1. Webster and Watson’s article discussed the importance of identifying the units of analysis used in an author’s research early in his/her literature review. On page 5 of the article, these units are exemplified in a concept matrix (organizational, group, and individual) in order to demonstrate the difference between a concept- centric review and an author-centric one. My question is how should these units of analysis be determined? Should they be determined before research even begins, or should they be formed after research is synthesized based on patterns seen in the research?
2. On page 4 of Webster and Watson’s article, the authors quote a reviewer who asserts that, “Studies of the IS literature have consistently been limited by drawing from a small sample of journals. Even though the [ones] investigated here may have reputations as our top journals, that does not excuse an author from investigating “ all” published articles in a field.” While I understand the reviewer’s sentiments and agree that a broad spectrum of literature should be researched for a literature review, I feel that it would be difficult to truly look at “all” published articles. My question is how do you know when you’ve researched enough? The article also states that you know you’ve reached the end of your research when you’re not finding new concepts - but how accurate is that test? Are you really not finding anything new, or are you just not looking in the right places?
3. In the “Theoretical Development” section of Webster and Watson’s article (7), the authors describe the different types of theories possible to use in a literature review – mainly the variance or process theories. My question is how to know which one is best for use in your literature review? The authors discussed a “hybrid” theory (joining the variance and process theories together), which might be preferable. However, how do you know if this is right for your review?
1. Literature reviews call upon us to synthesize sources. Webster and Watson offer some advice for filtering articles into a useful review selection, but how much overall familiarity with the literature should a reviewer have? How deeply into our roots should we probe initially, even if all past sources are not included in a later review?
2. Page xv-vi suggest that “A complete review covers relevant literature on the topic and is not confined to one research methodology, one set of journals, or one geographic area.” Is the isolation of geographic area appropriate in some cases to study phenomena specific to that area, IS or otherwise?
3. If we are not to limit our examination to one research methodology as in question 2 above, why is the inclusion of empirical research from outside the “specific area of interest” be “presumed as weaker” (Webster and Watson, xix)?
1 - Watson and Webster state that a literature review in information science can be particularly challenging because the field of IS is interdisciplinary and we often "need to draw on theories from a variety of fields" (13-14). However, on page 16, they note that IS has tended to draw on the same few journals and areas of expertise - is IS truly as interdisciplinary as we say it is, and if so, why are we not engaging more theory outside of our own disciplinary echo chamber?
2- I'm still struggling to fully understand the "conceptual models" discussion on page 19 in the context of a literature review. Does one need to create or establish a new theory based upon the concepts presented in a literature review? How would one approach that in a literature review that focuses on liberal arts, or humanities, without engaging in some sort of data-gathering project?
3 - Since Information Science is a relatively young discipline, and lacks some of the theoretical background of other disciplines, is the question of "What's new?" (21) particularly useful in a literature review, versus "what's been discussed within other disciplines that could be new to our profession?"
1) The article strongly emphasized the importance of theory to a literature review, and it was fairly clear on what a theory isn’t, e.g. “models and propositions… do not, on their own, constitute theory” (xix). I did not get a clear sense from this article what does constitute a theory in this context. Where do theories come from? What are some examples of a “theory” in the information field?
2) I was also unsure how the authors defined the term “paradigm.” It is noted early in the article that the information field was considered “pre-paradigmatic” in the 1970s (xiii). What does it mean for a field to be pre-paradigmatic? What is a paradigm, and what kind of information is available to a researcher in the absence of a paradigm?
3) The idea of a “unit of analysis” (which I took to mean a specific conceptual thread found in multiple literature sources) struck me as a useful shorthand. However, I thought the suggestion of using a concept matrix was problematic. If the author of a literature review draws strict partitions between units of analysis, does this make it more difficulties to see the concepts that may exist across these partitions?
1. Webster & Watson explain some of the hurdles involved in producing articles in the IS field due to the "complexity of assembling a review in an interdisciplinary field." When writing a literary review that cuts across disciplines, in what way should the author define terms that are familiar to a specific discipline but may not be familiar to the reader, especially if that topic relates to the interests of multiple disciplines?
2. Webster and Watson discuss the need to search literature in additional fields of study that can inform the review. At what point does it become necessary to consult outside experts in a field to assist with the search if the author is not highly knowledgeable about the field being investigated?
3. Every author has preferred perspectives and beliefs about his/her discipline. What is the ethical responsibility to an author to give balanced coverage to competing theories in a literary review? To what degree is this currently a problem within the field?
1. Under the section "Theoretical Development in Your Article", Webster and Watson talk about using empirical research to support your paper, but imply that empirical research used not from the target field, but from a related field is weaker. If this is the case, would that result in a weaker argument/presentation overall? Is weak research better than any research at all?
2. The authors speak about writing literature reviews to better establish and develop the field of Information Science. Isn't researching and theorizing Information Science just gathering more information on information? Cancer research is searching for something specific - a cure. What would writing lit reviews really hope to accomplish for this field and what would the relevance be?
