Gathering context:
When I was working on my first publication, I just read articles as I found them. At first, this was exciting - I was interested in learning more about my topic. As I continued, however, I'd lost track of what my own question was because I'd been too immersed in each article, individually. By becoming interested in each author's point, rather than connecting them to each other, I quickly lost sight of what I was trying to accomplish. Feeling overwhelmed, work and life got busier, and I set down the research for several months. When I tried to return to it, I not only did not know how to proceed, but my highlights in the articles meant nothing to me. I'd completely forgotten what I read, and felt I had to start completely from scratch.
Given that the literature review will be a synthesis of the sources you cite, you'll want to read each article within the context of the rest of the literature. The more you read, the easier this becomes. So how can we make it easier to read those first few articles, when you don’t yet have a good context?
Ideally, we could read all the sources simultaneously. Since we’re human, we need to approximate that process, which can be done by scanning the group of articles you found, rather than reading each article one at a time.
You'll glance quickly through all the sources you found in the previous unit, spending no more than 1-2 minutes per article. I'm not suggesting that you speed read, as I'm a fairly slow reader myself. Instead, I just want you to get a very quick sense of the abstract, and maybe the conclusion. This should go quickly, but don't stress about squeezing in as much as possible.
Anatomy of scholarly articles
If reading scholarly articles is new to you or you'd like a refresher, click on the link below for an interactive guide to the structure of an article. It's important to understand how articles are structured so you can scan and then read them more effectively.
NC State University Libraries (N.D.) Anatomy of a Scholarly Article. NSCU Libraries. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/scholarly-articles
Activity: Quick scan \(\PageIndex{1}\)
Using the resources you found in the previous unit, be sure you have the full text. If you’re working electronically, open all the PDFs. If you’re printing, wait until you have all of them in print.
Start with 1 article and scan for 1-2 minutes. Depending on how quickly you read, you might glance through:
- Title/abstract - if the 2 minutes are up, stop!
- Introduction
- Conclusion
- Methods (cursory)
Look for context of how the article relates to your interests and to the other sources you found. Things you might notice:
- Source types
- Purpose/focus of the source
- Populations
- Methods
- Patterns
If you have a stack of 10 articles, this should be done in 15-20 minutes, or less.
Do NOT get caught up in reading. Set a timer if it helps you stick to the two minute guideline. You’re not reading, but just getting context for the resource in relationship to other sources, in terms of your topic.
Can't I just have AI do this for me?
As you’re probably aware, many tools can summarize patterns across sources. You simply upload all your PDFs and depending on the particular tool, it can summarize a particular source, or even note connections between sources. Why do the work yourself when AI can do it for you?
Well, I can’t fully answer that for you. Many researchers are choosing to have AI help them in this part of the research, as well as other areas. Some things to keep in mind as you make your decision about how much to do yourself and how much to have generative AI do it for you in this step:
- Motivation & meaning: Go back to the chapter on motivation. Why are you in this program? Why are you doing this research? Will doing this yourself get you further towards your goals? One of the reasons to do a literature review is to learn what the conversation has been in your area of interest. Human cognition takes time to consider patterns in a deep, meaningful way and we learn through repetition. If AI simply spits out a pattern, we haven’t gained as much as when we find the pattern ourselves. We haven’t internalized that learning, so it’s less meaningful to us (Perell 2025).
- Your interests, developing your topic: AI also might not note the patterns you care about, that only you would notice. Real learning inherently changes you. Deep reading, deep thinking, deep learning all change you. At minimum, in the case of this research project, this step will help determine how you move forward. How will you perceive the articles you read, based on those patterns? Might your topic shift a little? Or at least your search techniques? Hopefully you’re working on a topic you’re personally invested in - let yourself become excited by the sources.
- Intelligence: AI is not actually intelligent. It is simply following patterns. It is not all-knowing so it can miss things and make mistakes.
