How to design research questions for a literature review?

Question

I have to conduct a literature review for research topic. The plan is to add this as the first chapter of my doctoral dissertation, get the scoping and state of the art about topic, and preferably get it published to a journal (ACM Computing Survey, for example). I have no experience writing review papers. So far, I learned that the review process starts with specifying the research questions. Well, this is paradox for me. I want to conduct the review to get the scoping of a research topic that I'm not familiar with (publication is a bonus). So, how can I even write research questions when I'm not familiar with the field. Context: I am a beginner phd student

Answer 1

What you are saying you want to do is impossible. To start the literature review you will have to enter terms into database searches such as Google Scholar. You get those terms by figuring out what your questions are. Of course, in the process of doing the lit review, you may find that your questions have already been answered, but academic papers almost always end with a small section on "further research needed".

Even as a beginning PhD student you should have some idea of what you want to research. Why did you apply for a PhD in this subject? What did you learn or read as an undergrad that fascinated you? Or, if you have a professor who you plan to work with, what does their research focus on?

Answer 2

It is misleading to think that just because the literature review chapter of a thesis is the second chapter, it is conducted to [near] completion before the actual study begins. I find it more helpful to completely separate the process of conducting the research (including the review) from the presentation of the final document.

When I teach research methodology (including literature review methodology), I like to give students two distinct lists of structure. The first is the ordered list of steps to take to conduct the research or review; the second is how the finished work should be arranged in the final document.

From this perspective, let's put aside the mistaken notion that you need to complete most of the literature review before your proceed with your research. More pragmatically, in your situation, I suggest that you think of the literature review as two major steps in your research process: an initial literature review and a final literature review. Here's how it could work:

• Initial literature review. At this point, you do not have a clear idea about your research question. You have a general topic of interest but that's about it. So, the initial literature review is very useful for exploring your topic and helping you focus until you find a clear, meaningful research question. This initial literature review is very exploratory. You should read the articles you initially find interesting and only skim over those of secondary interest. For truly interesting articles, carefully examine their citation lists and read key cited articles. Also for these truly interesting articles, skim through the articles that have cited these articles (you can use Google Scholar following the "Cited articles" links) and then find more articles to skim and read in depth. Continue doing this with discussion and feedback from your advisor until you find a research opportunity and concrete questions that you can focus on for your doctoral research.

• Do the doctoral research. This is the real work.

• Final literature review. At this point, you have completed your research and have your findings. Based on the initial literature review you did (perhaps a couple of years previously by now), you have a good idea of the novelty of your findings. For a literature review chapter, you will not present your new findings as knowledge in the literature, but you should have a better idea now of the related research that you can search for and discuss that bears on the research that you will present in subsequent chapters. From this standpoint, it should be much clearer how to frame and arrange your literature review to set up the reader of your dissertation to appreciate the novelty and value of the research study in subsequent chapters.

By the time you do the final literature review, you should have more experience with publishing norms and you can work closely with your supervisor to ensure that the final literature review is in a form that would be suitable for ACM Computing Surveys or a similar journal.

The challenge I suspect you are facing now is that you are trying to clearly envision the final product whereas you are at the beginning of the process. I do not think that it is necessary or productive to do that. If you can accept the two-step process I suggest, I think you would have a more practical way forward.