3. It seems that the whole basis for writing a lit review or conducting research is originality. You write a lit review because, according to the authors, "it hasn't been done before". But isn't originality something that is becoming more and more elusive in a world where everything can be shared or accessed? Does it even still exist, or is it always a variation of something else?
1. The article mentions that a lit review should have boundaries defined near the front of the article. How does one define the boundaries of the lit review they are writing? Can the lit review cover as much or as little as the author wants as long as it highlights a gap in the research of the chosen subject?
2. This article says that one of the main reasons for writing a lit review is to guide future research. Is the guidance in a lit review merely the author looking at past and current research and presenting their thoughts or is it more formal?
3. The issue of tense when referring to lit reviews is interesting. I would assume that the literature being reviewed is being called upon because it is considered current in the given field and that this would change depending on the field of research being studied. Would there ever be a time where a lit review would look further into the past, beyond the currently accepted literature to build a lit review?
1. Weber and Watson say that “saying it hasn’t been done before” on its own will not satisfy reviewers. Since information studies is such a vast field with many disciplines, is it possible to have a truly original literature review or will future authors always be creating hybrid theories interspersed with the ideas of earlier contributors?
2. One of the summary points in writing an ideal article is that one should “review relevant prior literature in IS and related areas.” A question, maybe to you Professor Lease, is how much prior literature should one review before writing their own literature review and how might that relate to plagiarism if one doesn’t know what ideas have been published already?
3. Weber and Watson write that there are reasons “we see so few theoretical articles.” One is that they say the IS field is young and the other is the “complexity of assembling a review in an interdisciplinary field.” What exactly is included under the umbrella of “information systems field?” I’d actually argue that the disciplines like mathematics or history, for example, could equally be information systems and that the information systems field is not at all young, rather the term itself is.
1. While discussing about the tone of the literature review, the authors point out that we need to be 'fault tolerant' and not 'highly critical'. If the errors are obvious and we need to indicate that, does that mean we are being overly critical? In the text they only talk about common 'errors', not specific ones.
2. A literature review should be original,creative and review a previous author's work. In such a review should we revolve around our ideas and thoughts without merely re-stating the work? If this is done, does it become author-centric?The concept matrix shows individuals as units of analysis, how far can this prevent a concept from straying out of its domain?
3. In the 'Theoretical development in your article' column, Webster and Watson put forth that there are three sources for propositions and the major source is 'logical reasoning' (answering the question 'why'). Why can't past findings and experience be the answers to the logical questioning and thus be a substitute for it?
1. The authors discuss models and propositions as a way of extending or developing new theories. (p.7) "Extending current theories or developing new theories will create directions for future research. However, extending or developing theories is a difficult task and is often the weakest part of a review. Nonetheless, it is the most important part of a review and generally needs the most elaboration. Here, we provide some recommendations for researchers who wish to develop a model and justify its propositions." But in the next sentence the authors go on to tell us that "Models and propositions capture relationships between variables, but do not, on their own, represent theory." What then is the relationship between theory, model and propositions?
2. When developing a matrix for aligning/defining your research reviews, what balance should be made prior to reading the articles and adding or defining while reading the articles? This might be particularly on point for researchers that are conducting a review before beginning their own study.
3. There must be other ways beyond simply having others read your paper to evaluate your theory, correct? Maybe it was beyond the scope of the paper, but it seems that they should have at least mentioned other methods.
1. At the beginning of this article, the author lists some reasons to stress the necessity for IS scholars to learn how to write literature reviews. One reason is presented as 'many IS scholars are nor familiar with the structure and format of reviews'. So, my question is this: comparing to other fields, is it different to write an IS review? If yes, what is the difference? If not, why couldn't these scholars just apply their previous experience and skills to writing reviews in new studying field.
2. The author suggests that we can involve personal practice or experience as a main source of reasoning for propositions. However, is it too subjective? How to judge which experience could be suitable to use in a review?
3. In the second step of identifying relevant literatures on P16, it says that 'by reviewing citations for the articles identified in step 1 to determine prior articles'. My question is: what is the evaluation standard for this determination? Frequency? Publishing Time? Or anything else?
1. When a paper is sent back to you by reviewers for revisions, is there a specific protocol for how to handle their critique? For instance, if a reviewer was to suggest articles or changes that don't provide strong support for your arguments (or don't seem to mesh with your argument), are you expected to still alter your work for their approval? Or is there a way to politely decline what they've offered on these grounds?
2. In the section "Prospective Authors and Topics", the writers state there are two areas in a scholar's career that put them in an ideal position to write a literature review; they must either have made significant progress on research about that topic, or have written a literature review previously. However, wouldn't this be something of a feedback loop? That is, wouldn't the individuals writing the literature reviews be the ones doing the research, and vice versa? In the opening paragraphs of this paper the authors lament the lack of IS reviews. If the pool of scholars is already so restrictive, wouldn't part of the problem stem from double-dipping into the same pool?
3. In the section "Identifying the Relevant Literature", the authors state that while using journal databases 'accelerates identification of relevant articles', the tone in the following paragraph leads me to think they prefer someone instead looking at the table of contents of journals the old fashioned way, stating it's a way to capture articles not caught in the original keyword siever. However, isn't the use of a variety of combinations of keywords (and multiple keywords that relate to each other) a worthy skill to develop when doing research? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I couldn't help but feel the wording was a bit biased in that portion.
