Define your research question:
Determine your search terms:
This can also work the other way around. If you have your search terms already, use those terms to formulate your research question.
Use your search terms and utilize the Boolean Operators to maximize your search and get the most relevant results.
Boolean Operators are AND, OR, NOT. Multiple operators can be used at once.
When using Boolean Operators it is important to remember:
AND means;
Example: "Social Work" AND "Ethics" will result in a search of articles that ONLY have both terms present in the title/abstract.
OR means;
Example: "Social Work" OR "Ethics" will result in a search of articles with either search term present in the title/abstract. Not all articles retrieved will be relevant to your topic and/or research question.
NOT means;
Example: "Social Work" NOT "Ethics" will result in a search of articles on Social Work that do not include/discuss the topic of Ethics in Social Work. Articles could include Social Work care practice implementation in rural areas, or Social Work innovative practices.
During this step you will analyze the literature you have identified as important to your review. When analyzing the literature there are four major things to keep in mind while reading the literature.
Tracking your progress and noting important ideas or connections is imperative to writing a concise and well structured literature review. You are pulling research together from multiple sources so, it is important you keep your thoughts straight and connected to the right piece of literature.
You will find your own way to annotate and keep track of your progress as you research and analyze the literature. Some ways that could help with this annotation and tracking are:
Create a color scheme while highlighting. For example; yellow = something to note, orange = methodology, blue = keywords or themes, green = further research needed. Another example of tracking is creating a Word or Google Doc to track your thoughts. Create a small outline consisting of what you need to track while reading the literature.
Another way to track your progress is to create an outline for each resource consisting of the items you need to keep track of. The outline could look like this in a Word or Google Doc:
Sawyer, M.G., Carbone, J.A., Searle, A.K., Robinson, P. (2007). The mental health and wellbeing of children and adolescents in home-based foster care. Medical Journal of Australia, 186(4), 181-184. http://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb00857.x
Themes
study sample of adolescents aged 6-17
home-based foster care
Keywords
Mental health issue
depression
suicidal ideation & behavior
Methodology
Questionnaire (administered to children, questionnaire approved by government entity)
Results
children in home-based foster care have a higher prevalence of mental health issues
higher prevalence of attention problems, aggressive and delinquent behavior
no differences in prevalence between males and female children