NIT6130 Introduction to Research
Assignment 2 – Literature Review
Semester 2, 2015
Due Date: 11:59pm, Friday, Week 7
Submission Requirement: submit online via a link in Assessment on VU Collaborate
Value: 25% of semester assessment
Objective:
The purpose of this assignment is to help students getting familiar with the process of conducting an literature review in a research project. Students will experience all three phases of producing an literature review on the topic they selected for thesis writing.
Tasks:
Conduct and write up the literature review section of your research proposal or thesis of the research topic you have selected.
1. Conduct a broad scan of the selected research topic.
a. Record a research journal
i. Keep a two-week (at least) research journal (from the day you have your lecture and lab in Week 6 until the submission due day, including all the actions from broad scan, focused review and comprehensive critique). ii. The research journal should record your idea, feeling, and action related to your thesis, such as the date, the task, the action and any comment you have. (Example as below)
b. Develop a filing system
i. List all the sources you used to collect the literature, including the libraries (VU library), digital databases, search engine (i.e. Google Scholar).
ii. List all the keywords you have used to collect the literature from each source in above list.
iii. Record the number of the literature returned, and the number of the literature finally collected. (Example as below)
Source Keywords Used No. Returned Literature No. Collected Literature
VU Library “Network Security” 352 20
“Wireless Network Security” 248 25
“Sensor Network Security” 167 24
c. Get full bibliographic information
i. Create a file to record all the bibliographic information of the literature that you have collected and stored in your filing system.
ii. You are free to choose any reference tool or file format to record the bibliographic, including MS Word, MS Excel, EndNote, Reference Manager, LaTex or ASCII in HTML (.txt)
2. Conduct a Focused review
a. Evaluate your literature collection
i. Check the title, the author(s), the source, the document type, the published date, and read the abstract to carefully select the most relevant literature. ii. Based on the evaluation results, you need to consider whether you will collect more literature or you need to discard some of them to narrow down your research problem. A recommended number is around 50 to 100. You also need to seek the suggestion from your instructor and/or supervisor.
b. Update your filing system. You need to update the table created for broad scan. (Hint: There must be some changes in the filing systems from broad scan and focused review.)
c. Update your bibliographic file. (Hint: The change of your bibliographic file must match with the updated filing system.)
d. Download the full text of the literature kept after your evaluation.
3. Conduct a comprehensive critique
a. Select two most relevant papers from your literature collection and undertake a careful reading to evaluate them according to following aspects if relevant (refer to Week6’s lecture slides for detailed questions, page 20-23):
i. Research problem
ii. Literature review
iii. Subjects iv. Instrumentation
v. Data collection, presentation, and analysis
vi. Summary and discussion
vii. Research type
viii. Overall evaluation
(Hint: You can use the above aspects as the subtitles for your evaluation statement. It is recommended to write your opinions in paragraph rather than only briefly list in bullets. You are expected to put your own understanding of the research work done in the literature.)
4. Provide a final outline of your literature review chapter. You are expected to provide a table of content of the literature review chapter, listing chapter title, subtitles, and subsubtitles if applied. No page number is required but a clear structure needs to be shown.
5. Write an introduction section that you will have in the literature review chapter. You can follow the sample provided in Week7’s lecture slides, from page 11.)
Marking criteria
Assessment Criteria: Mark
Broad Scan
• Research journal
• Filing system
• Bibliographic file from broad scan
2
2
2
Focused Review
• Updated filing system
• Updated bibliographic file from focused review
2
2
Comprehensive Critique
• Evaluate statements of two selected papers
4*2=8
Final outline of the literature review chapter 2
Introduction section 5
Total 25
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