Webster & Watson point out that a lack of theoretical progress is due to the youth of the field of Information Studies. Because of the seeming growth of IS and the inclusion of many different disciplines, as evidenced by our own iSchool, would the development of a standard IS type of literary review have developed organically incorporating the styles of the various disciplines that converged under the iSchool? And has this standard of review been as beneficial as it could have been to the way authors have gone about writing their articles?
According the Webster and Watson focusing on an author-centric style does little to help a review. But would incorporating some author-centric portions in a review help to clarify the concept-centric aspects of the overall article? Coming from a discipline like Classical Studies, using author-centric summaries to sort of buttress my ideas certainly helped to show a reader just how I arrived at my conclusion or what brought about my particular theory.
Under the “Theoretical Development in Your Article” section Webster and Watson state that “extending or developing theories is a difficult task and is often the weakest part of the review”(xix). This is a bit confusing to me coming from a research paper background. Wouldn’t the idea of a literature review hinge on extending or developing theories before diving into a batch of documents on a topic? Or does the topic come first then synthesizing the information then coming up with or extending a theory or concept?
1.The author suggests 'a complete review covers relevant literature on the topic and is not confined to one set of journals...'and we shouldn't 'focus solely on a small set of top publications.' However,for example,we will write a literature review this semester and only have less than 3 months to do that. Time is limited. And mostly,'top'papers are published in top publications and we tend to read 'top' papers first. So we may be forced to just read the top papers with time limilation. What should we do?
2.In a literature review, we should introduce other scholars'views and theoretical foundations on a special issue. Also we should compare them,show our opinions and develop our own theories. so what is the porpotion between our own work and others' work?
3.The author gives an example to show us how to write the beginning of the article.'Outlining past research and highlighting its gaps, then suggesting that she will address these shortcomings by proposing new theory...' Sometimes we do find many gaps, but we don't know and cannot find whether someone has already filled the gaps. So if the gaps have been filled, our work could be unnecessary. How to avoid this?
In this article the subject of the interdisciplinary nature of the Information Science field is discussed as something that lends to the small amount of theoretical articles in the field. This seems counter-intuitive however as it seems that this would allow authors from several fields contribute to the literature of the IS field thus expanding it. Do the authors of this field merely have a narrow view of what constitutes IS literature or are they right in their assumption that the multi-disciplinary nature of the field hinder theoretical articles being published?
In this article the authors state that the majority of articles in literature reviews come from North America. Is this just due to bias or is most IS research being done in North America? Do cultural differences across nations affect IS research in a way that strategies and ideas developed overseas would not be applicable in North America?
In this article the authors seem to make a big point of stating that it is important to not be too critical of previous research as the point of the review is not to critique research that has been done but rather to build on that research. However, they do not give very good examples of how critical is too critical. If there are flawed conclusions in an article that could lead future research in the wrong direction then is it not important to be critical of that paper as to inform the authors of that paper and others?
1. The author offered two kinds of literature review writers and two types of article at first. However, when talked about the theoretical Development later, the author mentioned another purpose to write a literature review. The literature review might intend to show how competing theories or philosophical assumptions explain an important phenomenon can be very influential, or even intend to demonstrate two contradict theories of the same issue and analyze the possible trend. So, should the part of "Prospective Authors and Topics" be more comprehensive?
2. When discussed about finding articles, avoiding missing article and evaluate my own theory, the author always suggest asking people for help.I admit those reviewer who help revising are important. However, with the development of various convenient academic tools, I wonder could it be a better choice to use Internet and tools first? What's more, I think the table 2&3 might also help to found some important missing article if too little article about one concept.
3. I want to ask how to make a boundary for related area since IS is an interdisciplinary field? Is there any possible to do too much work on other field when writing a literature review?
1. In the "Beginning Your Article" part, the author first introduced how to write an introduction that needs to motivate the topic, provide a working definition of key variables, and clearly articulate the paper's contributions. By developing the introduction, the author proposed that we should provide more elaborate definitions of our key variables and set the boundaries on the work. And the author gave some examples of these boundaries. My question is, although this limitations seems like can help us define the coverage and certain contexts of our review, when dealing with real practice, especially for such an interdisciplinary field like IS, how could we easily define our boundaries? Is there any specific method or just based on experience?
2. On page 5, the author began to talk about identifying the relevant literature. And a recommendation on a structured approach to determine the source material for review is given. The author suggested that we should read those leading journals and selected conference proceedings for their reputation. Going backward by reviewing the citations and forward by using Web of Science. When we writing a review, sometimes there's no specific topic. And all of suggestions the author gave can truly inform us a way to think more deeply. But how could this guarantee the breadth and comprehensiveness of our review?
3. On page 8, the author stated the central purpose of a review-identifying critical knowledge gaps and thus motivating researchers to close the breach. Conceptual models are generally derived from variance (factor) or process theories. When writing a review, how to combine these variances and process?
