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French Language & Literature Library Guide: How To Do A Literature Review

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The Literature Review

A literature review is:

1) A list of books and journal articles,

2) on a specific topic,

3) grouped by theme,

4) and evaluated with regard to your research. This evaluation would identify connections, contradictions and gaps in the literature you have found.

The purpose of a literature review, therefore, is:

1) To get a feel for the agreed academic opinion on the subject (the connections).

2) To discover the disagreements on the subject (the contradictions).

3) To find opportunities, (the gaps), for developing and expressing your own opinions.

The classic pattern of academic arguments is

THESIS, ANTITHESIS, SYNTHESIS

An Idea (Thesis) is proposed, an opposing Idea (Antithesis) is proposed, and a revised Idea incorporating (Synthesis) the opposing Idea is arrived at. This revised idea sometimes sparks another opposing idea, another synthesis, and so on…

If you can show this pattern at work in your literature review, and, above all, if you can suggest a new synthesis of two opposing views, or demolish one of the opposing views, then you are almost certainly on the right track.

Steps in compiling a literature review are:

1) Select a specific topic (the more focussed, the better, or you’ll go on for ever).

2) Collect the most relevant (usually "peer reviewed") books and articles.

3) Read/skim them, using the abstract (a short summary attached to the article).

4) Group the articles into the sub-themes of your topic.

5) Identify within each sub-theme those points on which the articles agree, those points on which they disagree, and those points which they don’t cover at all.

1) Choosing your topic

Seek advice from a lecturer or tutor on this, if a topic is not already assigned. It is very common for students to bite off more than they can chew, simply because they have not realised the full breadth and complexity of an apparently simple topic. It is better to cover a tiny topic perfectly, than a huge topic superficially.

Look for a topic on which there is polarised opinion. It often helps to pick one in which a question is being asked, for example: Is a particular taxation policy beneficial or disadvantageous to a developing country?

When authors disagree, this provides an opportunity for you to enter the debate and argue for one side or another in your essay. Taking a hatchet to someone’s opinions (a) gives you something to write about, (b) is fun, (c) is the foundation of much modern scholarly writing.

2) Collect the most relevant (usually "peer reviewed") articles and books

The three tools for finding these books and articles are, in this order:

(a) the relevant section of a good subject encyclopedia, which usually describes the development of the discourse on that subject, gives you an overview of the territory, and ends with a bibliography of the key works on that field. 

(b) the library catalogue (PRIMO) and

(c) the library databases of electronic journal articles.

Before you search them, spend a minute thinking about the best terms to use. Make a list of alternative words that describe your subject, and also think about general terms and more specific terms. This is important because the journal databases are good for finding very specific terms in articles, but the library catalogue tends to use more general terms.

To access the library catalogue go to www.lib.uct.ac.za and click on "PRIMO" or use the search box in the PRIMO interface.

If you find a good book reference, click on the title and scroll down to the bottom of the reference and you will find the subject terms the library cataloguers have assigned to it. Click on that term to call up more books just like the one you have found.

A quick way to check the relevance of any books you find is to glance at the table of contents, the introduction and any descriptive blurbs on the back cover. The index at the back of the book not only helps you dive to very narrow topics in the book, but also gives you an indication of how much attention (i.e. how many pages) the book spends on that specific topic.

If you are satisfied with the book, look at the bibliography in the back – this can help identify other relevant sources. Following a chain of references in a bibliography like this, whether in a book or a journal article, is one of the most basic techniques of scholarship – find something that is relevant and look at the sources it used.

The library’s journal databases are particularly helpful for literature reviews. Journal articles are short and cover very specific topics, so they are more digestible than books and more likely to deal exactly with your topic. They are also quicker to publish than books and so are more likely to be up to date.

To find journal articles by subject go to the library home page at www.lib.uct.ac.za and select "Databases."

Many of these databases allow you to restrict your search to "Peer Reviewed" journals only – these are the most scholarly journals, for which each article has to be vetted by other academics before it is accepted.

Many of our databases are Full Text – so you can usually get the whole article on your desktop for downloading, e-mailing or printing – you don’t have to find it in print on the shelves.

While you can search the Research Portal, or individual journal databases, as simply as you search Google, you can also type in very precise searches by using And, Or, Not operators, Wildcards and Logical Brackets.

An example of such a search would be:

Information Technology AND Brain Drain AND (Employ* OR Jobs OR Labo?r) NOT United States

The AND operator narrows a search – all listed elements must be mentioned in each article: in this example we want articles that cover both Information Technology AND the Brain Drain.

