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Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination
CHRIS HART. London: Sage Publications, 1998. 230 pp. L40 (hbk), L13.99 (pbk). ISBN 0-7619-5974-2 (hbk), 0-7619-5975-0 (pbk)
This book represents a useful addition to the comparatively small literature on academic writing for students (that on academic writing for staff is even smaller). It is made even more useful by its focus-as a set book for the Open University's social science postgraduate foundation module-on those working for postgraduate, masters or doctoral, degrees. Most `how to' books for students are pitched either at the larger, undergraduate market (e.g. Creme and Lea, 1997; Fairbairn and Winch, 1996) or at the general research market (e.g. Bell, 1999; Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 1996). As such, while they contain much useful advice for students writing postgraduate dissertations or theses, they cannot go into the detail attempted here and may not operate at the appropriate level.
The book starts from the recognition that virtually all postgraduate students in the social sciences will be required to produce a substantive literature review at least once, but that relatively little guidance will...