1. In broadening the scope of IS literature reviews, are there any fields/disciplines that are generally (and/or regularly) missing from these conversations? 2. Are there any common factors or elements that decided good theories include? 3. In regard to review and revision--since the field of information is both young and constantly growing, do literature reviews focused in this area become outdated more quickly than in other fields?
1. Webster writes a literature review is concept-centric and author-centric method fails to synthesize the literature. If my understanding is right, the other article we read about DIKW Hierarchy is quit author-centeric. So when should we apply the author-centric method.
2. In first half, Webster mentioned a complete review is not confined to one set of journals and the situation MISQ review submissions focus solely on North American. But in second half, he also mention the reviewer should hew a path for others, and first choices are current MIS quarterly associate Editors. Does them conflict with each other?
3. In the article, Webster emphasis that before we engage in our review, we should read others to confirm our review has been not done by others. But how could we definite the familiarity? Is there a standard ratio?
-What aspects of Webster and Watson’s advice on writing literature reviews might we apply to our evaluations of other readings for this class? -How might the research process needed to gather materials for a literature review differ from researching a traditional research paper? How might it be the same? -How might one balance the need to locate weaknesses and opportunities for future research in their literature review with an objective, uncritical tone?
I am not entirely sure what kind of questions to ask about this article as it’s not exactly proposing anything controversial. If Webster and Watson want their literature reviews this way, I say more power to them! I am curious about parts of their article on a more basic or practical level, though. 1. What are these “key variables” of a literature review that literature review authors should define at the beginning of their articles? 2. I’ve never heard the term “unit of analysis” before this reading, and am curious about what one is? How do authors choose the unit of analysis they’d like to work with for their literature reviews, or can they just throw them all in, as long as they distinguish between them appropriately? 3. In explaining why propositions alone do not represent theory (in the section about Theoretical Development), the authors provide this quote from Griffith as an example: "New/adapted concrete features are more likely to be experienced as novel than new/adapted abstract features." What is this example showing us? I didn’t quite get it.
1. The authors suggest augmenting concepts with "units of analysis." How would "units of analysis" be defined and what would be some other examples be besides organizational, group, and individual?
2. Webster and Watson claim that IS is such a new and emerging field. If this is the case, where would a reviewer go to find literature on a topic if so little exists?
3. Since the call for articles was made by MISQ, how many articles have been submitted and what sorts of topics have been addressed? Have any other IS journals come into being since this time?
The points "explanatory and creative" are tacked onto the seven points of an ideal article, but how is the concept "explanatory" any different than what is implied by the seven previous points?
1. Webster and Watson write that "you should clearly state the unit or units of analysis undertaken in the review" (p. 3). This concept of having a unit of analysis is referred to again later in the paper, yet was somewhat unclear to me. A more thorough discussion of exactly what they mean by unit of analysis and how to make this explicit within a literature review would be helpful.
2. There are, according to this article, two situations in a scholar's life which lead to writing a literature review (1st paragraph after Prospective Authors and Topics on p. 2). Can it truly be narrowed down to those two points or are there other situations which could call for necessity of a literature review?
3. Could we discuss process and variance theories in more detail?
1. The authors claim that, in addition to being useful, comprehensive, and relevant, a good theory is also interesting, creative, and "delightful." Surely a review that is easier or more fun to read is more accessible to audiences, but to what extent should aesthetics play a role in the realm of scholarly writing in particular and in our understanding of information and knowledge in general?
2. Why might information or evidence from related fields be considered "weaker" evidence than that from the field primary to the review? Especially given the interdisciplinary nature of information studies, how are we to navigate the balance of research from our own and related fields?
3. The authors argue the idea that a literature review should at once offer a "state of the field" and answer the question "What's new?" Is one of these themes more important than the other, in the context of this course and again in the larger field of information studies?
1. The author of the paper created a great frame of being literature view. However, for me, one of the most annoying things of doing a research is to determine and to find what topics are related and what kinds of conclusions have been made beforehand. How can I allocate the papers related to my work as soon as possible?
2. The ideal way of doing literature review, as the author put, is to get the big picture of the topic and to collect most import points from them. However, how to make a tradeoff between limited time and a huge number of papers that could possibly be related to my interested topic? I mean, we cannot read all the papers, but we might miss some important papers if we fail to check every of them.
3. When should we go through the literature review? Is it better to exert it before we have a hypothesis or after we have one?
1. Webster and Watson talk about how conceptual models come from variance or process theories. I am wondering if we could talk about these different theories didn’t understand what the author’s definitions or how they differed. 2. The authors say that a literature review should be organized by concepts and not by authors. Are there ever exceptions to this? Are there other ways to organize a literature review? 3. The authors advocate searching in cross discipline journals to find relevant articles. What other areas of study, databases and journals would be good starting places for us while search for relevant articles?
ReplyDelete1. Webster and Watson’s article discussed the importance of identifying the units of analysis used in an author’s research early in his/her literature review. On page 5 of the article, these units are exemplified in a concept matrix (organizational, group, and individual) in order to demonstrate the difference between a concept- centric review and an author-centric one. My question is how should these units of analysis be determined? Should they be determined before research even begins, or should they be formed after research is synthesized based on patterns seen in the research?
