WEEK 15

MODULE 15
RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Related Literature and Study

Highlighted Topics:
Types of Review
Purposes of the Review
Characteristics of the Review of Literature
and Studies
Guidelines in Doing the Review
Approaches in Presenting the Review
Synthesis
Some Conventions in Writing the Review
Some Do’s and Don’ts in Writing Final
Report
Plagiarism

‫ﻤﻤﻤ‬

Introduction

It is a pre-requisite to students in thesis writing subject to have exposure to rich relevant

data and information. It can help a lot of researchers as they write the introduction and
background of the study, and not only that, all these related literature and studies have to be
presented in Chapter 2, or the review of related literature and studies. It enables researchers to
have deeper and better understanding on the universality of the concepts towards identifying the
theoretical and conceptual frameworks and in stating the problems of the study. Wide exposure
to literature and studies enables researchers to identify or locate boundaries and limitations of
his/her own study, and in developing strong justification on why the current study has to be
conducted. Moreover, designing a data-gathering tool like survey questionnaire can be easily
done if the researcher has extensive exposure to all these related literature and studies.
 One of the common problems of the researchers in the past was access to these related
literature and studies. Gone are the times where students must go to libraries and read
voluminous books, journals and theses to get the needed information for their studies. Countless
amount of handwriting and manual typesetting were part of significant researchers’ tasks. Today,
data and information are just within reach with the click of the fingers, Today’s universal jargon
are- internet, websites, open-access, Wi-Fi, social media, desktop, laptop, tablet, smart phones,
Microsoft, Mac, and others. All these technologies and software make research tasks more
manageable, faster and easier.

There are many available open-access websites, where needed literature and researches
are practically available, and even uploading written scholarly works for online sharing, also take
place. To mention some are, Mendeley.com and Academia.edu. Mendeley.com provides products
and services for academic researchers. It is known for its reference manager, which is used to
manage and share research papers and generate bibliographies for scholarly articles.

https://www.mendeley.com/newsfeed https://www.mendeley.com/newsfeed

Academia.edu on other hand allows users to create a profile, upload their work, and
select areas of interest. Users can also follow authors and written works of contributors with
similar field of interests. This website allows users to browse the papers of scholars with similar
interests. In this platform, users can download or upload scholarly materials and share papers.

https://pup.academia.edu/ZorenPepitoGubalane 0https://pup.academia.edu/ZorenPepitoGubalane
 Among known open access sites today are, Mendely.com, Academia.edu,
Scholar.google.com, and other. In the online article of Scribendi.com, it presented the top-21 free
online journal and research databases:

1. www.core.ac.uk
2. www.scienceopen.com
3. Directory of Open Access, www.doaj.org
4. Education Resources Information Center, ww.eric.ed.gov
5. ArXiv e-Print Archive, www.arxiv.org
6. Social Science Research Network (www.ssrn.com)
7. Public Library of Science (www.plos.org)
8. OpenDOAJ, www.doaj.org
9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, www.base-search.net
10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository
11. CIA World Factbook, www.cia.gov
12. Paperity, www.paparity.org
13. DBLP Computer Science Bibliography, www.dblp.org
14. EconBiz, www.econbiz.de
15. BioMed Central, www.biomedcentral.com
16. JURN, www.jurn.org
17. Dryad, www.datadryad.org
18. EThOS
19. PubMed
20. Semantic Scholar, www.semanticscholar.org
21. Zenodo, www.zenodo.org

Types of Review Materials

In modern times, literatures and studies are information and written works tangibly filed
in the libraries or stored in CD, MD, USB, personal computers memory, electronic devices, and
even inside the very sophisticated and powerful internet web-based storage. Literatures come in
various kinds of textual creations like books, magazines, journals, scripts, conversation and
dialogues, and other published or unpublished soft or hard or electronic-based materials.

