1. Reviewing the literature: Critical
thinking and justifying your research
Developing as a Researcher – the next steps
PGRS Part 2 Induction, 2013
Graham Harvey
Arts Faculty

2. Aims and Objectives:
1. To consider the purpose, value and style of literature reviews
2. To consider the balance between citing existing work and “your
own voice”
3. To consider ways of demonstrating critical thinking

3. Aims and Objectives:
1. To consider the purpose, value and style of literature reviews
2. To consider the balance between citing existing work and “your
own voice”
3. To consider ways of demonstrating critical thinking
What will be covered?
1. The nature and role of a literature review in a PhD thesis
2. Ways of citing others in the development of original research
3. Ways of demonstrating critical thinking about your research
and the wider academic debate which it should advance

4. What is a PhD?

6. 1 What is a PhD? [Marian Petre]
Entering students often think of a PhD as a ‘magnum opus’, a brilliant research
project culminating in a great work. This is rather a demanding model, and few
students win Nobel Prizes as a result of their doctoral studies. More realistically, a
PhD is research training leading to a research qualification. The PhD is a passport
to a research career.
There are other views of a PhD, as well. Getting a PhD can be a ‘rite of passage’,
prerequisite to admission into the academic ‘tribe’. It can be a deep, specific
education in a discipline, preceding a post-doctoral period of on-the-job training. It
must make a contribution to knowledge, and so it can be viewed as one’s entry into
the research discourse.
There are certain things that you are demonstrating through your thesis:
• mastery of your subject
• research insight
• respect for the discipline
• capacity for independent research
• ability to communicate results and relate them to the broader discourse.
These reflect competence and professionalism, rather than greatness. Importantly,
they are as much about comprehending others’ work as about doing one’s own.

7. 1 What is a PhD? [Marian Petre]
Entering students often think of a PhD as a ‘magnum opus’, a brilliant research project culminating in a great work. This is rather a
demanding model, and few students win Nobel Prizes as a result of their doctoral studies. More realistically, a PhD is research training
leading to a research qualification. The PhD is a passport to a research career.
There are other views of a PhD, as well. Getting a PhD can be a ‘rite of passage’, prerequisite to admission into the academic ‘tribe’. It
can be a deep, specific education in a discipline, preceding a post-doctoral period of on-the-job training. It must make a contribution to
knowledge, and so it can be viewed as one’s entry into the research discourse.
There are certain things that you are demonstrating through your thesis:
• mastery of your subject
• research insight
• respectfor the discipline
• capacity for independent research
• ability to communicate results and relate them to the broader discourse.
they are as much
These reflect competence and professionalism, rather than greatness. Importantly,
about comprehending others’ work as about doing
one’s own.

8. What is a PhD?
What’s the difference between a thesis and a book?

9. INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW
CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY AND METHODS
CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL MODELS
CHAPTER 4 PROTEST AND LIFESTYLE
CHAPTER 5 NETWORKS
CHAPTER 6 MERGING IDENTITIES
CHAPTER 7 SPIRITUALITY AND COMMUNITY
CHAPTER 8 PROTEST RITUAL
CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANNXES

10. Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
SECTION I: LOCATING THE RESEARCH PROJECT
Chapter 2: Eco-Paganism Literature review
Chapter 3: Embodied Cognition Literature review
Chapter 4: A Theory of Embodied Knowing
Chapter 5: Embodied Philosophy
Chapter 6: Research Design and Methodology
SECTION II: FIELDWORK
Introduction: Between Protest Site and Urban Life: The Spectrum of Eco-
Pagan Practice
Chapter 7: “You’re not studying it – you’re living it”: An Autoethnography
Chapter 8: Listening to the Threshold Brook: Urban Eco Paganism
Chapter 9: The Power of Place: Protest Site Eco-Paganism
Chapter 10: Eco-Paganism: A "sacred relationship with the world"
SECTION III: CONCLUSION
Chapter 11: Conclusion: Immanence and Embodiment in Eco-Paganism
APPENDICES

11. Introduction
The discursive context and the purpose of the study
Institutional inertia and symbolic interactionism
Research premise and hypothesis
The purpose of the study
Religious change as a social research problem
Contemporary Paganism
Methodology
The logic of inquiry
Pragmatism and the compatibility thesis
Mixed methods approach
1. Society, religion, and values
1.1. The social context: external influences on values
The classical approaches
Socio-economic context and the dynamics of value priorities
Persisting cultural differences
Exposure to plurality of life-worlds
1.2. Moral intuition, justification, and the use of cultural matter
The broadening of social horizons and evolution of morality
Cultural differences and universals
The social intuition model of morality
1.3. Values as connectors in social networks
The concreteness of relationships and the fluidity of networks
Global networks of weak ties
Summary and theoretical framework
2. The Pagan survey
…

13. 5 Key thesis ingredients [Marian Petre, edited]
A number of ingredients are essential for a satisfactory thesis:
1. a thesis, i.e. one coherent overriding ‘story’ argument
2. position of the research question in existing knowledge, i.e. a
critical review of prior research which motivates and justifies the
research question
3. contribution of something new
4. appropriate voice and argument, i.e. the provision of clear and
explicit evidence, substantiation and chain of inference.
More hangs on your ability to demonstrate intellectual maturity and
critical depth (and through them to provide insight) than on the
scale or scope of the research findings. A good PhD is based on an
honest report of research that reflects sound practice and well-
articulated critical thinking.

14. 5 Key thesis ingredients [Marian Petre, edited]
A number of ingredients are essential for a satisfactory thesis:
1. a thesis, i.e. one coherent overriding ‘story’
argument
2. position of the research question in existing
knowledge, i.e. a critical review of prior research
which motivates and justifies the research
question
3. contribution of something new
4. appropriate voice and argument, i.e. the provision
of clear and explicit evidence, substantiation and
chain of inference.
More hangs on your ability to demonstrate intellectual maturity and critical depth (and through them to provide insight) than on
the scale or scope of the research findings. A good PhD is based on an honest report of research that reflects sound
practice and well-articulated critical thinking.

15. Literature review:
Within the “one coherent overriding ‘story’
argument”
and as “a critical review of prior research
which motivates and justifies the research
question”

17. there is no such thing as
data free from interpretation
Stephen Pepper (1942) World Hypothesis