2. On page 4 of Webster and Watson’s article, the authors quote a reviewer who asserts that, “Studies of the IS literature have consistently been limited by drawing from a small sample of journals. Even though the [ones] investigated here may have reputations as our top journals, that does not excuse an author from investigating “ all” published articles in a field.” While I understand the reviewer’s sentiments and agree that a broad spectrum of literature should be researched for a literature review, I feel that it would be difficult to truly look at “all” published articles. My question is how do you know when you’ve researched enough? The article also states that you know you’ve reached the end of your research when you’re not finding new concepts - but how accurate is that test? Are you really not finding anything new, or are you just not looking in the right places?
3. In the “Theoretical Development” section of Webster and Watson’s article (7), the authors describe the different types of theories possible to use in a literature review – mainly the variance or process theories. My question is how to know which one is best for use in your literature review? The authors discussed a “hybrid” theory (joining the variance and process theories together), which might be preferable. However, how do you know if this is right for your review?
1. Literature reviews call upon us to synthesize sources. Webster and Watson offer some advice for filtering articles into a useful review selection, but how much overall familiarity with the literature should a reviewer have? How deeply into our roots should we probe initially, even if all past sources are not included in a later review?
ReplyDelete2. Page xv-vi suggest that “A complete review covers relevant literature on the topic and is not confined to one research methodology, one set of journals, or one geographic area.” Is the isolation of geographic area appropriate in some cases to study phenomena specific to that area, IS or otherwise?
3. If we are not to limit our examination to one research methodology as in question 2 above, why is the inclusion of empirical research from outside the “specific area of interest” be “presumed as weaker” (Webster and Watson, xix)?
1 - Watson and Webster state that a literature review in information science can be particularly challenging because the field of IS is interdisciplinary and we often "need to draw on theories from a variety of fields" (13-14). However, on page 16, they note that IS has tended to draw on the same few journals and areas of expertise - is IS truly as interdisciplinary as we say it is, and if so, why are we not engaging more theory outside of our own disciplinary echo chamber?
ReplyDelete2- I'm still struggling to fully understand the "conceptual models" discussion on page 19 in the context of a literature review. Does one need to create or establish a new theory based upon the concepts presented in a literature review? How would one approach that in a literature review that focuses on liberal arts, or humanities, without engaging in some sort of data-gathering project?
3 - Since Information Science is a relatively young discipline, and lacks some of the theoretical background of other disciplines, is the question of "What's new?" (21) particularly useful in a literature review, versus "what's been discussed within other disciplines that could be new to our profession?"
1) The article strongly emphasized the importance of theory to a literature review, and it was fairly clear on what a theory isn’t, e.g. “models and propositions… do not, on their own, constitute theory” (xix). I did not get a clear sense from this article what does constitute a theory in this context. Where do theories come from? What are some examples of a “theory” in the information field?
ReplyDelete2) I was also unsure how the authors defined the term “paradigm.” It is noted early in the article that the information field was considered “pre-paradigmatic” in the 1970s (xiii). What does it mean for a field to be pre-paradigmatic? What is a paradigm, and what kind of information is available to a researcher in the absence of a paradigm?
3) The idea of a “unit of analysis” (which I took to mean a specific conceptual thread found in multiple literature sources) struck me as a useful shorthand. However, I thought the suggestion of using a concept matrix was problematic. If the author of a literature review draws strict partitions between units of analysis, does this make it more difficulties to see the concepts that may exist across these partitions?
1. Webster & Watson explain some of the hurdles involved in producing articles in the IS field due to the "complexity of assembling a review in an interdisciplinary field." When writing a literary review that cuts across disciplines, in what way should the author define terms that are familiar to a specific discipline but may not be familiar to the reader, especially if that topic relates to the interests of multiple disciplines?
ReplyDelete2. Webster and Watson discuss the need to search literature in additional fields of study that can inform the review. At what point does it become necessary to consult outside experts in a field to assist with the search if the author is not highly knowledgeable about the field being investigated?
3. Every author has preferred perspectives and beliefs about his/her discipline. What is the ethical responsibility to an author to give balanced coverage to competing theories in a literary review? To what degree is this currently a problem within the field?
1. Under the section "Theoretical Development in Your Article", Webster and Watson talk about using empirical research to support your paper, but imply that empirical research used not from the target field, but from a related field is weaker. If this is the case, would that result in a weaker argument/presentation overall? Is weak research better than any research at all?
ReplyDelete2. The authors speak about writing literature reviews to better establish and develop the field of Information Science. Isn't researching and theorizing Information Science just gathering more information on information? Cancer research is searching for something specific - a cure. What would writing lit reviews really hope to accomplish for this field and what would the relevance be?
3. It seems that the whole basis for writing a lit review or conducting research is originality. You write a lit review because, according to the authors, "it hasn't been done before". But isn't originality something that is becoming more and more elusive in a world where everything can be shared or accessed? Does it even still exist, or is it always a variation of something else?
