GIVING A PLACE TO MY STUDY: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE ART OF READING PRELIMINAY RESEARCH

By

Leidy Marcela Chacón Vargas

Literature review defined as “the use of ideas in the literature to justify the particular approach to the topic, the selection of methods, and demonstration that this research contributes something new” (Hart, 1998:1), represents more than a simple compilation or summary of bibliography sources. It goes beyond, and constitutes a process through which we as researcher teachers can give relevance, value, originality and rigor to our investigation through a deep reading, analysis and inquiring process.

In that sense, it is a cycle that starts as soon as we become concern about a specific topic or area and ends when the research objectives are achieved through the construction of new knowledge. That is why we have to begin by reading in order to narrow the issues and be able to state a situation potentially researchable. So as this process emerges very soon, it becomes an art of questioning, criticizing, comparing, evaluating and building concepts that frame the place that our research has. Then, it is possible to use that review and theoretical construction to achieve the objectives.  This understanding is related to what (Levy & Ellis, 2006:182) state towards literature review, “sequential steps to collect, know, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate quality literature in order to provide a firm foundation to a topic and research method”. There are two highlighted aspects here, the solid bases establishment and the selection of methodology.

Those outcomes can guaranty the validity and reliability of any research as the investigator has a wide and clear understanding of the place, the type of research and the steps he is going to follow in his project. “Thus, researchers must continuously ask themselves when reviewing literature and when writing the literature review: ‘how is the work presented in the article I read related to my study?” (Levy & Ellis, 2006:184).

From the previous assertion, it is relevant to draw the attention to the quality of the literature that we are reading; it means that not all the information is at the same level of rigor and worth. In that sense, it is necessary to look for recognized and indexed sources of information such as journals, databases, books, thesis among others under which our investigation can be supported on.  To sum up, the literature review constitutes an art of discovering what is valuable, what gives a place, and what supports our project in order to account for originality, significance and reliability.  When conducting process like this, we as novice teacher researchers start opening our perspectives towards researchable issues whose understanding contributes to the transformation of our own practices and reality.   

REFERENCES

Hart, C. (1998). Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research imagination. London,

UK: Sage Publications.

Levy, Y. & Ellis, T. (2006). A Systems Approach to Conduct an Effective Literature Review in Support of Information Systems Research. Florida, USA

NOTE: A REFLECTION EMERGING FROM MY RESEARCH SEMINAR AND USEFUL FOR THE COMPONENT OF INVESTIGATION IN LINGUISTICS