Writing the Research Design & Methods

In your “Research Design” section (often referred to as “Methods” or “Methodology”) you will explain exactly how you plan to conduct your research.

We want our studies to be reproducible, so be thorough and specific. You’ll need to include:

1) the databases you plan to use in your search,

2) the keywords you intend to use,

3) your “inclusion criteria” or the kinds of studies that you plan on including in your project,

4) your “exclusion criteria” or the kinds of studies that will NOT be included in your project, and

5) your evaluation process, or how you plan on organizing your research in the literature review.

You're not "evaluating" a source as "good" or "bad"; rather, you're describing how those sources will be organized in your review paper. Use this as an opportunity to briefly brainstorm your literature review outline. For example, if you're studying safety features of autonomous vehicles, you might say that you literature review will discuss research on hazardous weather safety features, on driver error safety features, and on cybersecurity features.

This section is an opportunity to prove the feasibility of the project regarding the project’s scope, time, and budget. 

You want to prove that you can fulfill the promises of your project in the time given. So, don’t promise that you’ll read “all scholarly publications related to AEVs” or that your project could “end the global water crisis entirely.” There is no way you could accomplish that in a semester. Instead, narrow your focus by clearly describing what kinds of sources you are looking for, and what information you are looking for in those sources.

Ready to write the paper?

Follow the links below for in-depth tutorials on each section of the literature review!