1. The article mentions that a lit review should have boundaries defined near the front of the article. How does one define the boundaries of the lit review they are writing? Can the lit review cover as much or as little as the author wants as long as it highlights a gap in the research of the chosen subject?
ReplyDelete2. This article says that one of the main reasons for writing a lit review is to guide future research. Is the guidance in a lit review merely the author looking at past and current research and presenting their thoughts or is it more formal?
3. The issue of tense when referring to lit reviews is interesting. I would assume that the literature being reviewed is being called upon because it is considered current in the given field and that this would change depending on the field of research being studied. Would there ever be a time where a lit review would look further into the past, beyond the currently accepted literature to build a lit review?
1. Weber and Watson say that “saying it hasn’t been done before” on its own will not satisfy reviewers. Since information studies is such a vast field with many disciplines, is it possible to have a truly original literature review or will future authors always be creating hybrid theories interspersed with the ideas of earlier contributors?
ReplyDelete2. One of the summary points in writing an ideal article is that one should “review relevant prior literature in IS and related areas.” A question, maybe to you Professor Lease, is how much prior literature should one review before writing their own literature review and how might that relate to plagiarism if one doesn’t know what ideas have been published already?
3. Weber and Watson write that there are reasons “we see so few theoretical articles.” One is that they say the IS field is young and the other is the “complexity of assembling a review in an interdisciplinary field.” What exactly is included under the umbrella of “information systems field?” I’d actually argue that the disciplines like mathematics or history, for example, could equally be information systems and that the information systems field is not at all young, rather the term itself is.
1. While discussing about the tone of the literature review, the authors point out that we need to be 'fault tolerant' and not 'highly critical'. If the errors are obvious and we need to indicate that, does that mean we are being overly critical? In the text they only talk about common 'errors', not specific ones.
ReplyDelete2. A literature review should be original,creative and review a previous author's work. In such a review should we revolve around our ideas and thoughts without merely re-stating the work? If this is done, does it become author-centric?The concept matrix shows individuals as units of analysis, how far can this prevent a concept from straying out of its domain?
3. In the 'Theoretical development in your article' column, Webster and Watson put forth that there are three sources for propositions and the major source is 'logical reasoning' (answering the question 'why'). Why can't past findings and experience be the answers to the logical questioning and thus be a substitute for it?
1. The authors discuss models and propositions as a way of extending or developing new theories. (p.7) "Extending current theories or developing new theories will create directions for future research. However, extending or developing theories is a difficult task and is often the weakest part of a review. Nonetheless, it is the most important part of a review and generally needs the most elaboration. Here, we provide some recommendations for researchers who wish to develop a model and justify its propositions." But in the next sentence the authors go on to tell us that "Models and propositions capture relationships between variables, but do not, on their own, represent theory." What then is the relationship between theory, model and propositions?
ReplyDelete2. When developing a matrix for aligning/defining your research reviews, what balance should be made prior to reading the articles and adding or defining while reading the articles? This might be particularly on point for researchers that are conducting a review before beginning their own study.
3. There must be other ways beyond simply having others read your paper to evaluate your theory, correct? Maybe it was beyond the scope of the paper, but it seems that they should have at least mentioned other methods.
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ReplyDelete1. At the beginning of this article, the author lists some reasons to stress the necessity for IS scholars to learn how to write literature reviews. One reason is presented as 'many IS scholars are nor familiar with the structure and format of reviews'. So, my question is this: comparing to other fields, is it different to write an IS review? If yes, what is the difference? If not, why couldn't these scholars just
ReplyDeleteapply their previous experience and skills to writing reviews in new studying field.
2. The author suggests that we can involve personal practice or experience as a main source of reasoning for propositions. However, is it too subjective? How to judge which experience could be suitable to use in a review?
3. In the second step of identifying relevant literatures on P16, it says that 'by reviewing citations for the articles identified in step 1 to determine prior articles'. My question is: what is the evaluation standard for this determination? Frequency? Publishing Time? Or anything else?
1. When a paper is sent back to you by reviewers for revisions, is there a specific protocol for how to handle their critique? For instance, if a reviewer was to suggest articles or changes that don't provide strong support for your arguments (or don't seem to mesh with your argument), are you expected to still alter your work for their approval? Or is there a way to politely decline what they've offered on these grounds?
ReplyDelete2. In the section "Prospective Authors and Topics", the writers state there are two areas in a scholar's career that put them in an ideal position to write a literature review; they must either have made significant progress on research about that topic, or have written a literature review previously. However, wouldn't this be something of a feedback loop? That is, wouldn't the individuals writing the literature reviews be the ones doing the research, and vice versa? In the opening paragraphs of this paper the authors lament the lack of IS reviews. If the pool of scholars is already so restrictive, wouldn't part of the problem stem from double-dipping into the same pool?
3. In the section "Identifying the Relevant Literature", the authors state that while using journal databases 'accelerates identification of relevant articles', the tone in the following paragraph leads me to think they prefer someone instead looking at the table of contents of journals the old fashioned way, stating it's a way to capture articles not caught in the original keyword siever. However, isn't the use of a variety of combinations of keywords (and multiple keywords that relate to each other) a worthy skill to develop when doing research? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I couldn't help but feel the wording was a bit biased in that portion.
