but public. As soon as the author was "born" with an idea, and it was recognized by the public consciousness, the society is absolutely not interested in the author himself. The latter has only the legally established right to defend his own authorship and move on. But the society always remembers and sacredly honors the scientists, researchers and specialists who remember it.

How detailed the citation should be is an easy question. Surnames should be used only if they are really known and something is really connected with them. Otherwise, only the result and a link to the source: [13] - so shorter. When it comes to a product, research or event -it is important to indicate exactly this, and not to quote the author's text - this is always a lot.

Citation volumes

Various educational institutions, supervisors, and in general scientific practice recommend spending 30-40% of the total amount of work on an analytical review of the literature. An example - not objective logic, but it is accepted.

The simplest solution to the amount of literature to be reviewed and submitted is the maximum for the first part, the minimum for the second. The more analytical work is done, the more reliable the conclusions. The more concise and precise it is, the better.

Any article, dissertation or research paper has a theme that defines the goal and objectives to achieve it. An even tougher approach than in jurisprudence determines scientific creativity - nothing is beyond the scope of research, only the topic of the work and the tasks being solved are relevant.

The ratio of the volume of citation of own works and other authors is essential. The latter has priority. Own works - this is important only in the context of their development in the current work, but in any case, we are talking about what is being achieved, and not about what merits have already been recognized and published.

Example of a literature review for a scientific article

Theme "Files, Folders and Blockchain: View Evolution Logic".

Relevance of the article and purpose. The world is grateful to the great Soviet Computers and the IBM 360/370 series. Information "archaeologists" to this day understand which is better: BESM, Ural or Minsk, why ES computers are so similar to IBM and whether it was worthcandle game. But files and folders exist to this day in their original form, and the blockchain is going to go the same way.

Since the world has already recognized the term "blockchain" and its meaning has become obvious at least for developers and advanced users, the topic can be described as follows. Here, the literature review is an example of the requirement for an extremely brutal analysis of a huge number of books and special editions on the file system.

According to Wikipedia, several dozen file systems have been developed and are successfully operating.

Application programs have often made attempts to give meaning to files. Some programmers understood that every folder is perceived by the user as an object containing content on a certain topic, but to this day only files and folders exist.

The problem with existing file systems is that there are no real files or folders, but real documents created at a specific time for a specific reason. Yes, there is an understanding of how.docx differs from.xlsx, but the point is not even that vector formats contain a “meaningful” understanding of an image, and not a raster one. Vector is scalability. A raster is a dot. The set of dots will never be stretched to the desired size, since they will have to be increased, and this is a fog, a blurry image. The vector is stretched as defined by the developer of a particular graphics editor, but no more and no less.

A database is a file, in any case, but only a programmer knows what meaning it contains and exactly whatrelations in it are linked into one whole.

Fundamental conclusion: once a file or folder has been created, the semantics are lost. The author forgets what he did, when, for what reason, how he used it. The purely psychological features of a person's intellect can allow him to remember something, but a file or folder is not knowledge that is in the head, they are outside the system. They have gone on an “independent voyage”, and in the ocean of information they have neither a course nor a movement algorithm.

Blockchain is a rule-built chain of linked data. The birthplace of the blockchain was the field of cryptocurrencies. The experience of implementing the transaction mechanism, thanks to the development of database technologies, is great. In fact, a combination of the idea of a semantically loaded sequence of data and accurate transactions in them was formed, first of all, time, action and features of each specific action.

Of course, the development of file systems and blockchain is still ongoing, the old and the new are in demand and used productively, but the fact remains, and, most likely, a revolution in this area is not far off. Files and folders will become more "conscious and independent", they can be accessed, and they will respond with the necessary information.

Analysis and browsing logic: "files + folders" and "blockchain"

In the proposed version, a literature review is done, like in a library, as an example of the work of a large stepping excavator (a huge machine for extracting large volumes of rock that can work on soft ground).

Such mechanisms are made to order and assembled on siteperformance of work. In this case, the rock is already lying - it has accumulated since the moment the files and folders appeared. File systems have evolved rapidly. Technologically, the equipment and programs for creating and processing data are perfect within the limits of modern knowledge.

It is on this simple basis that in the proposed example of a literature review on the topic "Files, folders and blockchain: the logic of the development of views" there is not a single author, not a single reference. Research work (R&D) in this area has just begun, and on a uniquely massive scale. It makes no sense to refer to this topic yet, and there is no one to refer to. You can mention Satoshi Nakamoto as the creator of "bitcoin", but he himself used the term "cent". In addition, cryptocurrencies and blockchains have already gone on a long voyage and have become the subject of research by a huge number of companies and specialists.

Here a specific review of the R&D literature and examples of real systems cannot be built. The essence of the problem: “files + folders” and “blockchain” - no one considers the situation this way. Everyone works with the first in the old fashioned way, and with the second - how it turns out and how it is developed.

Categorical and precise

Suggested literature review, an example of what not to do. In the final part, first of all, it is impossible to unambiguously assert exact knowledge, while there is nothing to substantiate its accuracy.

Indeed, if you talk to any user, in most cases you can find the full use of the file system on his computer.

An educated user will decomposefolders on shelves, and files on folders and will name all its information property correctly and clearly. Everything in Russian, English or Chinese - in any country in the world in your native language.

Blockchain from birth received a unique formula that you can’t confuse with anything: a chain of related data built according to the rules. Whether it is distributed or not across multiple computers is not important. The only important thing is that a “sense” appears here, and in this “sense” it is not allowed to erase a single transaction in the chain. Rules, connection, purpose and time are important, in fact, the action and its meaning.

In this context, the review of scientific literature itself (as examples of different attitudes to data) represents the author's private opinion on the emerging new system of knowledge. But the author has no right to allow his own uniqueness.

Always and in all cases, the author will not lose if he admits the existence of a similar opinion or understanding of the situation, or work already done on the topic under study.

Knowledge Research Success

From the review of the literature and the sample wording of the topic, you can determine the essence of the work and the expected results. The logic of scientific knowledge is such that the ability to use a range of sources and correctly classify sources is determined through the filter of the research being performed.

If an article is being written, there is a brief understanding of one or two positions, the increment of knowledge on which requires justification. In the thesis, you need to show the acquired knowledge and skills. The dissertation needs to substantiatenovelty and relevance according to the provisions submitted for defense. In research work, you need to describe something new for which the customer spends money.

There is a point in every format of applying the author's logic, and it is possible that the point is to show the failure of the chosen path. But the firm conviction that a reverse move is still necessary, that everything needs to be started all over again, is also a result.

Achieving a goal or believing that the goal should have been set differently - both are also a result and also an undoubted success.