What to do when there is little or no existing literature on your dissertation research topic
When there’s little or no existing literature on your research topic, what should you do?
In this blogpost, I’m going to walk you through a few things to try when there doesn’t appear to be any literature on your topic.
If we’ve not met before, hi, I’m Dr Elizabeth Yardley and I’ve spent the last 20 years supporting graduate students through their dissertations. If I had a pound or a dollar for every time someone said to me, “I can’t find any literature on this!”, I’d be able to buy myself something moderately expensive. It’s one of the most common issues I come across.
Let’s see how we can deal with it.
Sparse literature can actually be a good thing!
When you say, “There’s no literature!”, that might be a good thing. If there was literature very specifically on your exact topic, your research wouldn’t be unique and original.
For example, if your research is looking at, The experiences of female criminal law solicitors aged 35-50 in England and Wales in leaving the law behind and starting second careers: a qualitative enquiry, that’s pretty specific. If you come across another piece of research on exactly that, yeah that wouldn’t be great!
However, you’ve still got to do a literature review, right? So, if your searches have drawn a blank so far, what could you do?
(1) Broaden out your literature search criteria
First, broaden your search criteria. Look for literature that is related but not exactly the same.
To take our example topic again, you could look into:
Career Transitions. Explore research on how professionals in various fields beyond the law transition to new careers. Studies on career change processes, challenges faced, and factors influencing successful transitions could provide valuable insights you may be able to apply to lawyers.
Female Professionals in Law. Look for literature focusing on the experiences of female lawyers or solicitors. This might include studies on gender dynamics in the legal profession, career progression, work-life balance, and professional identity.
Qualitative Research on Career Changes. Investigate qualitative studies on career changes in other professions or geographical locations. These studies could offer methodological insights and relevant themes that you might adapt to your specific context.
So, whilst none of these areas of the literature are going to comprehensively cover your topic on their own, each of them will contain valuable insights that could be applied to your research topic. By poking around these related topics, you will find useful stuff!
(2) Get creative with your literature search terms
When searching academic databases like Google Scholar, JSTOR, or your university’s library resources, try using different keywords and combinations. For instance, in our example, you could use terms like 'career transition,' 'female lawyers,' 'legal profession,' 'qualitative study' and 'career change.'
Additionally, think about synonyms and related concepts. Instead of just 'career transition’, you might search for 'career shift', 'second career’, ‘occupational change', or ‘the great resignation’. Use tools like thesaurus.com. Take a look on Google at related searches and the “people also asked” questions. By broadening your search criteria, you'll uncover a wider range of relevant literature.
Remember to use Boolean operators to refine your search. Use 'AND' to combine different concepts, 'OR' to include synonyms, and 'NOT' to exclude irrelevant results.
For example, you could search for 'female lawyers AND career transition AND qualitative' or 'career change OR professional reinvention.' Play around with the terms.
(3) Explore related disciplines, you might be surprised what you find!
Sometimes the literature you need isn’t in your immediate field.
In our example, what you need might not be strictly within the legal discipline. You might find useful studies in psychology, sociology, or business.
Interdisciplinary research can provide valuable insights and help you draw connections that others might miss.
Let’s go back to our example study – what related disciplines might be helpful here?
Psychological studies on career change and transitions. Research in psychology often explores the emotional and cognitive aspects of changing careers, such as the stress and anxiety involved, the process of identity transformation, and coping mechanisms. Studies on career transition theories might help you in understanding the psychological stages your participants might go through. Broader research on resilience and self-efficacy can also offer insights into how individuals adapt to significant life changes.
Sociological research on professional identity, gender roles, and occupational mobility. Sociology can provide a broader societal context for understanding how career changes are influenced by social structures and cultural norms. Studies on gender roles in professional settings can shed light on the unique challenges faced by female solicitors. Research on occupational mobility can help you understand the social dynamics and barriers that affect career changes within different professions.
Business literature on career development, management, and organisational behaviour may also be helpful. Business studies often focus on career planning, skill development, and the role of mentorship and networking in career transitions. Research on career development strategies can offer practical insights into how individuals successfully navigate career changes. Studies on mentorship can highlight the importance of support networks in facilitating career transitions.
(4) Ask around, other humans are a great resource too!
Fourthly, ask people. I know it sounds obvious but it’s something a lot of students don’t do!
Talk to members of staff and other PhD students at your institution, especially those outside your specific discipline.
Go along to those wider events that include everyone, not just people in your faculty or department. You’d be amazed at how frequently students discover a whole body of research they didn’t know about because it was situated in another discipline. You never know, a chat with a professor in Nursing, Social Work or Art and Design might unearth some gems!
Next steps
If you found this blogpost helpful, you might like my Literature Review Cheat Sheet.
It’s a handy PDF containing 45 sentence templates to help you smash through writer’s block.
Click here for more details on how to grab yours.