Writing for Publication: Transitions and Tools that Support Scholars’ Success - Mary Renck Jalongo, Olivia N. Saracho 2016

Writing the Review of the Literature
From Qualitative Research to a Journal Article
Conference Proposals and Article Types

Research questions guide researchers to lead their thinking about their research. The review of the literature provides an understanding of major concepts, theoretical framework, and research bases for the study. A rationale is established with a brief description about the approach that was used to conceptualize the study. Findings from both qualitative and/or quantitative studies are presented. The way the findings of the study relate to those in prior research and how this study can add to prior knowledge is discussed. Previous research is carefully selected and reported in an integrated manner. The report explains who conducted the research and when. What were the procedures and results? An example of such reporting might be as follows:

In a small scale study of 15 teachers who went to teach in the public school after working at a Montessori School for 10 years, Brown (ref) completed two rounds of interviews to identify the factors that those teachers used to deal with pressures associated with their new teaching position. He found that most teachers depended on family or close friends for support. Additional strategies that they reported using to cope with pressures included breathing exercises, physical activities and recording significant events in a diary. A small number reported that they had considerable difficulty managing their job-related stress. There were no age or sex differences.

Most related studies should be described in this way. Others can be grouped together. For example, if a number of studies have been carried out using similar methods, with similar outcomes, these can be reported as follows:

A number of studies used the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which was developed by Kabat-Zinn (1990), to show that it is a particularly helpful intervention to reduce stress for primary school teachers (multiple refs).