ENGLISH RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4
TRUONG VAN ANH
SAIGON UNIVERSITY
Chapter 4: Reading for research
• Why read? The importance of reading for research.
• Coping with the research literature. Dealing with the volume and variety of reading available.
• Basic reading strategies. Guidance on what and where to read.
• Using libraries. How to get the best out of them.
• Using the internet. Navigating the universe of information.
• Good enough reading. How to read.
• Reading about method as well as subject. The importance of understanding and exploring research approaches and techniques.
• Recording your reading. Being meticulous.
• The literature review. How to put it together.
• Issues in reading. Problems with too much or too little literature.

Why read?
Ten reasons for reading for research
1 Because it will give you ideas.
2 Because you need to understand what other researchers have done in your area.
3 To broaden your perspectives and set your work in context.
4 Because direct personal experience can never be enough.
5 To legitimate your arguments.
6 Because it may cause you to change your mind.
7 Because writers (and you will be one) need readers.
8 So that you can criticize effectively what others have done.
9 To learn more about research methods and their application in practice.
10 In order to spot areas which have not been researched.


Basic reading strategies
This section offers some basic guidance on four related questions:
• Where to read
• What to read
• Whom to read
• How to find what you need to read
Where to read
The obvious place to read – at least, up until the last decade or so – may seem to be the library. (In a comfortable place)
What to read
The short answer to the question of what to read has to be to read as much, and as many different kinds or sources of texts, as possible. This will enable you to encounter a range of views and forms of presentation within the different kinds of writing appropriate to your topic.


Whom to read
You should be able to get plenty of guidance on whom to read from your supervisor, manager, colleagues or fellow researchers.
How to find what you need to read
Eight stages for finding what you need to read
1 Take advice from your supervisor, manager, fellow researchers or students.
2 Locate books, journals or other materials relevant by asking advice, browsing around, or using a library catalogue or internet search engine. Keyword searches can be particularly useful.
3 Look at other materials relevant to your topic.
4 Find the most up-to-date writing on your topic.
5 Follow up interesting looking references.
6 Read the most popular, relevant of these and the latest editions.
7 Have some understanding of, and have done some reading within, its different areas.
8 Do as much pertinent reading as possible.
SQ3R: strategy for reading
The SQ3R reading method is a structured approach to reading.
• Survey. Scan the material you want to learn to get a picture of the overall argument or the area covered by the book or article you are reading.
• Question. Turn any headings or subheadings into questions, and then try to answer them in your own words.
• Read. Go through the text in the light of the questions you have
asked, and take notes at your own pace and in your own words.
• Recall. Close the book and try to remember what you have read. Try to write down what you remember in your own words. Only by testing your recall will you know how successful your learning has been.
• Review. Later, go back over all your notes to make sure you don’t forget and to see how what you have learned relates to the course as a whole, your other reading and what you still need to do.
Recording your reading (for references)
These details should include:
• the author or authors;
• the date of publication;
• the title of the paper, report or book; (italic)
• if it is a book or report, the publisher and place of publication (and the edition, if there has been more than one);
• if it is a chapter in an edited book, the title and editor of the book, and the page numbers of the chapter;
• if it is a paper in a journal, the title of the journal, volume and issue number, and pages;
• if it is a website, the address and the date you accessed the information.
The literature review
A research literature review is a systematic, explicit, and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating and synthesizing the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars and practitioners.
In this part, you should:
1/ review the main ideas of several (5-7-10) authors
2/ use their research to be the underground for yours.
3/ state what they have not researched and present your topic (new or developing their research).

A separate chapter or integrated throughout?
Write a separate chapter
In other chapters, it is sometimes necessary to quote the ideas of some authors.
Don’t just use, but critique, the literature
• Don’t produce lots of lists, tables, figures, bullet points and summaries.
• Don’t overuse quotations with little in the way of your discussion, comment and critique linking them.
• Make sure your opinion on the literature you discuss is clear (though not overly dogmatic).

Key processes involved in carrying out a literature review
• Categorization
• Summary
• Selective quotation
• Synthesis
• Evaluation
• Critique
Final points
• Make sure it’s up to date.
• Don’t forget the methodological literature.

Issues in reading
As a novice researcher, you are quite likely to encounter some difficulties in reading for your research topic. The most common problems raised are:
• Nothing has been written on my research topic.
• There’s too much.
• It’s all been done.
• How many references do I need?
These issues are complementary. Indeed, they may all be uttered by the same researchers at different points in the research process.

Nothing has been written on my research topic