Week 4 Research Methods

What is the primary purpose of a literature review in research?

• To present personal opinions on a topic

• To gather and synthesize previous research

• To summarize the researcher's own findings

• To provide an alphabetical list of resources

Literature reviews are essential for:

• Reducing the need for new research

• Identifying the scope of existing research

• Providing entertainment to academic readers

• Offering financial support to researchers

What role does a literature review play in academic writing?

• Validates the author's opinions

• Serves as a primary data source

• Builds a critical foundation for scholarly work

• Acts as a conclusion to research studies

A literature review helps avoid:

• Contacting other researchers

• Duplication of previous studies

• Publication in multiple journals

• The use of quantitative methods

Effective literature reviews are based on:

• Randomly selected articles

• The most recent studies only

• Sources evaluated for credibility

• Articles from a single database

In research, the term 'synthesis' refers to:

• Discussing each source in isolation

• Creating a cohesive narrative from various studies

• Highlighting sources without summarizing them

• Focusing on the oldest sources available

What is NOT a step in conducting a literature review?

• Summarizing each individual study

• Organizing literature by publication date only

• Identifying key search terms

• Evaluating source credibility

Primary sources in academic research include:

• Peer-reviewed journal articles

• Summaries of other works

• Personal blogs and opinions

• General news articles

Secondary sources are important because they:

• Provide firsthand evidence

• Summarize and interpret primary data

• Replace the need for primary sources

• Offer non-academic perspectives

The use of Boolean operators in literature searches helps to:

• Eliminate all irrelevant articles

• Narrow or expand search results

• Guarantee the quality of research

• Shorten the length of the review