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Literature Review for Dissertation!!

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited March 27 in Work & Study
My dissertation is due in on the 30th march and so far im not doing tooo brilliantly! Im doing it on Anti social behaviour and Asbos and if young people understand them.

Im stuck on my literature review, I have no clue what im supposed to do, what im supposed to write about, or what im supposed to use i.e. books, web etc!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

AFA
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A literature review basically should do what it says on the tin. You'll need to write about what has already been written on your topic (important older works as well as recent research) so that you've got something to ground your own research in. What is the current state of research on anti-social behaviour? Is what you're doing filling a gap or correcting research you believe is wrong? The literature review gives you something to bounce your own questions off.

    As for what to use - more or less anything you feel is academically rigorous enough and relevant to your topic - government reports, thinktank and charity reports, youth offending service reports etc. as well as academic books and journal articles. Yes, you can use things from relevant organisations' websites, but if you're downloading PDFs of reports or leaflets, it probably looks better if you cite them as if you had them in a hard-copy format (because academics are snobs ;)).

    This is quite a nice summary of what a lit review is all about: http://www.ssdd.uce.ac.uk/learner/New%20page.htm
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    thanks so much, im gonna crack on with it now before I clean my car!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    eep It's due in March :eek:

    Basically you should read shit loads - textbooks, research - journal articles (original ones to give a view of the current thoughts and ideas on the subject, review articles to give you an overview and help you find more original articles to read).

    You can use web sources but you need to be quite selective in the ones you use eg don't even think about wikipaedia! You need to find professional sources - possibly Police websites, government ones that kind of stuff.

    How many words have you got to do?!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sneer wrote: »
    You can use web sources but you need to be quite selective in the ones you use eg don't even think about wikipaedia! You need to find professional sources - possibly Police websites, government ones that kind of stuff.

    :yes: I was stunned at how many of my students cited from Wikipedia in their essays last year...saying that it can be quite good to find relevant links to more reliable sources
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sneer wrote: »
    eep It's due in March :eek:

    Basically you should read shit loads - textbooks, research - journal articles (original ones to give a view of the current thoughts and ideas on the subject, review articles to give you an overview and help you find more original articles to read).

    You can use web sources but you need to be quite selective in the ones you use eg don't even think about wikipaedia! You need to find professional sources - possibly Police websites, government ones that kind of stuff.

    How many words have you got to do?!

    I have alot of government stuff its just trying to read it all. The literacture review has to be 1500 words and the dis in total has to be 10,000. So far I have 3000.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Meryn wrote: »
    :yes: I was stunned at how many of my students cited from Wikipedia in their essays last year...saying that it can be quite good to find relevant links to more reliable sources

    Don't get me wrong, wiki is excellent for getting your head around things and getting a basic understanding of pretty much everything but it can't be trusted.

    That in itself is a shame, if it or just sections could be regulated or given some kind of accreditiation it would be an even more excellent resource but i cant see it happening!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    In terms of whether young people understand them try looking at evidence based reports. As an example; Respect by YouthNet and the British Youth Council, but there's loads of others out there.
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