- Time savings - this step will go faster with AI. However, keep in mind that even on your own, it shouldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes, tops. And unless AI does the full lit review for you, it could actually cost you time in the long run when you’re trying to write the paper, but haven’t really internalized the context of these articles for yourself.
However, one way these AI tools could be beneficial would be as a check. You could do the step yourself, and then feed the articles into AI, and see if AI comes up with the same patterns you did or if there’s any additional ones. Remember - its patterns might not be as salient as yours.
In Practice:
Now it's finally time to take a quick look at your sources.
Activity 1: Scan examples \(\PageIndex{1}\)
Let’s do an example together. In Unit 4.7, I found a few sources, and then considered doing another search for "student affect". Below are a few citations I found, all of which are open access so you should be able to access them.
My reading speed allowed me to glance through each of their titles, abstracts, research questions. I then looked very quickly at their methodologies, just to see if I could glimpse words that might tell me if the study involved a survey or interview, etc. For those I had enough time, I then read the first few sentences of their conclusion at the very end.
- Akyürek, E., & Afacan, Ö. (2018). Problems encountered during the scientific research process in graduate education: The Institute of Educational Sciences. Higher Education Studies, 8(2), 47-57. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1175347.pdf
- Buchanan, T. M., Brown, A., Chirco, P., Klein, D., & Purgason, A. M. (2022). Messaging matters: The impact of advising micromessages on student affect and behavior across diverse university campuses. The Journal of the National Academic Advising Association, 42(2), 45-61. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1360989.pdf
- Cahoy, E.S. & Shroeder, R. (2012). Embedding affective learning outcomes in library instruction. Communications in Information Literacy, 6(1), 73-90. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2012.6.1.119 https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit/vol6/iss1/7/
- Ross, K., Dennis, B., Zhao, P., & Li, P. (2017). Exploring Graduate Students' Understanding of Research: Links between Identity and Research Conceptions. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 29(1), 73-86. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1135818.pdf
Time yourself and read through at least the title/abstract. If you have time, review the method quickly & start of the conclusion of these four sources. Remember to spend only 1-2 minutes on each article.
What are your initial reactions to connections between these sources?
Jot down your initial thoughts below. Don’t use full sentences. Just some really quick thoughts.
Then click "My Responses" below to read my initial reactions.
- My Responses
-
- Population - Two focused on grad students. The other two didn't specify in my quick scan, but seemed likely to be undergrads.
- Location: Three studies had authors based in the US; one in Turkey
- Patterns:
- Outcome - improve academic advising; improve courses on scientific research; improve library instruction
- Identity/diversity/non-traditional students
- Types of source: All four were research studies.
- Methods: One had a survey with a Likert scale. One used critical action research. The other two I did not have time in my quick scan to fully understand.
- Dates: 1 is from 2022, but others are fairy dated.
Did you notice similar context to what I did? What else did you see that I didn't? There are so many ways to examine connections between sources so don't worry if what you noticed is different from what I noticed. My responses are only to give you some ideas of how to consider reviewing your own sources in the following activity.
Activity 2: Scan your sources \(\PageIndex{1}\)
Now it's your turn. Follow this same scanning process with 5-10 sources you’ve collected so far on your topic. Scan each source for two minutes and jot down some notes about what you notice.
Then, consider what order you’d like to read the articles. There’s no wrong way - it depends on your preferences and the sources you have at hand. Some ways I’ve done this:
- Chronological order (or sometimes I prefer reverse chronological order)
- Population - Start with those covering my target population, and move gradually broader
- Method - Start with theoretical sources and move to specific studies
- Discipline - Start with those in my field and move to ones in related disciplines
- Simple to difficult - Start with what looks easiest or most interesting
Note
As you find more sources in future iterations, you won't need to reiterate this scanning step. You only need it to get the first gist of the context of the topic. Now you already have that context and can simply read additional sources that you find.
Next steps:
We'll finally start reading the articles in the next step!