In the context of Related Studies, it refers to researches (e.g.: theses and dissertations) of
all undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students and professionals duly undertaken for the
pursuit of earning a degree in colleges and universities or for work related and official purposes.
It can also be the research projects undertaken by professionals across the industries, undertaken
for the purpose of organizational basis in planning and policy making. It is not limited to
academic researches only, it includes also case studies undertaken by Social Workers and
Psychologist, action researches, feasibility studies, scientific papers, and all other research-based
undertakings.

Related literature and studies also come in two types, (1) Published materials, and (2)
Unpublished materials. Basically, published review materials officially bear the name of the
publisher or publishing company together with the publication serial number. Today, publication
of review materials such as related literature and studies is done traditionally in various
publishing houses and also in various websites offering publication services.

Relatively, advisers usually remind their advisees to include material not older than five
years for the same reasons. Like the related literatures, related study shall also be categorized
into two namely, local studies and foreign studies. A particular study is local if the inquiry was
conducted in the Philippines, while foreign if the inquiry was conducted in foreign lands.

Purposes of the Review

Related literature and study reviews are very essential in the process of writing research.
It lays stable foundation of the proposed research endeavor. In colleges and universities, many
research professors preferred to let their students to do first extensive readings/reviews of related
literature and studies before requiring the students to propose there research title proposals. This
process may enables students-researchers awaken their interests, broaden their expectations,
develop tolerance, and come up with research titles which they preferred.

On the other hand, the review of literature and studies involves the critiquing or looking
over again what other researchers have done in relation to the problem to be studied. Conducting
the review serves the following purposes (Garcia, C. 2010):

1. To broaden the researcher’s knowledge based in the research area or topic;

2. To ensure originality in the conduct of one’s study;
3. To help the researcher in designing his proposed study;
4. To provide the researcher insights on the strengths and weaknesses of previous studies;
5. To provide findings and conclusions of past studies which can be used in supporting the
results of one’s research; and
6. To serve as basis for the researcher’s formulation of the theoretical and conceptual
framework of his study.

Related Literature and Studies

There are certain considerations which have to be taken in including the related
literatures and studies. Among importance considerations are, (1) validity of the sources, (2)
integrity of the sources, (3) oldness of the materials, and (4) relatedness of the materials to the
present study.

Calderon (2004) cited five characteristics of related materials that make them of true
value:

1. The surveyed materials must be as recent as possible. This is important because of the
rapid social, economic, scientific, and technological changes. Findings several years ago
may be of little value today because of the fast changing life style of the people.
 2. Materials reviewed must be objective and unbiased. Some materials are extremely or
subtly one sided, either political, or religious, and others. Comparison with these
materials cannot be made logically and validly. Distorted generalizations may result.

3. Materials surveyed must be relevant to the study. Only materials that have some bearing
or similarity to the research problem at hand should be reviewed.
4. Surveyed materials must have been based upon genuinely original and facts or data to
make them valid and reliable. There are cases where fictitious data are supplied just to
complete a research report. Of course, this kind of deception is hard to detect and to
prove. Thus this is a real problem to honest researchers.

5. Reviewed materials must not be too few nor too many. They must only be sufficient
enough to give insight into the research problem or to indicate the nature of the present
investigation. The number also depends upon the availability of related materials. As
suggested by many research professors, there are at least 10-15 reviews to be included for
master’s thesis, and at least 15-25 reviews for doctoral. For undergraduate thesis, the
requirement is at least 5-10 reviews.

Guidelines in Doing the Review

Doing the review requires high sense of passion, dedication, patience, and focus. The key
for students doing the reviews is taking the challenge of looking into “what are the related
materials” for his/her study. Not all books and materials which you can find in the library are the
ones that you are looking for. This must be a time-bounded activity since student-researcher
knows the duration and timeline towards completion of the study. Student-researchers must have
all the possible strategies to maximize the time and expedite the process of doing the review.

Looking back on your research title, try to visualize the possible books, studies, or
materials that are related. In the study entitled, “The Training and Development Programs of
the Local Government Units of Metro Manila: Its Impact to the Social and Economic Well-
being of the Constituents” can be used as typical example of a research in determining possible
related literatures and studies needed. Upon looking into the above-stated title, the researcher can
now –
● think of books on training and development and get important relevant concepts and
discussions
● look for relevant laws, ordinances, policies and guidelines relevant to training and
development programs in the government specifically LGUs
● look for standard processes in measuring project impact
● look for Sociology and Economics books that could discuss well-being of people, and
many more.