Webster & Watson point out that a lack of theoretical progress is due to the youth of the field of Information Studies. Because of the seeming growth of IS and the inclusion of many different disciplines, as evidenced by our own iSchool, would the development of a standard IS type of literary review have developed organically incorporating the styles of the various disciplines that converged under the iSchool? And has this standard of review been as beneficial as it could have been to the way authors have gone about writing their articles?
ReplyDeleteAccording the Webster and Watson focusing on an author-centric style does little to help a review. But would incorporating some author-centric portions in a review help to clarify the concept-centric aspects of the overall article? Coming from a discipline like Classical Studies, using author-centric summaries to sort of buttress my ideas certainly helped to show a reader just how I arrived at my conclusion or what brought about my particular theory.
Under the “Theoretical Development in Your Article” section Webster and Watson state that “extending or developing theories is a difficult task and is often the weakest part of the review”(xix). This is a bit confusing to me coming from a research paper background. Wouldn’t the idea of a literature review hinge on extending or developing theories before diving into a batch of documents on a topic? Or does the topic come first then synthesizing the information then coming up with or extending a theory or concept?
1.The author suggests 'a complete review covers relevant literature on the topic and is not confined to one set of journals...'and we shouldn't 'focus solely on a small set of top publications.' However,for example,we will write a literature review this semester and only have less than 3 months to do that. Time is limited. And mostly,'top'papers are published in top publications and we tend to read 'top' papers first. So we may be forced to just read the top papers with time limilation. What should we do?
ReplyDelete2.In a literature review, we should introduce other scholars'views and theoretical foundations on a special issue. Also we should compare them,show our opinions and develop our own theories. so what is the porpotion between our own work and others' work?
3.The author gives an example to show us how to write the beginning of the article.'Outlining past research and highlighting its gaps, then suggesting that she will address these shortcomings by proposing new theory...' Sometimes we do find many gaps, but we don't know and cannot find whether someone has already filled the gaps. So if the gaps have been filled, our work could be unnecessary. How to avoid this?
In this article the subject of the interdisciplinary nature of the Information Science field is discussed as something that lends to the small amount of theoretical articles in the field. This seems counter-intuitive however as it seems that this would allow authors from several fields contribute to the literature of the IS field thus expanding it. Do the authors of this field merely have a narrow view of what constitutes IS literature or are they right in their assumption that the multi-disciplinary nature of the field hinder theoretical articles being published?
ReplyDeleteIn this article the authors state that the majority of articles in literature reviews come from North America. Is this just due to bias or is most IS research being done in North America? Do cultural differences across nations affect IS research in a way that strategies and ideas developed overseas would not be applicable in North America?
In this article the authors seem to make a big point of stating that it is important to not be too critical of previous research as the point of the review is not to critique research that has been done but rather to build on that research. However, they do not give very good examples of how critical is too critical. If there are flawed conclusions in an article that could lead future research in the wrong direction then is it not important to be critical of that paper as to inform the authors of that paper and others?
1. The author offered two kinds of literature review writers and two types of article at first. However, when talked about the theoretical Development later, the author mentioned another purpose to write a literature review. The literature review might intend to show how competing theories or philosophical assumptions explain an important phenomenon can be very influential, or even intend to demonstrate two contradict theories of the same issue and analyze the possible trend. So, should the part of "Prospective Authors and Topics" be more comprehensive?
ReplyDelete2. When discussed about finding articles, avoiding missing article and evaluate my own theory, the author always suggest asking people for help.I admit those reviewer who help revising are important. However, with the development of various convenient academic tools, I wonder could it be a better choice to use Internet and tools first? What's more, I think the table 2&3 might also help to found some important missing article if too little article about one concept.
3. I want to ask how to make a boundary for related area since IS is an interdisciplinary field? Is there any possible to do too much work on other field when writing a literature review?
1. In the "Beginning Your Article" part, the author first introduced how to write an introduction that needs to motivate the topic, provide a working definition of key variables, and clearly articulate the paper's contributions. By developing the introduction, the author proposed that we should provide more elaborate definitions of our key variables and set the boundaries on the work. And the author gave some examples of these boundaries. My question is, although this limitations seems like can help us define the coverage and certain contexts of our review, when dealing with real practice, especially for such an interdisciplinary field like IS, how could we easily define our boundaries? Is there any specific method or just based on experience?
ReplyDelete2. On page 5, the author began to talk about identifying the relevant literature. And a recommendation on a structured approach to determine the source material for review is given. The author suggested that we should read those leading journals and selected conference proceedings for their reputation. Going backward by reviewing the citations and forward by using Web of Science. When we writing a review, sometimes there's no specific topic. And all of suggestions the author gave can truly inform us a way to think more deeply. But how could this guarantee the breadth and comprehensiveness of our review?
3. On page 8, the author stated the central purpose of a review-identifying critical knowledge gaps and thus motivating researchers to close the breach. Conceptual models are generally derived from variance (factor) or process theories. When writing a review, how to combine these variances and process?
