literature review

“The most beautiful sea:
                   hasn´t been crossed yet.
The most beautiful child:
                   hasn´t grown up yet.
Our most beautiful days:
                   we haven´t seen yet.
And the most beautiful words

I wanted to tell you
                   I haven´t said yet...”

            September 24, 1945

Nazim Hikmet Ran

When I was a child, I watched my mother, aunts and other relatives who came together in order to weave a carpet. In a house, one of my aunts owned, there was a carpet tool, which was partly made from wood and iron. When someone found a suitable time, she probably sit down in front of the tool, and they went on weaving and tying every singular knot. For me, knowledge is a kind of big ontological structure, like a carpet, for which every minds try to make his/her contributions on academia. Let’s assume that every singular knot stresses the same relations for human consensual/shared cognition. Research as an empirical and analytical occupation, avocation and endeavor makes us to locate in a great discussion, which is an academia. For making some contributions, we need to clarify and check our thoughts, intentions, conceptions, communication and models in terms of the academia and common sense.

            Practically, we want to have some instruments to make knowledge and information understandable via languages, visible and demonstrable via writing tools like pens, books and press, discussable, renewable (Renaissance), revolutionary and changeable concerning the whole history of human sapiens. As a big chain, we have many many “IF” conditions for our research processes and intellectual developments. Firstly, we need to ‘locate and retrieve’ our theoretical, analytical and methodological locations and truth claims about our results. In order to make our thoughts and research processes, we need to ‘store and organize’ our both empirical and normative frames by writing literature review. By writing it, we try to make academically and intellectually illocutionary acts to reach mutual understandings with others and to invite them our truths about social phenomena about which we have been making research and claims. Third is about to understand and discuss the other researches, theories, methods and paradigms in terms of our research claims, reasons, and intentions. Finally, we try to reach the end where we need to communicate with all things, and then make them synthesis and critiques. “IF” conditions can be seen as normative structure for each steps.

In our readings, Anderson-Kaunkach (2003) underlines that literature review is defined as the presentation for the conceptual frameworks, theories, and previous research related to the topic in the research. In this sense, if our literature review is well written and organized, it is easy to be used by other researchers and it enables our theories, techniques, styles, processes and instruments discussable, visible and communicative in terms of “knowledge”.  I strongly agree with them about the nature of ‘accessibility’, ‘timeliness, ‘readability, ‘relevance’ and ‘authority’.  Boote-Beile (2005) emphases the same issues which I shared above. Collective understanding, generativity, frame, interpretation and etc. In addition to them, audiences and culture in terms of school and university are relatively discussed. I think that these ontological spheres which are who are audiences and in which culture you write are very important issues and they need to be discussed in terms of literature review.