And so with looking into some related studies, it would be helpful to look back into the
research title. You can think of –

● any research about training and development;

● possible available researches conducted by schools, organizations, and agencies;
 ● any relevant impact evaluation researches;
● any relevant social and economic studies, and many more.

Basically, in taking book review for example, the researcher has to know the important
information and contents of the book, such as – the author, date of publication, title of the book,
place of publication, name of publishing company, the contents or text of the review that are
related to the study, and the specific pages where the reviews were taken. It could be so helpful if
the student-researcher has separate notebook or index card already templated for the purpose. If
allowed by the librarian, you may ask permission to take pictures on those needed pages and be
able to achieve your quota/target on the number of reviews. Encoding can just be done at home
or at any place possible.

There are some guidelines that you as a researcher have to consider when doing the
review of related literature and studies (Garcia, C. 2010):

1. Go over the materials you have at home or in your own library.

2. Search for existing literature in your college library or learning resource center.
3. Prepare a working bibliography. Record all vital details concerning the books and
researches you are to include in the working bibliography, like author, copyright date,
title, publisher, place of publication, and the like.
4. Examine each material listed in your working bibliography. Decide which of those
included in it shall be considered in the actual review of literature and studies.
5. Record important details of what you have reviewed on a 3x5 index card.

Presenting the Review

There are three ways of presenting the review, namely: chronological approach; thematic
or variable approach; and country of origin approach (Garcia, C. 2010):

1. Chronological Approach. In this approach, literature and studies are presented according
to the year when they were written. Usually, it is done by giving first an introduction,
chronological presentation of literatures and studies, and synthesis.

2. Thematic or Variable Approach. In this approach, literature and studies having the same
or similar findings or themes are grouped together variable by variable. In doing this,
researcher has to provide an introduction, presentation of literature and studies in support
to a particular variable or theme.

3. The Country of Origin Approach. In this approach, literature and studies are categorized
according to country where they came from. In most colleges and universities in the
Philippines, this scheme is popularly used. In doing this, the researcher has to give first
an introduction, presentation of foreign literature and studies, presentation of local
literature and studies, and synthesis.

Relative to presentation of review, Roth (1999) as cited by Birion (2005), he suggested

five important guidelines on how to present information, and these are the following:
 1. Analyze and examine the topic in the literature. You can view it or review it from more
than one perspective including your own ideas.
2. Criticize or evaluate the literature. Judge the literature about some quantity of it.
3. Compare and contrast the ideas. Show the similarities and differences that exist or are
evident when someone looks closely to your subject. To compare is to find similarities, to
contrast is to find differences. These are usually linked because some similarity between
elements must be established before a contrast is possible.
4. Establish relationship among the ideas of the different authors or theorists. Show how
they may have drawn from each other or are related in other ways to each other.
5. Argue for or against those ideas and try to persuade the reader to agree with the
researcher’s view.
Synthesis

It is the process of combining ideas, influences or objects revealed in review and studies
to arrive at a new whole of it. According to Salmorin (2006), the synthesis is written after the
surveyed and chosen materials have been thoroughly read and examined by the researcher in
terms of major findings, conclusions and recommendations of the other authors and researchers.
It should be concisely written.

Depending on the problems and scope of the study, a synthesis is at least two pages or
more.

Some Conventions in Writing Reviews

1. Summary
2. Paraphrase
3. Direct Quotation
4. Personal Comment
5. Combination of two or more

A Summary is a statement in your own words of the main ideas of a passage. It tells only
what the author has said and may not include your own interpretation or comment on the
meaning. It will be shorter than the original. Develop the skill of being able to make the
distinction between what is important from what is less important (Birion, 2005).

