Literature Review Stuck-Up
I am in a PhD program and can’t seem to write a literature review! It’s been 7 months since I enrolled in this program and maybe I am new at this, that’s why I can’t get it. But I am fed up! After selecting my topic and extensively reading different papers related to my field, I am told to prepare a draft on literature review (which I heard for the first time). My self-righteous guide didn’t bother to explain how to write an LR or what the heck that is! All I got to know from here and there was that, you write about other researches.
Failure 1: I just took the abstract of other research papers and simply ‘put’ them in my draft, which was a super failure, no doubt.
Failure 2: I re-wrote the abstracts (pretty stupid of me for which I got to hear my guide’s bickering for two painful hours!!).
Failure 3: I included more references and instead of writing in paragraphs about one research, I wrote in sentences. For example, Mr. X stated this, Mr. Y stated that (advised by my guide and still the sicko rejected it).
Failure 4: I divided the literature review into sections and did a little bit more explaining (my smart-ass guide wanted a critical analysis, without explaining it to me!!).
Failure 5: So, I revised the document according to the ‘critical analysis’ and still got rejected!
Why? Because now, that imbecile wants me to make a concept matrix and also, he wasn’t satisfied with my critical analysis! What the heck is a concept matrix? I am so damn tired of making revisions! What do I do?
Discuss your Dissertation 
davidbergeviin 6:08 am on February 26, 2016 Permalink |
I am so sorry to hear this. Some advisors are just non-cooperative and yours is ‘stupid’, I guess. He should just tell you what he wants, instead of moving you around. Anyways, have you identified the different theories from your literature review?
brunoperryblog 10:27 am on March 1, 2016 Permalink |
Theories as in the findings of the researchers? What they proposed? That’s what you mean by theories, right?
davidbergeviin 6:11 am on March 2, 2016 Permalink |
Well, concept matrix is a way to present your literature review by displaying the different concepts interpreted by different researchers! For example, your research topic is something like, “evaluating the impact of social media on CRM”, a possible concept can be “social media has a positive impact on CRM”, then you need to present the ideas and methods that the other researchers have applied to evaluate the positive impact of social media on CRM. It has to be in a tabular form. I think I am unable to clearly explain it you, so have a look at the following link of a pdf. It might help:
Click to access D-2008-10.pdf
robertmaxeey 11:28 am on March 3, 2016 Permalink |
I think your problem is your supervisor and not the literature review! And it’s the most common problem that we all share. Try making him understand, don’t just listen to him and make the corrections. If he has stretched your LR for this long, god only knows what he’ll do when you move onto research methodology!
brunoperryblog 8:43 am on March 4, 2016 Permalink |
I know that the problem is my overcritical supervisor, but that is something I can’t solve. So I abide by his rules, after all, he got my marks.
@davidbergeviin what I learnt is that I need to identify the concepts from my research and write the discoveries of other researchers on those concepts. I did accordingly and mailed it to my supervisor. I hope he finally approves.