Critical Literature Review and Future Research Directions SOC402

1. Engage in critique of the research on your chosen topic

We want to see that you've engaged with the literature, and have not just read it. This means that a literature review is not just a collection of a summaries, but that it tells us about the literature. Meeting this criterion will be achieved by:

1. Identifying and discussing relevant limitations in the research methods, findings, and claims made in the literature


2. Making links between the existing literature, i.e., comparing and contrasting different concepts and ideas


3. Identifying and discussing the broader gaps in the literature, highlighting what is known about your research topic, the quality of what is known, and what is not yet known

2. Organise your review in a coherent and logical way with a clear narrative

The structure of your literature review is important, so that it is able to develop a clear narrative, and that everything that you write aligns and works together.

1. Your introduction needs to introduce the topic, briefly explain what the review will do, and what the overall contention will be (i.e. what opportunities for further research your review will make a case for).


2. Your body paragraphs need to be organised thematically. Subheadings can be used to break up your paper into these themes. Your critique can be weaved through your review (as per the example paper), or you can dedicate distinct paragraphs within each theme to critique the research.


3. Your conclusion needs to summarise your critique, and explain what this means for the overall quality of knowledge on your topic. Your critique will provide the foundation for your overall contention: what further research needs to take place. This can be specific statements about key areas of research, or can be phrased as specific research questions. There needs to be an alignment between the critique you develop, and the future social research you propose.

TIP: Think about your narrative as a "thread" that weaves your paper together. Think about the case you want to make for further research, and why: this means that what you discuss in your review - the themes you create, limitations you identify, and gaps you propose - should all contribute to this case. For example, if you wanted to say something like "Potential future research could analyse the ways in which university students in Melbourne cope with fatigue associated with virtual classes" then everything in your review should be relevant to this, and should contribute to justifying this claim.

3. Draw on an appropriate quantity of relevant academic literature to undertake your review

There is no minimum to the amount of literature you will need to include, as there is too much variation in research topics: some topics will be heavily researched, some not-so-much. That said, if you are exploring a topic that is quite novel, you have a responsibility to explore peripheral and associated research to ensure that you are able to establish an appropriate academic foundation. As a guide only, aim for 20+ sources; that said, the key word here is appropriate: have you reviewed enough literature to justify the case for further research that you want to?

4. Identify opportunities for future social research in your profession / discipline

This is an important part of your overall review, and your conclusion; you must dedicate some of your review to doing this. As mentioned, your critique will establish what the gaps and limitations are, and you must then propose what future research should be done to help address these. Don't try and solve the problem: propose research that could be used to help solve the problem. BE DETAILED WITH THIS. We want to get a sense that you can make the link between gaps and limitations of knowledge, how to propose suitable kinds of social research to address these, and what these research projects might look like. This means having a level of detail like "Further research is needed that unpacks the lived experiences of young people transitioning out of care during the COVID pandemic" or "Potential future research could analyse the ways in which university students in Melbourne cope with fatigue associated with virtual classes". Once again, the critique you develop during your review - the gaps and limitations in the literature you develop along the way - should directly align with the future social research you are proposing.

Make sure to align this with your discipline area, however broadly; it would help to be specific about what discipline area you are in, e.g. "This future research exploring (whatever) could help social workers to better manage (situation) by..." or "This future research direction would be of benefit to criminal justice studies and practices by discovering how..."

IMPORTANT: You are making a case for further research. Avoid making statements with the logic of "we need to do more research because there's not enough existing research". We could say this about almost any research topic, and it won't get you a good mark. Be specific about the limitations you identify, e.g., "while comprehensive, the research in this theme is yet to address the impacts of x on y", or "the research across this theme is burdened by a lack of inclusion of transgender students", or whatever is relevant. This is something that takes practice, and it's something that we will discuss in class in the later weeks.