A Paraphrase is a phrase by phrase statement in your own words of the original passage.
It has the same organization and is also approximately the same length as the original. Just
restate it. It is a complete rewording not just a game or rearranging words. Make sure that you
understand exactly what the author said by putting it into your own words. According to Roth
(1999) as cited by Birion (2005), paraphrased notes are often preferable to summaries because of
their detail and specificity. It is also preferable to quotations because the text is in your own
words rather than someone else’s words, thus ensuring that the wording of your paper will be
original and in your own writing style.
 A Direct Quotation copies exactly what has originally been written from the source and
is therefore the easiest kind of note card to write. Be as accurate as you can with punctuation of
the spoken word and copy the written words accurately, down to every comma or possible
misspelling. Resist using direct quotation notes because it becomes a cut-and-paste collection of
other people’s words and their styles of writing. On the other importance, you can use direct
quotation if the material is so significant or controversial that wording must be exact, the style is
so perfect, so suitable, so vivid that seems beyond changing, the source is so authoritative that
you want to be sure not to violate the precision of the wording, and the wording of the source
needs to be transmitted with absolute accuracy. In this approach, researcher, always indicate the
page number of the source.

Some Do’s and Don’ts in Writing a Formal Report

Birion, J. & De Jose, E. (2005) suggested the following:

1. Vary sentence structures and sentence length.

2. Write in the active voice rather than the passive voice.
3. Avoid opinions or unsubstantiated generalizations.
4. Do not commit the fallacy of hasty generalizations.
5. The consistent in the way you write.
6. Observe a number of stylistic conventions in writing.
7. Write in the third person. Write “The Researcher” instead of “I”, “The Investigator”,
“The Writer”, “The Author” especially if you are still pursuing a degree. The words I, we,
and you should have no place in the text.
8. Contractions such as “don’t”, “wont”, etc. are informal and should not appear in the text.
9. Be consistent in referring to individuals. If you give full name of one, do the same for
others. However, be careful in giving special titles. It should be President Aquino or Sir
Knight.
10. Guard against wording that shows bias regarding a person’s gender, age, political line,
religious beliefs, sexual orientation or national origin.
11. Use gender sensitive language. The UP Centre of Women’s Studies (CWS) prepared a
primer on non-sexiest language for writers and researchers.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of another person without proper credit to the one
who devised them (Roth, 1999). Print and non-print materials are protected by copyright laws.
To present your material as your own when they are not is to break the law as well as to act
unethically. Paraphrases and summaries may be plagiarized. Varying a word or changing
singulars to plurals won’t protect you from the label of being a “plagiarist”.

To prevent plagiarism, Roth (1999) as cited by Birion (2005) provides some basic rules:

1. Use quotation marks around all words and phrases from any source. There is a need to
cite the source both on note cards and in the text of the manuscript. Quotations require
both acknowledgements.
 2. Credit the source of any ideas including summaries and paraphrases by documenting
them when you take notes and when you write your paper.
3. Be sure every source you document in your paper is also indicated in the works cited at
the end of the manuscript.
4. Give and adequate introduction or otherwise clearly delineate borrowed words and ideas.
Always give enough information for your readers to tell clearly what your original work
is and what is not.

Examples in Presenting Reviews

Related Literature
In the book of Hicks and Gullett (1981) the authors emphasized that
evaluation is a vital part of the management functions. The process of evaluation
applies to one’s own, or another’s output, or some ideological scheme. He added
that the dynamic nature of a functioning organization demands that constant
evaluation be made of the activities in order that progress toward the desired
objectives can be evaluated. Thus, the complete communication process is
necessary, with feedback being particularly important. Feedback tells the effect of
communication or action…. (continue).

