Dear David,

In my note, I speak of the literature review as a genre of peer-reviewed journal article. I do not speak about the literature review section of the PhD thesis, nor of literature review sections in research reports, nor yet of literature reviews published in any form other than peer-reviewed journal article.

Literature review articles in peer-reviewed journals are vital to the development of most fields. The literature review article helps us to know what we know as a field, it helps us to learn what we do not know, and it helps us to establish gaps. These gaps include discovering what we do not know – and that we don’t know it, and it helps us to identify cases where bringing information together reveals that we know something of which we were not aware.

This genre of peer-reviewed journal article is nearly missing from the literature of design research.

In June 2011, Victor Margolin posted a terrific note to the PhD-Design list on what he calls intertextuality, the conversation among authors over years, decades, or even centuries that builds a field. I responded with a post titled “Literacy.” A thread followed. You can follow the thread on the list archive starting on June 26, 2011. You can also use the search engine connected to the PhD-Design home page. Put the word  “Literacy” in the subject header and go back to June 2011.

Nancy Eisenberg (2000) describes and explains the literature review article in a book chapter, and a short discussion appears in the APA Publication Manual (2009: 10). Jane Webster and Richard Watson (2002) wrote an excellent article in the journal MISQ titled “Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future: Writing a Literature Review.”

I have posted a copy of this article on to my Academia.edu page,

http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman

Click on the section for “Teaching Documents.” The article is at the bottom of the section.

The Webster & Watson article will remain on my Academia.edu page through Monday, August 12.

The Webster and Watson article focuses on a genre of journal article that is quite distinct from the literature review chapter of the PhD thesis. While a strong literature review chapter in a thesis can be developed into a literature review article for a good journal, this is very different from the unpublished PhD thesis. It is also different from the literature in a report or research proposal. A peer-reviewed journal article is indexed and visible in a way that other kinds of literature review are not. This is especially the case for journals covered in SCI, SSCI, or AHCI – Design Studies, Design Issues, the International Journal of Design, Design and Culture, and The Design Journal.

In many fields, it is common for literature review articles to be highly cited. For some examples in different fields that show the usage given to literature review articles, put the words “Literature Review” in the search box of Google Scholar. Nearly everyone in a field reads them because they offer an effective way to stay updated on issues and concepts in the current literature. Since many writers draw on these articles as a starting point or a reference point, they are highly cited and they can make the author of a solid literature review quite well known.



We agree on the importance of the literature review – but I’m not talking the many kinds of literature review that are common in design research. I am talking about one kind that remains uncommon in our field. This is the literature article published in a peer-reviewed journal.


Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman

Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China

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Reference

American Psychological Association. 2009. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Sixth edition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, p. 10.

Eisenberg, Nancy. 2000. “Writing a Literature Review.” Guide to Publishing in Psychology Journals. Robert J. Sternberg, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Webster, Jane, and Richard T. Watson. 2002. “Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future: Writing a Literature Review.” Management Information Science Quarterly Vol. 26 No. 2, (June), xiii-xxiii.

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David Sless wrote:

—snip—

First, let me clarify. I am not against literature reviews. Indeed, I have done some myself and published the findings from them. In doing so I have simply added to an already developed review literature in the field of information design. There are many excellent sources predating my own small contribution, and there have been many since, some as part of phd’s.  So when Ken says —

“Our field has nearly no examples of this genre, in contrast with other fields.”

— I have to disagree. Where there is a significant gap in the information design literature and in other areas is in a large body of published work that provides before and after data. This was and remains the heart of the problem with claims about the value of design thinking.

—snip—




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