This presentation will help PhD aspirant to do literature review for their research

1. Literature Review for
PhD Research
Dr. Janak B. Valaki
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department
Government Engineering College, Bhavnagar, 364001
janakvalaki@gmail.com, 09913715250

2. What is Research?
Research is,
• An art of scientific investigation
• Investigate systematically
• The systematic investigation into and study
of materials and sources in order to
establish facts and reach new conclusions.

3. Begin the journey…
•Be true to yourself and ask the question to yourself,
whether you are ready to study and work for at least
four years sincerely and genuinely??
•If your mind and soul reply’s yes, then lets start…

4. How to select the PhD topic…
Identify area/topic yourself based on,
• Personal Interest
• Time constraints
• Economic factors
• Support from institute, and peers
• Facilities available
• Relevance to the field
• Contribution to the field
• Ask for the potential research topics from any PhD
Supervisor, with whom you would like to work.

5. Prior to topic selection for PhD
• Most important
• No topic/area is easy or difficult
• Identify your area of interest (having some good theoretical and
fundamental background)
• Workout your strengths and weaknesses
• Identify the technological trends in your area of interest
• Type of work you would like to do i.e. Experimental, Analytical,
Management practices, etc…
• Refer good book/s on research methodology
• Get out of your comfort area or zone
• Be true to yourself

6. Recent technological trends to select the PhD topic…
List out new trends in your core domain (Mechanical Engineering)
• Industry 4.0, ( AI, IoT, Cloud computing, Big Data, etc.);
• Rapid Prototyping, Additive manufacturing, 3D Printing;
• Renewable energy, ( Efficient solar cells, PV cell coatings,
• Sustainable manufacturing, (6R’s)
• Micro fluidics, CFD
• Mechatronics, Robotics,
• High speed transportation vehicles (Electric cars, Hyperloop, Maglevs, drone
taxis, unmanned aerial vehicles etc.)
• Biomimetic Engineering, (look around, find the problem, solve it, it must be
within the nature)
• Metamaterials; (Shape memory materials,
• Biomedical
• MEMS, Micromachining, and Nano Engineering

7. How to select the PhD topic…
• Identify the area of your real interest, strength and .
• Think on type of work you are good at. (i.e. experimental, design &
analysis, production management, etc…)
• Read recently completed PhD theses (last three years) on the area of your
interest, from various online repositories (at least 5-8), preferably of
different universities.
• Understand the chapter wise structure of each PhD theses.
• Understand the abstract, objectives and conclusion section to get an
overall idea about the requirements of a PhD research work.
• Focus on further scope of work of each theses
• You may select one of the scope from any of the theses as your area of PhD
research.

8. What is Literature review?
A literature review is a
“Critical analysis of a segment of a published body of
knowledge through summary, classification, and
comparison of prior research studies, reviews of
literature, and theoretical articles”

9. Key points about Literature review
• Tell me what the research says (Theory)
• Tell me how the research was carried out
(Research Methodology)
• Tell me what is missing or the gap that research intends to
fill. (Research gap)

10. What is meant by Literature Review?
To review the literature means to be able to identify:
•What has been established, discredited and accepted in
your field
•areas of controversy or conflict among different schools of
thought
•problems or issues that remain unsolved
•emerging trends and new approaches
•how your research extends, builds upon, and departs from
previous research.

11. A literature review asks:
What do we know - or not know - about this particular
issue/ topic/ subject?
How well you answer this question depends upon:
•The effectiveness of your search for information
•The quality & reliability of the sources you choose
•Your ability to synthesize the sources you select

12. Need of Literature review
 It can be a preparatory work for taking up /motivating
future research.
 It can be used to choose and formulate a research problem
(more appropriately called as ‘literature survey’).
 Literature Review enables a researcher to become an
expert/ specialist/ authority in the specific area; the
expertise acquired is often directly proportional to the
efforts put in literature review.
 A literature review may be used to publish a review paper.