The above stated review is related to the current study because…

Related Study
The study of Nuray, Bahattin and Gulay (2010) aims to evaluate the
impact of participation in the disaster program. Specifically, the study aimed to
determine the disaster expectations, worry about future disaster, loss estimations if
a disaster occurs, beliefs in the possibility of mitigation and preparedness. A
community disaster training program focusing on earthquakes, floods and
landslides was implemented in Cankin, Turkey. It covered mitigation;
preparedness; and response aspects of natural disaster management. The
relationship of socio-demographic, previous disaster experience, anxiety, and
locus of control variables with disaster related cognition and behaviors were
examined. Result revealed that participants in the training program had more
disaster expectations, worry and loss estimation, and more preparedness
behaviors. The result of the regression analysis examining the relationship of the
variables of the study with disaster cognitions affect and actual preparedness
behaviors revealed that gender education being a participant in the training
program anxiety and locus of control are important variables related to different
kinds of disaster related cognitions….(continue).

The above stated review is related to the current study because…

Sources/References:
Gubalane, Z.P. (2019). Academic Research with Practical Statistics in Thesis Writing.
Mandaluyong City: Books Atbp Publishing Company.
Garcia, C. & Reganit, A. (2010). Developing Competencies in Research and Thesis           
Writing. Mandaluyong City: Books Atbp Publishing Corporation.

Birion, J.& De Jose, E. (2005). Thesis and Dissertation Writing Without Anguish. Valenzuela
City: Mutya Publishing House, Inc.

Calderon, J. & Gonzales, E. (2004). Methods of Research and Thesis Writing. Manila:
National Bookstore.

Delgado, E. (2013). Module in Statistics in Social Science. ISCOF: Barotac, Iloilo

Related Literature and Studies

Activity

Name: ____________________________________ Section:______ Date: __________

Instruction: Encircle the letter of the correct answer.

1. ____________ comes in various kinds of textual creations like books, magazines,

journals, scripts, conversation and dialogues, and other published or unpublished soft or
hard or electronic-based materials.
a. Literature b. Manuscript c. Thesis d. Readings

2. Refers to researches of all undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students and

professionals being used in the current study.
a. Related Literature b. Research c. Academic Research d. Related Study

3. Calderon (2004) cited ________ characteristics of good related materials that make them
of true value.
a. four b. five c. six d. seven

4. Garcia, C. (2010) presented five suggestions in doing the review. Which of the following
does not belong as one?
a. Go over the materials you have at home or in your own library.
b. Search for existing literature in your college library or learning resource center.
c. Examine the text content for biases and plagiarism issue.
d. Record important details of what you have reviewed

5. In doing or taking a review, the researcher must take notes on the following, except –
a. the author
b. publisher and date of publication
c. title of the literature (e.g.: title of book or study)
d. copy the entire content of the literature
6. Garcia cited three ways of presenting the review, which of the following does not belong
as one?
a. Educational value b. Thematic c. Chronological d. Country of Origin

7. In this approach, literature and studies are presented according to the year when they
were written.
a. Country of Origin b. Educational value
c. Thematic d. Chronological

8. In this approach, literature and studies having the same or similar findings or themes are
grouped together variable by variable.
a. Chronological
b. Variable
c. Country of origin
d. Educational value

9. In this approach, literature and studies are categorized according to country where they
came from.
a. Chronological
b. Variable
c. Country of origin
d. Educational value

10. It tells only what the author has said and may not include your own interpretation or
comment on the meaning.
a. Paraphrase b. Direct quotation c. Synthesis d. Summary

11. ____________ using the words or ideas of another person without proper credit to the
one who devised them (Roth, 1999).
a. Plagiarism b. Copyright c. Quotation d. Citation

12. A _______________ is a phrase by phrase statement in your own words of the original
passage.
a. Essay b. Synthesis c. Summary d. Paraphrase

13. A ________________ copies exactly what has originally written from the source and is
therefore the easiest kind of note card to write.
a. Note Card b. Direct Quotation c. Notation c. Citation

14. is written after the surveyed and chosen materials have been thoroughly read and
examined by the researcher in terms of major findings, conclusions and recommendations
of the other authors and researchers.

15. Dr. Birion presented four important things to consider in citing reviews. Which one is not
included?
a. Analyze and examine the topic in the literature.
b. Compare and contrast the ideas.
c. Establish relationship among the ideas of the different authors or theorists.
d. Always be affirmative to any findings and argument in the review.

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