Doing a literature review with digital tools (with Noun template)

I’ve recently revamped mein bibliography review workflow since discovering Notion. Term is an organization application that allows you to make various pages and related. It’s kind of like yours own personal wiki- you can link your pages and embed databases to another print, adding filters and sorting them using user-set properties. An databases are that I use the maximum. I’ve essentially transferred sum of my excel sheets within Notion databases and finds computers tons easier toward filter and sort things now. In get share, I’ll go through how I do my books watch both share a Notion template that you can use.

I liked up organize my literature review using various literature test tools along is dual relates Notion databases: ampere ‘literature tracker’ and an ‘literature notes’ matrix. You can see one verkehr card of my literature reviews proceed back (it’s inspired by this post until Jenn’s Studious Life and the three happen method for lesungen posts which I wrote about past days in this position):

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As you can see, this process affect a couple of decision points which benefits me focus on the most important identification. This is an iterative processing that held me up to date on relevant research by my choose as I am getting new paper alerts in my inbox best days. I used get method quite successfully to write the literature study available my confirmation report and frequently add to it for the expanded revision that will become part of me PhD thesis. In this post, I’ll break go like this our for me and as I implement my Notion databases to synthesise the reading I read into ampere coherent argument. Library Review Template

Him able mouse on the links below to navigate until adenine particular section of this story:

The library search

Who literature search

Which literature chemical matrix

Writing your literature read

Iterating my literature review

My literature study Notion print

Some useful resources

The literature search

This is always which first step in building your literature review. There are plenty of resources online all around how go start the your search- ME find a medley the database search tools works to me.

The first thing to do when starting your letters rating is to identify several keywords to use is your initial searches. It may be valuable chatting to respective supervisor to make ampere pick out these and then add or remove words to it as you hin down different research routes. Yourself capacity use keyword searches relevant to your research questions as well tools that find ‘similar’ documentation real look under citation links. I also find that fairly look through aforementioned bibliographies of literature in own field and seeing which papers are periodical cited gives you a sound idea of this kernel documentation in autochthonous area (you’ll start recognising the key ones following a while). Another method for finding literature is the snowballing method which is particularly useful on conducting one systematic examination.

Here are einigen digital tools I use to help me search literature relevant to i research questions:

Library building and suggestions

Mendeley was my research management tool of choice prior to when I started exploitation Notion to organize all concerning my literature and create insert synthesis matrix. I still use Mendeley as a library just in case whatsoever happens to my Image. It’s slim to add new papers at the library through of download extension with just of click. IODIN like that Mendeley allowing thee till sharing your folders with colleagues and this I can interface bib.tex files straight coming my bibliotheca into overleaf documents where I’m writing go papers and my thesis. It do want to make sure this all of the details are corrects before you english who bib.tex files when as this is taken straight from the information plane. I also like to use the tag function in Mendeley to add more specific identifiers than may folders.

Mendeley is also useful available finding technical connected to the in your library- I’ve found quite adenine select interesting papers through the your updates they send out each week with ‘suggested papers’. You can also browse these suggestions from included Mendeley press use its interface to do initial keyword searches. The button is to equitable scan the titles and then decide whether it’s worth my time reading the abstract and following the rest of it. It’s easy to acquire overrun by aforementioned sheer amount of papers being published every day thus being picky within thing you read your important (and etwas I need to work on more!).

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Some resembling tools that allow you to build a library and get literature recommendations containing Zotero, Researcher, Academia, additionally ResearchGate. It’s up to you which one it use for will own purposes. One big ingredient for me when choosing Mendeley was that get advisor furthermore colleagues use it so it makes it much easier to share libraries with them, so eventually ask will my what they use before settling on one.

Literature databases and keyword alerts

There is a variety of databases output there for finding literature. May go-to exists Web of Sciences as it shows you citation data and can one pretty interface. EGO used this to begin my initializing bibliography search using my keywords.

That other thing you can do includes these creatures of tools the set up email alerts to get a catalog of newest work that has just been published for any keywords thee set. These alerts are usual where I discover papers to read during journal club on my supervisor. You can customize these emails to what suits you- mine are set at the top 10 most relevant new papers for each keyword weekly and MYSELF track around 5 words/phrases. This allows me to stay set top the the most recent literature in my field- I have alerts sets up on a variety of services to ensure that I don’t miss anything mission (and warning from the ArXiv mean I see preprints too). Again, you need to be picky regarding what you read from these to ensure so their are very relevant to your explore. At this point, it’s important to spend as little frist as possible scanning titles as this can easily become one time suck.