1. In broadening the scope of IS literature reviews, are there any fields/disciplines that are generally (and/or regularly) missing from these conversations?
ReplyDelete2. Are there any common factors or elements that decided good theories include?
3. In regard to review and revision--since the field of information is both young and constantly growing, do literature reviews focused in this area become outdated more quickly than in other fields?
1. Webster writes a literature review is concept-centric and author-centric method fails to synthesize the literature. If my understanding is right, the other article we read about DIKW Hierarchy is quit author-centeric. So when should we apply the author-centric method.
ReplyDelete2. In first half, Webster mentioned a complete review is not confined to one set of journals and the situation MISQ review submissions focus solely on North American. But in second half, he also mention the reviewer should hew a path for others, and first choices are current MIS quarterly associate Editors. Does them conflict with each other?
3. In the article, Webster emphasis that before we engage in our review, we should read others to confirm our review has been not done by others. But how could we definite the familiarity? Is there a standard ratio?
-What aspects of Webster and Watson’s advice on writing literature reviews might we apply to our evaluations of other readings for this class?
ReplyDelete-How might the research process needed to gather materials for a literature review differ from researching a traditional research paper? How might it be the same?
-How might one balance the need to locate weaknesses and opportunities for future research in their literature review with an objective, uncritical tone?
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ReplyDeleteI am not entirely sure what kind of questions to ask about this article as it’s not exactly proposing anything controversial. If Webster and Watson want their literature reviews this way, I say more power to them! I am curious about parts of their article on a more basic or practical level, though. 1. What are these “key variables” of a literature review that literature review authors should define at the beginning of their articles? 2. I’ve never heard the term “unit of analysis” before this reading, and am curious about what one is? How do authors choose the unit of analysis they’d like to work with for their literature reviews, or can they just throw them all in, as long as they distinguish between them appropriately? 3. In explaining why propositions alone do not represent theory (in the section about Theoretical Development), the authors provide this quote from Griffith as an example: "New/adapted concrete features are more likely to be experienced as novel than new/adapted abstract features." What is this example showing us? I didn’t quite get it.
ReplyDelete1. The authors suggest augmenting concepts with "units of analysis." How would "units of analysis" be defined and what would be some other examples be besides organizational, group, and individual?
ReplyDelete2. Webster and Watson claim that IS is such a new and emerging field. If this is the case, where would a reviewer go to find literature on a topic if so little exists?
3. Since the call for articles was made by MISQ, how many articles have been submitted and what sorts of topics have been addressed? Have any other IS journals come into being since this time?
The points "explanatory and creative" are tacked onto the seven points of an ideal article, but how is the concept "explanatory" any different than what is implied by the seven previous points?
ReplyDelete1. Webster and Watson write that "you should clearly state the unit or units of analysis undertaken in the review" (p. 3). This concept of having a unit of analysis is referred to again later in the paper, yet was somewhat unclear to me. A more thorough discussion of exactly what they mean by unit of analysis and how to make this explicit within a literature review would be helpful.
ReplyDelete2. There are, according to this article, two situations in a scholar's life which lead to writing a literature review (1st paragraph after Prospective Authors and Topics on p. 2). Can it truly be narrowed down to those two points or are there other situations which could call for necessity of a literature review?
3. Could we discuss process and variance theories in more detail?
1. The authors claim that, in addition to being useful, comprehensive, and relevant, a good theory is also interesting, creative, and "delightful." Surely a review that is easier or more fun to read is more accessible to audiences, but to what extent should aesthetics play a role in the realm of scholarly writing in particular and in our understanding of information and knowledge in general?
ReplyDelete2. Why might information or evidence from related fields be considered "weaker" evidence than that from the field primary to the review? Especially given the interdisciplinary nature of information studies, how are we to navigate the balance of research from our own and related fields?
3. The authors argue the idea that a literature review should at once offer a "state of the field" and answer the question "What's new?" Is one of these themes more important than the other, in the context of this course and again in the larger field of information studies?
1. The author of the paper created a great frame of being literature view. However, for me, one of the most annoying things of doing a research is to determine and to find what topics are related and what kinds of conclusions have been made beforehand. How can I allocate the papers related to my work as soon as possible?
ReplyDelete2. The ideal way of doing literature review, as the author put, is to get the big picture of the topic and to collect most import points from them. However, how to make a tradeoff between limited time and a huge number of papers that could possibly be related to my interested topic? I mean, we cannot read all the papers, but we might miss some important papers if we fail to check every of them.
3. When should we go through the literature review? Is it better to exert it before we have a hypothesis or after we have one?
1. Webster and Watson talk about how conceptual models come from variance or process theories. I am wondering if we could talk about these different theories didn’t understand what the author’s definitions or how they differed.
ReplyDelete2. The authors say that a literature review should be organized by concepts and not by authors. Are there ever exceptions to this? Are there other ways to organize a literature review?
3. The authors advocate searching in cross
discipline journals to find relevant articles. What other areas of study, databases and journals would be good starting places for us while search for relevant articles?