# @dr.san__ on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/C-aSK71N4om
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/63507199-drsan-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/9a5308489c.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-08-08T13:30:00.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** San Choudhury (@dr.san__) — https://gondola.cc/dr.san__

## Caption

When I first started doing my literature review, I used to think that the only kind of argument that I could make was an empirical one - what’s been found and what’s not yet been focused on. I found myself constantly writing “the research explored X but did not consider Y”.

It severely limited my abilities to actually critique the literature and develop a more comprehensive analysis in a way that would lead to my research questions. It was only when my supervisor and examiner (& the reviewer of a paper I submitted to a journal) pointed out that my lit review needed more layers to it in terms of building up to something that I realized I needed to make use of different kinds of arguments. 

You can have a conceptual argument where you examine and debate different concepts and synthesise them with different empirical findings to propose a different concept. It’s possible to critique the different kinds of methods that have been used to generate empirical findings and integrate them with different theoretical approaches. You can even use empirical findings from multiple studies to make inferences about a phenomenon and build your own theoretical framework. In general, instead of simply describing the kind of findings, concepts, theories & methods that you have come across in existing literature, you should focus on synthesising them, making inferences and developing propositions. This will not only enable you to build up to your research questions but it also helps create more of a flow in your literature review where one argument leads to another, and so on. In general, a good literature review will itself make a meaningful contribution to the field. 
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#phd #gradschool #phdadvice #gradschooltips #phdstudent

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## Tags

phdadvice, gradschooltips, gradschool, phd, phdstudent

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