Book Reviews |
| ASGS reviews books with direct relevance to doctoral students involved in doing a dissertation. The following books have been reviewed and are recommended by ASGS. If you have a book to suggest for review, please send a copy of the book with your request. |
The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success By Lawrence A. Machi and Brenda T. McEvoy Copyright 2012 by Corwin Press This book updates and improves a previous version by these authors, fully integrating web tools into the process of generating a literature review that is personally meaningful and academically sound. In addition to organizing the literature review process as a continual refinement of thinking about the research problem, the authors provide flowcharts and other visuals to allow a comprehensive understanding of all parts of the process. The authors point out the critical task of keeping a journal (of ideas, progress, and questions) that tracks your thinking about your topic. Also of particular value is the idea of “free writes,” which they define as spontaneous writing done without reference to notes or outlines to explore what you’ve internalized about your topic. Special sections point out how to avoid researcher bias and unethical use of data. Practical tips abound for searching the literature, becoming familiar with terminology, and efficiently using resources—electronic and others. Subject and author mapping is another useful way of organizing the results of scanning (through the reference titles) and skimming (through the reference texts). The last few chapters are devoted to developing arguments—what makes a convincing argument and how to make sure your literature review argues forcefully for your thesis. This is both the forté of the book, and its drag. To understand how to generate a convincing argument is essential, but it’s easy for students to get bogged down in the process of understanding the terminology. Students can well understand that in academe, arguments must be based on rational, logical persuasion and reasoned debate to separate fact from fiction rather than trying to overpower the other’s belief based on opinion, bias, belief, or emotion. But the discussion quickly delves into parts of arguments (evidence, claim, and warrant) and different kinds of arguments. Although every idea is relevant, the discussion as a whole is weighty, technical, and might be off-putting in its demand for careful attention and sustained focus on concepts such as simple and complex arguments, argument of discovery and of advocacy, the nine patterns of argumentation (cause and effect, sign, sample to population, parallel case, analogy, authority, and ends-means), and so on. Sticking with the authors' exposition of creating an argument is definitely worthwhile, but reading these chapters is akin to taking a mini-course in debate, which may discourage students more than it enlightens. All the information is good, relevant, and even essential; but its presentation could be simplified and probably should be to keep graduate students from feeling threatened by the task of generating a good argument in their literature review.Fortunately, the authors use lots of figures, graphs, diagrams, and other visual aids to get their most esoteric points across. Even with the caveats regarding the chapters on arguments, I think the book is a goldmine of great ideas and extremely worthwhile. It's comprehensive, thorough, and can be an invaluable tool in finishing a first-rate literature review. Reviewed by Ronda Davé, President ASGS, September 2012 |
Writing Your Dissertation With Microsoft WordA Step-by-step Guide By Vincent Kiernan |
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This book is a handy guide for students confronting the mysteries of using Microsoft word to format their dissertations in the editorial style required by their universities. The author uses step-by-step, easy to follow instructions for page numbering, footnoting, reference list indenting, and other editorial formatting puzzles. |
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The Dissertation JourneyA Practical and Comprehensive Guide to Planning, Writing, and Defending Your Dissertation By Carol M. Roberts |
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This book is a compendium of goodies, checklists, helpful hints, and sample forms together with organization and time management tips, information on using technology, and suggestions for support groups. The author uses simple, easy to understand language without any of the pretensions of many other manuals written by academics for graduate students. Highly readable and useful. |
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