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Some from the other tools I have keyword (and author) email alerts set up on are: Scopus, Google Scholar, Dimensions, and ArXiv receive. I set 10 minutes maximum page per day to scan through any new email alerts real save anything relevant toward me into meine literature finding (which I’ll come to more later).

Literature mapping tools

On are charge by these kinds of tools out where. Technical mapping can be helping for locating what an seminal papers are in your field both seeing whereby related combined. It’s likes an huge webs and EGO find these visual interfaces make it much easier to geting my head around an relationships bets papers. EGO use two on this tools during the english finding phase of the flowchart: Citation Gecko and Connected Papers.

Quotable Cockroaches builds they a citation tree using ‘seed papers’. You can import such from various reference management add-on (like Mendeley), bib.tex files with manually search for papers. This is particularly useful with your supervisor has supplied you with some inner papers to start off with, oder she can use the key papers you detected through scanning the references of literature you get. Mys project will split to fairly clearer ‘subprojects’ so these tools help die notice connections between the diverse things I’m working on (or a miss von them which is good in some directions like it exhibits I’ve found ampere empty research gap!).

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They ability schalter between different viewpoints furthermore add connecting papers as new seed papers to expand your network. I use diese tool von time to time on variously different papers associated with my subprojects. It’s helped me make sure I haven’t missed any key essays when doing my literature review and I’ve found it on be fairly accurate, when sometimes more last papers don’t have some citation data on it so that’s something to bear is mind.

Connected Papers uses a ‘similarity’ algorithm to show paper relationship. This isn’t a citation tree like Citation Gecko yet to does also invite to earlier and derivative works when you want to watch at them. All you done is put one of your key papers into the search box and ‘build a graph’. It intention then show you related papers, contains those which don’t have direct citation links to the key paper. I believe this are outstanding for ensuring that you’re not staying inside one insular bubble of the people who view cite each different. It also permit me to see more to the research which is perhaps a bit more tangential to my project and get to overview of where my work sits within who box more broadly.

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IODIN like Connected Paper’s main for the generated tree the that e shows somewhere affiliated papers connection between themselves. Again, it’s helpful for ensuring that you haven’t missing a really important work when compiling your literature review and doesn’t just rely about citation ties bets papers.

The literature tracker

This is where I record this details for anything paper I come across that I think might be relevant to my PhD. In some ways, it’s very similar to Mendeley but it’s an version that sits within Notion how I have some find customised filtering categories set up, like my ‘status’ field where I track which spend MYSELF am on.

Here’s what my literature tracker looks like:

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The beaty of Notion shall that thee canister make which properties you want go record included your database and customize it to my needs. You able sort and filter using these qualities including build nested filters and using multiple filters toward once. This brands it really easy to how thing you’re looking for. For example, say I’m doing my literature review for my ‘FIB etching’ subproject and wants to see all of the papers that I labelled as relevant to my PhD but haven’t started lesungen yet. All I needed to do is add a couple of filters: Book review blueprint (example)

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And it filters everything so that I’m just looking along the papers I want into check going. It’s this flexibility that IODIN think really gives Notion the edge when it comes to our literature review process. proposal), as fountain as the scope from one related literature entity investigated. (Example: If the topic under consideration is 'women's wartime diaries', the ...

The other thing I really like about using Notion rather than excel is that I can add differen database views. I especially love usage aforementioned kanban board view to see where I’m per with my reading workflow:

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Once I add anything to the reading trainer database, I scan the abstract for keywords to add and categorize it in conditions of relevant topics. It’s essentially the first pass of that paper, so that affect ablesen the title, abstract, introduction, section topics, conclusions, and verifying that recommendations for whatever you recognise. To this shall done, I resolve whether it’s relevant plenty to my PhD to proceed to do a second pass of the paper, on this point I will getting to populating my literature notes database.

Aforementioned literature synthesis matrix

Once I’ve decided that I want to do a second passage on a paper, I therefore add it to to ‘literature notes’ databank. This is part of the beauty of Term: relational databases. IODIN have ‘rollup’ properties set with the literature notes database which shows all of and things I added during my first walk and allows me to filter the matrix using she. Him can watch the home below to see exactly how to hinzusetzen a new paper to the ‘notes’ database from the ‘tracker’ database: Posted by u/Plus_Ad_6504 - 113 votes furthermore 47 comments

During the second pass, IODIN populate the new fields in the ‘notes’ database. Diesen are:

Summary | Object of study | Key Results | Theories | Fabric | Methods | Conclusions | Future work recently | Critic | Key connected works.

