Literature Review and Cover Letter

[HigherEd7]

Can anyone recommend a good book or tips on developing a good literature review and cover letter?

[polly_mer]

We need more context for your question.

What is the purpose of the literature review?  Usually, I ask a question like "what do we know about the solubility of gases in zeolites?" and then keep reading with good notes until I've answered the question and I'm not getting lots of new references every time I read a new article.  As part of the notes, I keep track of other questions that come to mind.  As I read, I then answer those questions.  Eventually, I know a lot about the solubility of gases in zeolites and either have a targeted research question on which I can do my original research because that's the unanswered obvious question or something else has come up as much more interesting (e.g., why don't these two methods give similar results for the same physical quantity?) and then start answering that question.

What action do you want someone to take as a result of reading your cover letter?  What do those folks need to know to take that action?  How do you make your letter stand out in a good way so that someone will want to take that action?  What item is your cover letter introducing?

It seems like you're missing some serious mentoring in grad school if this wasn't covered as part of the early master's program.

[HigherEd7]

I have been readings several articles published in journals and the ones I have read just have a series of references and no real discussion of the literature review. When writing a literature review how many years back should the research be? Also, can you explain or give your opinion?

As far as the cover letter some of the journals are asking for a cover letter along with a copy of your manuscript. I am looking for tips on how to write an effective cover letter and how long does it have to be.

As far as the program, you are correct I  did not have a good mentor and the program I was in did not really take the time to cover all of this. No excuses, I am reading and trying to re-learn what I was supposed to learn.

[polly_mer]

I have been readings several articles published in journals and the ones I have read just have a series of references and no real discussion of the literature review. When writing a literature review how many years back should the research be? Also, can you explain or give your opinion?

What is the purpose of the literature review?  In some cases, listing the standard references for about a paragraph of demonstrating where the new work fits is sufficient, particularly for areas where "everyone" knows the standard literature.  As a peer reviewer for articles in materials science, I have sent back comments like "Cut most of the first two pages of the introduction; those are undergraduate textbook topics that 'everyone' can be assumed to know.  Add a couple paragraphs on the much less well-known aspects including why no one else has published this type of study using this technique.  Hint: it's because several assumptions of the underlying model are violated by using this technique in this way and thus the true error bars are so large that you can't tell any trends in the data by varying the input parameters."

As far as the cover letter some of the journals are asking for a cover letter along with a copy of your manuscript. I am looking for tips on how to write an effective cover letter and how long does it have to be.

Tip: write something more useful than "Please see the attached manuscript that I am submitting to your journal".  Why is this article appropriate for this journal?  In one or two short paragraphs, give an overview in how this article fills a gap in the literature and why this particular article fills that gap well.

As far as the program, you are correct I  did not have a good mentor and the program I was in did not really take the time to cover all of this. No excuses, I am reading and trying to re-learn what I was supposed to learn.

As a new faculty member in a good enough department, there should be experienced people in the department who know the norms for your discipline, if not your exact subsubsubfield, who can help you by giving background on why the literature review for the articles you are reading aren't as extensive as you'd like and help you with a good cover letter.

Good luck!

[Vkw10]

I have been readings several articles published in journals and the ones I have read just have a series of references and no real discussion of the literature review. When writing a literature review how many years back should the research be? Also, can you explain or give your opinion?

Some of this is may depend vary by discipline. I'm in a social science field, while polly_mer is in engineering, so there may be some variation. The literature review for a journal article serves to set the context by indicating relevant previous work and acknowledges that scholars build on the work of others. I strongly encourage you to closely read the literature reviews of a dozen good papers in your field, preferably in the journals you're targeting, then model your review after them.

In my field, literature reviews usually include a sentence about each work or group of works cited, relating that work to my current paper. My opinion generally doesn't belong in the literature review; I'll discuss how my findings differ from earlier findings later and propose explanations for the differences then. I would comment that X's work has been largely discredited by Y and Z, if I felt the need to mention X at all.

How far back does your research need to go? That depends on your topic. Most reviews in my field seem to focus on the last 20-30 years, but I've done some research in an area where the major work was done 1910-1950, before computers made it feasible to examine larger data sets. As polly_mer said, you don't want to spend much time on information on undergraduate textbook topics, but you cite according to the needs of your work.

[HigherEd7]

Thank you for your response as well as everyone else. The journals I have been reading just list the research and it looks like an annotated bibliography with no explanation or discussion.

I have been readings several articles published in journals and the ones I have read just have a series of references and no real discussion of the literature review. When writing a literature review how many years back should the research be? Also, can you explain or give your opinion?

Some of this is may depend vary by discipline. I'm in a social science field, while polly_mer is in engineering, so there may be some variation. The literature review for a journal article serves to set the context by indicating relevant previous work and acknowledges that scholars build on the work of others. I strongly encourage you to closely read the literature reviews of a dozen good papers in your field, preferably in the journals you're targeting, then model your review after them.

In my field, literature reviews usually include a sentence about each work or group of works cited, relating that work to my current paper. My opinion generally doesn't belong in the literature review; I'll discuss how my findings differ from earlier findings later and propose explanations for the differences then. I would comment that X's work has been largely discredited by Y and Z, if I felt the need to mention X at all.

How far back does your research need to go? That depends on your topic. Most reviews in my field seem to focus on the last 20-30 years, but I've done some research in an area where the major work was done 1910-1950, before computers made it feasible to examine larger data sets. As polly_mer said, you don't want to spend much time on information on undergraduate textbook topics, but you cite according to the needs of your work.