Narrative Literature Review

There are many techniques that can be used to write literature review.  A technique that is most interpretive and qualitative in nature and can be adopted for writing the review for many kinds of research is the Narrative Literature Review.

 Researchers often focus towards the Narrative Literature Review with various objectives. Some of them are:

• Give the description of the current states of Art and Science in a very focussed zone of enquiry.
• Provide dimensions of insight and application into those areas in the chosen literature review which are missing.
• Give a critical analysis of the existing work.
• Arguments of important / controversial topics
• A focus on “how to” tips to enhance the existing practices
• An elaboration of the latest developments in the field of study that pertain to existing or emerging  issues that are of importance and relevance and cannot be missed.

Certain guidelines can be followed when Narrative Literature Review has to be conducted. These are more detailed and elaborate in comparison to a standard Literature Review concept as the fundamental here is to add a personal and scientific  perspective to the existing study so as to link it better with the topic of research and at the same time make it more worthy for further research , particularly in the cases where the study needs to be updated in light of the latest developments, lest it appears obsolete.

1. The first step is to identify the research area. This would aid in concentrating the focus on a specific field of study and help in minimizing the deviations.
2. Identify and define the specific criteria for inclusion of studies in the research. Ensure to clearly distinguish the parameters so as to be able to have ease in selecting the write research for the study and reduce the chances of incorporating content that does not have any link with the topic of study.
3. Identify the themes that emerge from the set of studies.
4. On the basis of these identified themes, draw conclusions that hold relevance and add worth and value to the research topic.

 The Narrative method does have certain limitations which give reasons to its critics to put forth reasons for avoiding this technique:

1.  The nature of the method is too subjective
2. There is a strong chance at the end of an amateur researcher to draw misleading conclusions which are largely because of subjectivity at the end of the researcher and failure in being able to link the output and the characteristics.

A lot of complications occur when a large set of studies are involved which may lead to confusing conclusions.

A Literature Review is an account of what has been published on a given topic by accredited scholars and researchers. Effective and relevant Literature Review helps the researcher to enlarge knowledge on a given topic and apart from that gain and demonstrate skills in two key areas:

• Getting information: The skill to scan the literature in such a manner, with manual efforts or the aid of computerised methods and identify useful articles and books.
• Appraisal with a critical perspective: the skill to apply the principles of effective analysis of study so as to be able to distinguish between valid and invalid studies with an unbiased perspective.

The researcher must shoot to himself the following questions:

• What is the defining line of the literature review in terms of its research problem and question?
• What is the type of Literature Review that the researcher desires to conduct? This depends upon the quest of the researcher who needs to specify the research in terms of methodology, policy, quantitative research, qualitative research or any other specification?
• What is the defined scope of the Literature Review and what are the kinds of publications that need to be used in context to the discipline of the study?
• What is kind of information seeking of the researcher and has the search of relevant Literature Review been wide enough to ensure all the relevant material has been explored and at the same time narrow enough to exclude the irrelevant material?
• Will my content be found worthy, significant and useful by the reader and other researchers?

A literature Review should be looked upon as a discursive prose rather than a list of researches describing the literature one after the other. A quality and worthy literature review would not have a list of paragraphs beginning with the names of the researcher. On the other hand, the Literature Review should be organised in such a way that the trend, theories and themes that are relevant must be presented in a synthesized manner. The researcher must remember that rather than being a list of published material, it should be a consistent flow of guiding material in coherence with the concept of the thesis.