Using the Literature as a Research Method - Essay Example

Critical review of using the literature as a research method Critical review of using the literature as a research method Introduction Literature provides a summary or an overview of the major texts that deal with various topics of research in this case, a topic like female genital mutilation. It provides a track of the emerging acknowledgement of the different difficulties encountered by scholars, the recommendations for extended research on the topic and the methods used in the research. Literature review offers highlights, defines concepts, offers data on the extend and scale of the research conducted and makes recommendations of what needs to be done to make the research better and be used in delivery of service and government policy (Booth, Gregory and Joseph, 2003; p. 31). There are however, various drawbacks and benefits of using literature review to conduct a research on some selected topics such as female genital mutilation among other sensitive topics. These will be discussed in this paper. The benefits of Using Literature review to conduct a research Literature review is vital in that it helps a researcher to get familiarized with methodology, weight and deduction of research conducted by other people on the chosen topic. It helps the researcher familiarize with the problem or need and to express the major aim of the research issue pertinent to the issue. This ensures that the researcher comprehends the wider context to the specific topic, issue or concern and to prevent the duplication of the current research in particular the out-of-date or inconsistent research. The research gets the general overview of the research body with which one is not well conversant with (Cresswell, 2003; p.13). It helps the researcher to position the research in the broader background so that one can make the relevant conclusion which might emerge from the research. Literature review is also very significant since it initiates the researcher to the demerits and merits of the different research methods and methodologies. The main intention is for the researcher to understand intensively the connection between the methods, methodologies and the outcome and to select the most relevant and fruitful methods for the data collected in regard to the issue, problem or need (female genital mutilation). It offers the researcher new ideas and concepts which can be applied in the research to enrich the content, applicability and relevance of the outcome. Another benefit is to familiarize the researcher with the possible effective reaction to the chosen topic, subject or need which other researchers have both made attempts and assessed for their efficiency. The main intention is to assist one to learn from the experience of other researchers and to provide assurance that when the researcher chooses and executes the specific responses, he or she will have the awareness of advantages and disadvantages attached to them. The literature will disclose what has been done well so that the researcher cannot spend more time on reinventing the topic. Besides the researcher will be able to establish where the flaws and problems (Fink, 2005; p. 69) exist in the research on topics such as female genital mutilation. Disadvantages of using literature review in conducting research Literature review is prone to bias where most research conducted and most documents applied in research are not intended for research intentions. The different goals and intentions for which documents are published are written can be impartial in different ways. For instance, personal documents such as confessions of victims of female genital mutilation or autobiographies are normally written and published by famous individuals who experienced traumatic experiences like having witnessed some of the acts. While usually offering an exceptional and valuable source of data for research, these documentaries often are written for the intentions of making money. Therefore they have a tendency to input hyperbole and even further fabricate to make their stories interesting (Galvan, 2005; p. 46). They tend to input those events that make the author or writer look better and pull him or her away from the negative perspective. The literature reviews are also selective survival. Given that the documents are normally authored on paper, they cannot survive the aspects well except care is in use to conserve them. Therefore whilst the documents published by popular individuals have the probability to be conserved, daily documents like diaries and letters written by normal individuals seem to be distorted or replaced in the storage and hence become difficult to get to (Johnson and Reynolds, 2004; p. 56). It is considerably unusual for common articles that do connect to some events of close interest to the researcher such as cases of violation of women and not about popular events by some popular people to be collected together in the communal storage area that is accessible to the researchers. Incompleteness: Most articles offer unfinished details to the researcher who does not have any experience whatsoever with the facts of the events or the behaviors. For example individuals who do not an idea how female genital mutilation is done or have never seen any of this events happening. A challenge with majority of the individual articles such as diaries and letters is that they are not published or written for intention of research but formulated to be confidential or secret. All these types of articles normally make assumptions of the particular knowledge that the researcher is unfamiliar with particular events will not have. Diaries are possibly the worst in this line of thinking given that they normally written to be used more only by the author and can comprise of soul searching and profession that explanation (King, Robert and Sidney, 1994; p. 19). Lack of availability of articles: On top of the biasness, selective survival of articles and incompleteness, there are many sections of research for which no articles are accessible. In most scenarios data or information was never documented. In other scenarios it was documented, even though the articles remain confidential or classified or have been distorted (McKeown, 1999; p. 63). There is restriction to verbal behavior where by description the articles offer data only about to the verbal behavior of the respondent and offers not immediate data on the non verbal behavior of the respondent. There is absence of standardization for the literature reviews. The articles will differ quite broadly in connection to their format normalization. Some articles like newspapers appear normally in a normalized format. Large dailies usually have such normalized constituents such as business page, sport page, editorial page and weather report (Pan, 2004; p. 77). Consistency enhances the process of comparison over time for similar articles and comparison over various articles at one point in time. Nonetheless, many articles especially personal articles have no typical format. Comparison is a huge challenge or unfeasible, since priceless data contained in the article at a point in time might be exclusively lacking in the other articles. Difficulties in coding where for various reasons, inclusive of variations in intentions for which the articles were published, the content differences does not have standardization and coding is one of the most challenging tasks that face the content writers. The articles are in general written schemes as opposed to the numbers which are quite hard to put into quantities. Hence the study of the articles is equivalent to open ended review questions (Patten, 2005; p. 89). The data must also be modified for the purpose of comparison with time. Even though on of the merits of literature study is that of ease of comparison over a longer time period, since the external circumstances cause variations so intense that even if a regular unit of determination is applied for the whole period, the content of this unit might have changed so broadly over time to make the comparisons more misleading except where there is corrections. For instance the various traditions installed among the various communities in Africa and Asian continent which practice female genital mutilation and how they conduct it (Wonnacott and Thomas, 1985; p. 55). Some communities have already abolished the practice hence giving examples of such communities might render the researcher useful to its intention. Bibliography Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. 2003. The Craft of Research, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cresswell, John W. 2003. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Fink, Arlene. 2005. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Galvan, Jose L. 2005. Writing Literature Reviews, 3rd ed. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing. Johnson, Janet Buttolph, and H. T. Reynolds. 2004. Political Science Research Methods, 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. McKeown, Timothy J. 1999. “Case Studies and the Statistical Worldview.” International Organization 53: 161–90. Pan, M. Ling. 2004. Preparing Literature Reviews, 2nd ed. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing. Patten, Mildred L. 2005. Understanding Research Methods: An Overview of the Essentials, 5th ed. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing. Wonnacott, Ronald J., and Thomas H. Wonnacott. 1985. Introductory Statistics, 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More