Literature review

23/11/2010 by admin.

Today was a good day for progress as I managed to get a lot down on paper. I am doing the literature review using a systematic method of searching – similar to a systematic review in that each search term is used across all the selected databases so that results are comparable. Well, that is the theory of course. Anyone who has done a systematic review will know that despite using search terms and inclusion/exclusion criteria that tightly control which studies are returned in the results, there are always a number of false positives. This means that I have quite a large number of studies to read and ‘grade’ to see which ones I want to use in the discussion section.

I also started writing about a second method I was going to use to triangulate my findings, but after some careful consideration, it became clear that this would take an enormous amount of time and return a huge amount of results so I have tentatively ditched it. I am not sure whether is is right or not at the moment, but it is something I can address later in the day if I feel the need to. Sadly this meant that I had to cut about a thousand words right at the end of the day, but I suspect it was worth it. I also managed to create and write up a study analysis ‘tool’ which will allow me to evidence the criteria I will use to discern which studies to include.

I have also started writing an ‘agenda’ (for want of a better word) for my next meeting with my sup. Although we cover a lot of ground in our meetings, I sometimes get a bit bewildered at the degree and depth of the changes I think he thinks I should make. I am sure this is not his intention, and that he probably wants me to have merely considered the different angles rather than adopt them, but it can be a bit depressing sometimes to take such a large amount of criticism – even when it is constructive (as his always is).

So, although I have always approached the meetings (all two of them!) with a list of topics I would like to cover, we have never had a formal agenda and I am hoping that this might keep us on track a little better. We appear to be very good at going off on a tangent when we could do with being a bit more focused even if it mean having more meetings of a shorter time. We shall see – meetings not for a couple of weeks yet, so I have time to get some decent work together.