The OR operator expands a search – any of the listed elements must be mentioned in each article: in this example we wanted Information Technology Brain Drain articles that discussed either Employment or Jobs or Labour. The OR operator is useful for dealing with alternative terms which different authors might use when writing on a similar topic.

The Brackets tie the options to the required material. In this example they make sure that any articles we get on labour or employment are concerned with Information Technology and the Brain Drain. If we didn’t have brackets here the search would just bring up every reference to labour in the database, whether relevant to Information Technology or not.

The Wildcards, * and ?, expand a search: The * deals with related words. In this example Employ* means that we get all words starting with "Employ…" – such as Employment, Employee, Employees, Employers…

The ? fills in a missing letter, and is used for covering alternative spellings in British and American English, both Labour and Labor in this example.

NOT weeds out anything you’ve got too much of. Many of our databases are American products, for example, and you can often be flooded with reports on the American situation unless you weed it out.

3) Read/Skim the articles, using their abstracts

Most of the articles will have an abstract. This is a short paragraph at the head of the article that lists the main facts and arguments in each article. By reading these you will quickly get the gist of what each article is about and where it fits into the pattern you are building up in your literature survey.

How many books and articles should you have? It’s wise to check this with your lecturer or tutor. In general, though, your aim is not to cover every single book or article, but every major opinion or theme on the topic. Many of the books or articles will add very little that is new.

Therefore a short list of really scholarly, relevant, comprehensive articles is often more effective than a list of hundreds of superficial or tangential articles.

What you are ideally looking for are the "seminal" articles (seed articles) on which most of the other authors are basing their work.

4) Group the Articles into the themes and sub-themes of your topic

Obviously, it helps to have a structure in mind already, but the articles you find will often help to suggest a structure or cause you to redesign your existing one.

Herewith a hard-learned tip:

There are tides and seasons in academic publishing – a topic is often hot for a few months, then dies, then is revived to be attacked from a different angle, then dies, then is revived again to be discussed from a third angle… remember, Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis?

This has two implications for studying the results on a database search:

Just because there is nothing much in the recent articles does not mean that it was not hot a few months or years ago, so scroll back in time down the list, or jump right to the earliest reference and scroll up through time to look for a hot spot.

The tides of article titles often tell a story that can help you shape your literature review.

For example, in a list of journal articles on Information Technology and Employment you might find that:

The earliest articles are all about how hard it is to find skilled IT workers.

Later you get articles about UK and US firms desperately recruiting school-leavers and training them in IT skills on the job.

A year later you get articles about how countries like India and South Africa are doing the same thing.

And not long after that you get articles about India and South Africa having a huge, skilled IT workforce, working far more cheaply than the US and UK workforce, and lots of UK and US projects being outsourced to them.

Then you get complaints about unemployment in the IT sector in the UK and USA.

Then you get stories about how employers in the UK and USA have become very choosy about whom they employ, insisting on really good academic training, loads of experience and very-specialised skills.

Then you get the latest stories which are all about how new IT entrants, without that experience, start packing their bags to gain experience elsewhere…

See? Story!

Many database lists of academic articles tell this sort of story when they are looked at in date order. Either they reflect swings in world events or they are reflecting swings in academic debate and opinion. Seeing such a story in the literature is a great help in structuring any literature review.

In particular, look out for the major triggers of such changes: When did the first swing to a new track happen, and what event or article provoked it?

When you find an article that has provoked a major swing, or started a whole new debate, then you are looking at the "Seminal" (Seed) article that I mentioned earlier. This sort of article is often the best sort of article to identify in a literature review – many of the other articles will just build on, comment on, or attack its basic arguments.

Using a Citation Database

If you find a seed article, or any other really good article or book, Google Scholar is extremely good at finding other books or articles which have cited that article, either because they support it or because they disagree with it. Just search for the title on Google Scholar and a link comes up under the record showing "Cited by"

Another way of doing a citation search is to download Harzing's Publish or Perish software from http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm . This does a lovely job of tracing citations on Google Scholar. It allows you to search by SUBJECT and t hen arrange the results by most highly cited.

6) Identify within each sub-theme those points on which the articles agree, those points on which they disagree, and those points which they don’t cover at all.

The abstracts can help with this, of course. The main trick is coming up with, or spotting, the sub themes and that is simply a matter of brain work. But if it is done well, and you have taken the trouble to find good sources, then you will find, quite magically, that you have constructed the skeleton and a good bit of the flesh and blood of your essay or research project.

In fact, a good literature review can result in an essay that virtually writes itself.