13. Purpose of
Literature
review
Find out what
information already
exists in your field of
research
Identify gaps in
Research
literatures
Find other people
working in your
field
Identify major
seminal work
Identify main
methodologies and
research
techniques
Identify main ideas ,
conclusions, theories
and establish
similarities and
differences
Provide a context
for your own
research
Show relationships
between previous
studies and theories

14. Purpose of literature review
 To understand the purpose and expectations of research so as to
place appropriate emphasis in the analysis and summary.
 Like laying a brick for building, Literature review enables to
continue the tradition cohesively and to integrate past works
and sources to the body of knowledge and also to say something
new about them.
 To demonstrate knowledge of available sources
 To identify gaps in theories
 To check consistency and continuity of existing studies and their
results.

15. Purpose of literature review (Contd…)
 Enables to delimit the scope and to narrow down the research problem
 To compare ones findings/ results with that of past studies and to place
the work in the context
 To avoid duplication of work
 To learn from earlier endeavours, i.e., to know the type of difficulties
encountered and to get insight for new lines of approach
To ascertain availability of expected data and techniques for research
problem.

16. Plan of Literature Review
• Select a topic: define your research question
• Decide on scope of your review
• Select the database to search your literatures
• Conduct searches and group the articles into categories
• Keep notes of important points
• Summarise the literature into table or concept map format
• Focus narrowly on the summary and identify the areas or
combinations which are not published yet.

17. Referring PhD Theses from online repositories
• http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/ (PhD Theses of Indian Universities)
• http://ethesis.nitrkl.ac.in/ (NIT, Rourkela)
• http://www.worldcat.org/
• http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do (British theses)
• http://www.dart-europe.eu/basic-search.php (for the european thesis)
http://adt.caul.edu.au/ (for the australian thesis)
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/thesescanada/ (for canadian thesis)
• https://www.freebibliotheca.com/thesis/ ( Servers to download thesis)
• http://dspace.mit.edu/ (MIT Theses)
• https://oatd.org/

18. Referring research papers from Journals
•Based on the topic selected, identify the top five journals
related to your area.
(You may use scimago journal ranking website
http://www.scimagojr.com/).
•Ensure you have access to all of these journals.

19. How to Start with???
• Refer 8 to 10 review papers pertaining to your research topics from highly
reputed journals for last 3 years; if not, last five years; if not, last 7 years
maximum.
• The papers have to be comprehensively reviewed and presented with
systematic review of various aspects of your work.
• Read the selected review papers 2-3 times.
• Understand its underlying logic/objective to write that literature review paper.
• Refer to the references used by individual papers.

20. Sources for literature review…
• Journals, (subject specific and multi disciplinary)
• Conference papers and proceedings
• Standards manuals / handbooks (current and older)
• Government agency technical reports
• Professional association magazine articles
• Company and trade association white papers
• Patent applications and patent documents
• Data sets
• PhD Theses

21. • Elsevier publications, USA
• Springer, UK
• Taylor & Francis, UK
• Sage Publications, USA
• IEEE, USA
• Emerald, UK
• ASME, USA
• SME, USA
• The Institution of Engineers (IEI), India
• CSIR Journals, India and others
(Indexed by Thomson Reuters, SCI, Google scholar, etc..)
Some Reputed Journal Publishers For Engineering

22. New generation tools for LR
• www.researchgate.net
• www.academia.edu
• www.mendeley.com
• https://scholar.google.co.in/
• www.linkedin.net
• www.slideshare.net
• www.scribd.com
• Facebook pages on research areas
• Online research forums

23. Planning for Literature review (Sample)
Divide Literature review into three or more categories.
The research problem is to
“Development and Analysis of Ultrasonic Assisted dry EDM Process”
Sub divide literature review into three or more categories based on objectives.
• Issues with liquid dielectric fluids in EDM
• Issues related to conventional flushing methods of dielectric in EDM
• Dry EDM and its performance
• Ultrasonic vibration assisted EDM
Prepare a literature review table for each categories…
( you may refer literature review tables given in next slides)

24. Sample Literature review table
Sr.
No
Author Year Electrode
material
Work piece
material Dielectric Control
Parameters
Response
parameters
Research
Findings/outcomes
1 Amorim, Fred
L, Walter L.
Weingaertner
2003 Electrolytic
Copper
(Dia 20 mm and 4
mm central hole)
AISI P20 hydrocarbon
dielectric
A, Ton, Toff, V,
Polarity
MRR, TWR, SR

25. Sample table for Literature review
Sr.
No
.
Title of the
paper
Journal Year Blended
feedstocks
Targeted
property for
enhancement
Selection criteria
For feedstocks
Research finding/outcomes
1 Jatropha-
Palm
biodiesel
blends: An
optimum
mix for
Asia
Fuel 2007 Jatropha-
Palm oil
OS and CFPP Combination of
saturated and
unsaturated
esters to
improve OS and
CFPP
Jatropha biodiesel has poor
oxidation stability with good
low temperature properties.
On the other hand, Palm
biodiesel has good oxidative
stability, but poor low
temperature properties. The
combinations of Jatropha and
Palm give an additive effect on
these two critical properties of
biodiesel.