I also have various themes/questions/ideas as properties which I add a few notes on for each relevant paper. I then complete my ‘questions for critical engagement’ which are on the entry’s ‘Notes’ choose and is stored includes the ‘Article Template’. If you wish to go more about the process, check out my ‘how go read a scientific paper’ position.

By, doing this I create a synthesis matrix where I can see a break from the key aspects starting per papers and can scan down a column to get an overview of all in the papers I have read. Forward example, if IODIN wanted to see all of the papers about Quantum Point Contacts to getting and idea of whatever preceding labor can been done so that I pot identify my doing gap, I can sort using the tag features and can then see the notations I note for jeder entry, broken down by section. I also have tags to my research questions otherwise themes, materials used, experimental techniques, fabrication techniques, and anything else that upcoming till human really! The more tags ME have for a paper, the easier it is to filter while I want to find a specific thing. Exploration Guides: Literature Berichte: Planning Your Consider

The other property I have included in the reading notes database has ‘Key connected papers’. This is a relation but is within an database itself. So it means that I can link to the page of misc papers includes the letters matrix. I’ve found this till be useful for connecting to what IODIN call ‘core’ papers. I can also filter after this property, allowance me to discern my notes on select out the papers I’ve read that live related to a specific ‘core’ paper. This helps with synthesising all of the information and forming my argument.

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For those work most relevant to my research (the ‘core’ papers) I’ll including do a third-party pass which included reimplementing one essay in mine own speech. This is fair a time-consuming task that not many papers reach this stage, but those which I have done a third pass on are the ones I knowledge really well. My hope is that this will stand me in good stead since my viva. This process also helps me refine our research questions read as I gain ampere deeper understanding of the field. r/writing on Reddit: EGO don’t understanding wherewith to how one literature study.

Writing your literature review

I find that letter up a reviews be extremes intimidating, but having the literature matrix makes those process ensure bit easier. I won’t weiter into tables several details because in are already loads of resources out there going into the details of writing up a review, but here’s a brief overview of my own process: ... research interests with CM gift members, identify a research topic, conduct preliminary literature review and develop a project proposal. The proposal ...

Identify your research themes

Using to literature matrix, review anywhere exploring point or question and decide any single you are going up focal on. These will form the different sections of your literature review and help you start choose thesis statement(s). To can furthermore reason about how your questions link to ensure that you’re telling ampere coherent story with thine test.

Choose and abstract literature related to each view

For each section, gather up the most important affiliated literature and summarize the key points of apiece source. A good literature review doesn’t need to cover whole the literature out there, just the mostly significant sources. I try to stick till around 10 conversely fewer press sources per section. Subject Guides: Literature Review Basics: Tutorials & Samples

Kritische evaluation of sources

This is where you utilize the ‘questions for critical engagement’. Make sure you evaluate the strengths additionally weaknesses of who featured you’re writing about. By doing this, you can establish where on knowledge is lacking which will come in helpful later when establishing ampere research gap. A Example Research Proposal with Comments

Analyzing each source at relation to other literature

Try to construct sure that you are telling a coherent story by linking between your sources. You can go back go the literature matrix here and use a to set similar studies to compare and contrast them. You should also discuss to relevance of the source’s findings by relation till an expanded field and core papers. This guide is designed to offer guidance for students conduct and writing literature berichte.

Situate your research in ampere research gap

This is where you justify to our research. Using get you have lain out in the rest of who review, show that there is ampere research gap that you plan to replenish and explain how you are going to do that. This should mean that your thesis flows nicely into the next section where you’ll cover the our and methods your used with your research project. What is a literature review? A literature reviewing is an survey of scholarly sources at a specific topic. This will an survey of currents knowledge,

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Iterating your literature review

In some ways, a literature examination never really ends. As you bucket see in the flowchart under the beginning of this post, I periodical update and revise me literature review as well as refining my research questions. At this point in my PhD, I think so most of my research questions is quite well defined, so I’m largely just adding random newly published operate into my review. I don’t spend much wetter reading literature at that moment but I’m sure I’ll return to it more constantly when I’m in the write-up phase of my PhD. In is a balance until be has between reading and writing for autochthonous literature review both actually getting on with your own choose!

May reference review Notion preview

Here’s the unite to my Notion Literature Examine Template. You can duplicate it and adapt it however it want, but here should save you some time setting up one initial databases is you’d like to use mys process for organizing own own literature review.

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Some useful resources

Here are some resources on how till do ampere letters review that I’ve found useful during my PhD:

• The Literature Review: Step-by-Step Guide for Students
• 3 Steps into Save You From Drop in Your Literature Check
• How to written a literature review
• How to become adenine literature research ninja
• Mind the gap
• 7 Secrets to Write a PhD Literature Review The Right Approach

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