Polytechnic of Namibia

Civil Engineering Dept

Engineering Research Methodology
ERM 811S

Literature Review

Literature Review
Write down the title of the research
Know some theory involved in the area of
research.
Find out and know what other researchers
have already said about your topic.
Find out the methods/instruments used by
others and why they rejected some methods.

Literature Review
Relevant and appropriate theories form the
theoretical framework of an empirical study,
and the literature review should be organised
around the theories (Strydom, et al., 2011).

Literature Review
Why should you do a literature Review?
At the beginning you make sure that you are
not doing a research that has already been
done.
You are in a better position to come up with a
well-thought-out research plan if you know
what others have find out before.

Literature Review
At different points in the research process you
will still need to conduct a literature review to
help you place your own research in context.
(Esterberg 2002)
You will understand the research topic better,
collect results using best methods available,
analyse and interpret results better.

Literature Review
The literature review;
shows how learned the researcher has been in
the topic of research.
should contain information precisely relevant
to research topic, including all assumption
behind the general research question.

Literature Review
It shows that the researcher has identified
some gaps in previous research and the
proposed study will fill a demonstrated need.

Literature Review
Where to find the literature;
Theoretical literature e.g. text books
Empirical literature about earlier research in
field of study
Methodological literature about how to
conduct the research and use methods
selected
Combined theoretical and empirical literature
to contextualise, compare and generalise
findings

Use of Literature Review

General uses are;
As a source for making comparisons in data
collected
To give accurate descriptions of reality.
To give an orientation to the field and material
To serve as a secondary source of data
To formulate questions for early interviews and
observations
To stimulate questions during analysis
To suggest areas for theoretical sampling
To confirm findings

Assignment 2
Do a literature review of the research topic you
have selected for the first assignment. Write
about (at least) five (5) previous researches or
writers; clearly identify who the previous
researchers are, when and what were their
findings. Also, state the gaps in research around
the topic?
Prepare a 5-minute class presentation on
Powerpoint. Hand hard copy in on 27 March
Group B will do a presentation of their reviews