26. Summary of LR
• Based on the literatures reviewed, prepare a summary of the
important research findings of each section.

27. How to identify research gap from Literature Review
From summary table of the LR,
• Find the possible combinations which are yet not published
in high quality journals of repute.
• Focus on research findings of each combination and
thoroughly understand its significance.
• Narrowly focus on the possible combinations and try to
frame a problem which is yet not framed.
• Select a combination with well framed problem and having
good potential to explore.

28. Research motivation
• Based on the literatures reviewed, prepare a summary of the
important research findings of each section.
• List latest trends reported in literatures.
• List what motivated you to take up the research.

29. Define Problem Statement
The heart of a doctoral (PhD) research is the PROBLEM
STATEMENT.
• It is the crux of the entire study in terms of a question and a
probable answer.
• the problem statement, gives idea about Why ? What? How?

30. Research problem
Topic
Research
Problem
Justification
for Research
Problem
Deficiencies
in evidence
Relating the
Discussion to
the audiences
Subject area
Concern or issue
A problem
Something that
needs
solution
Evidence from the
literature
Evidence from the
practical experience
In this body of
evidences,
what is missing and
what
do we need to know
more about?
How will addressing
what we need to
know
help researchers,
educators ,
policy makers and
other individuals?

31. • Present the problem:
The first step is to explain what you have chosen to study and more importantly, why?
The rationale for study needs to be clearly communicated to justify an in depth
research.
• Provide evidence:
To stress the seriousness of the issue, you must back the problem with reliable data. A
problem statement is only effective when supported by authentic factual data.
• Propose the solution:
After stating the problem emphatically, present the possible solution as a result of the
study. Here, the solution is not presented in detail but rather concisely just to indicate
the success of the research. The methodology used to reach the conclusion is also
worth mentioning here.
• Polish the statement:
As with every section, thorough revision and editing of the problem statement is a
must. The problem statement should be free from any loopholes in terms of facts and
figures, language or format.
You must have to confine within the word limit that is prescribed in the university
guidelines.

32. Define scope of the work
Scope of the work means limiting your area of work/research to
certain boundaries,
• What to include
• What not to include
• What to do and
• What not to do…..

33. Research statement

34. Research objectives
 Framing Research objectives means sub division of entire
research problem into small, measureable and executable
tasks or activities.
 Ideally, one objective is to be framed for each phase of the
research. Means if there are 8 phases/ semesters/DPCs,
then there should be 4 major objectives to be completed in
span of 2 DPCs.
 Or eight objectives may be framed i.e. each objective for
each DPC..

35. Some Important Search platforms
• Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/)
• GetCITED (http://www.getcited.org/)
• Microsoft Academic Research
(http://academic.research.microsoft.com/)
• Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/)
• Science and Technology of Advanced Materials
(http://iopscience.iop.org/1468-6996/)
• Science Direct (http://www.sciencedirect.com/)

36. Reference/ Literature Management Tools
• Mendeley Desktop
• Endnote
• BibTeX
• RefWorks
• Zotero
• 3X5 cards
• RefMan

37. Some of the books for LR
Please read the following books
• J. Mouton and H. C. Marais, Basic Concepts in the Methodology of the
Social Sciences, CRC Press, 1990.
• T. A. Brown, Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Applied Research, The
Guilford Press, 2015.
• P. K. Sahu, Research Methodology: A Guide for Researchers In
Agricultural Science, Social Science and Other Related Field, Springer
India, 2013.
• RT Kumar, Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners,
SAGE pub., 2010.
• C. R. Kothari, Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques, New
Age Intl., 1985.
• P. F. Lazarsfeld and M. Rosenberg, The language of social research: a
reader in the methodology of social research, Free Press, 1965.