The Literature Review Demo - a step-by-step guide to the tools and techniques

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Do you want to know how a book was received by scholars? Are you trying to determine the quality of a particular book? Or, are you just interested in knowing if a book is worth reading? Book reviews are a great place to start. This guide provides guidance on finding two types of book reviews, those for a general audience and those for a scholarly audience.

Reviews for a General Audience

Literature and popular works (memoirs, travel writing, manuals, etc.) are often reviewed by journalists or fellow authors upon publication in newspapers or magazines. Use the following databases to find reviews in these publications.

  • Book Review Index This link opens in a new window & more less... A comprehensive online guide to book reviews with over five million review citations from thousands of publications.
  • Book Review Digest Plus This link opens in a new window & more less... Book Review Digest is a reference database that provides review excerpts and book summaries for current English-language fiction and non-fiction books. Limit of 1 simultaneous user.
  • Book Review Digest Retrospective This link opens in a new window 1903-1982 & more less... Indexes and abstracts reviews of English language adult and juvenile fiction and non-fiction titles. Reviews are selected from journals in the humanities, sciences, social sciences and library review media.

Other Sources for Book Reviews

Many reviews are published in newspapers and magazines. Use the guides below to find the best databases to search for reviews in these publications.

  • How do I find magazines? by Ask a Librarian Updated Feb 17, 2024 237 views this year
  • How do I find newspapers? by Ask a Librarian Updated Mar 5, 2024 3579 views this year

Reviews for a Scholarly Audience

Scholarly books are reviewed in academic or peer-reviewed journals and are written by academics. As these reviews place the work in the context of current scholarship, they can take several years to appear after the book was published.

Starting Points

  • JSTOR This link opens in a new window Recommended Starting Point . Use Advanced Search and limit to "Reviews". You can also limit by discipline. & more less... A database of back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. All issues of each journal are included in full-text except for the most recent 2-to-5 years.
  • IBR Online This link opens in a new window & more less... Multilingual and interdisciplinary index to book reviews, chiefly in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
  • Web of Science This link opens in a new window Conduct your search for book or author, and then limit to "Book Reviews". & more less... Authoritative, multidisciplinary content covers over 10,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 110,000 conference proceedings. You'll find current and retrospective coverage in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage available to 1900. Includes the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Web of Science is especially useful for its citation linking.
  • Periodicals Index Online This link opens in a new window & more less... Part of Nineteenth Century Index. Indexes the contents of thousands of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences from 1665 to 1995, including many European titles. Includes links to some full-text articles. Dates of full-text coverage vary by title.
  • Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window & more less... Database corresponds to International Index, 1907 - March 1965; Social Sciences & Humanities Index, April 1965 March 1974; Humanities Index, April 1974 March 1984; and Social Sciences Index, April 1974 March 1983

Other Databases for Book Reviews

We strongly recommend searching the article database or index that covers the academic literature in a specific field for reviews. Use the Advanced Search option and limit to "Book Reviews" or "Reviews".  Find the best database for book reviews in your field by using our subject guides.

  • Library Subject Guides

Book Review Indexes in Print

Below are a few print sources for finding book reviews.

  • Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Humanities Journals, 1802-1974 & more less... 10 vols. Ed by Evan Ira Farber. Woodbridge: Research Publications, 1982-1984. Covers 150 literature, philosophy, classics, folklore, linguistics & music journals, from England and the US Organized by primary authors or editors and then by book titles.
  • Literary and Historical index to American Magazines, 1800-1850 & more less... Ed by Daniel A. Wells & Jonathan Daniel Wells. Westport: Praeger, 2004.

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Publications with Book Reviews

  • London Review of Books Library has on microfilm 1979 - present.
  • New York Review of Books This link opens in a new window » more less... New York Review of Books reviews contemporary books in all subject areas.
  • New Yorker Library has in print 1925 - present.
  • Publishers Weekly Library has in print and microfilm 1873 - present. Recent issues available online via Find It!
  • TLS: Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive This link opens in a new window » more less... Covers 1902-2006. This easy-to-navigate, fully-searchable resource is a witness to the cultural revolutions of the last 100 years and offers unparalleled opportunities for tracking the views of influential opinion-makers, the response of their peers, the controversies of the day and how they developed. --Publisher's website
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  1. How To Do A Literature Review

    A literature review is: 1) A list of books and journal articles, 2) on a specific topic, 3) grouped by theme, 4) and evaluated with regard to your research. This evaluation would identify connections, contradictions and gaps in the literature you have found. The purpose of a literature review, therefore, is:

  2. Book Reviews

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