Doing Your Literature Review. Traditional and Systematic Techniques

Jesson, J.K. , Matheson, L. , & Lacey, F. M. , Doing Your Literature Review. Traditional and Systematic Techniques, London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2011, 192 p.Doing Your Literature Review. Traditional and Systematic Techniques, as suggested by the authors, is intended to be "a practical study guide" for anyone who wants to learn or to improve their way of reviewing mainly scientific literature. The main contribution of this book is that it presents different models of literature review used to this day; however, its emphasis falls on describing the latest methods and techniques. In the last 20 to 25 years, the advancement of technology and the extensive use of the Internet have changed the way literature review is done. The book also explains the difference between traditional literature review and the more exact, more scientific systematic model. In order to come to the aid of the readers, the authors present and explain methods that should be used for producing a good literature review, from reading, note-taking and writing, to the methodology of making a meta-analysis.The authors of the book come from different academic fields, and their experience is used for creating a methodology for literature review that may be used in all sciences. Jill K. Jesson has worked with multi-disciplinary research teams, and her publications cover community pharmacy practice, public health and social care. Her main contribution in the present paper covers issues about traditional and systematic literature review. Lydia Matheson is an information specialist working for Library and Information Services at Aston University. Her professional expertise was used in the chapters that focus on searching for information and the use of traditional printed sources of relevant contents, as well as the use of modern electronic databases. Fiona M. Lacey is an academic pharmacist, who teaches research methods as Associate Dean in the School of Life and Health Sciences at Aston and her contribution relate to the topics of multidisciplinary research, systematic review and meta-analysis.The introduction focuses on presenting the authors as well as the objectives and the overall features of the volume. The book is divided in two parts, with chapters focusing on specific issues. The volume starts with the conceptualization of the terms to be used; it gradually presents techniques of searching for information, reading skills, taking notes and writing; it then proceeds to describe the traditional and systematic types of review. The volume ends with the analysis of the meta-analysis model, as well as issues related to referencing and plagiarism. By taking the topics gradually, the authors make it easy for readers to understand, and maintain their interest.The book is structured in two parts. The first part - "Getting information" - has 4 chapters - "Preliminaries", "Searching for information", "Reading skills" and "From making notes to writing" - which provides a general introduction to literature review, finding and evaluating information.The second part - "Using information" - provides detailed methods about how traditional, systematic and meta-analysis review should be done in the 5 chapters it contains, namely "The traditional review", "Writing up your review", "The systematic review", "Meta-analysis" and "Referencing and plagiarism". In the "Preliminaries" chapter, the authors focus on explaining the concepts and the terminology used throughout the book. Recognizing and distinguishing between traditional and systematic review is also described briefly in this chapter, as well as different review designs such as the conceptual, the state-of-the-art and the expert type. In the project management section, the reader can find useful methods of planning for a literature review.In the second chapter "Searching for information", the methodology for identifying the relevant sources of information is presented. All the steps that must be taken in order to create a bibliographic database are described in this section, from finding the available information sources to identifying the keywords to elaborate further complex search, to methods of organizing and record-keeping of the results. …