Ross Woods, 2021,22
Before you start, find out what your institution expects or allows.
First, what kind of document are you writing? For most of this e-book, I'm assuming that you are writing a dissertation or thesis. However, annotated bibliographies and literature reviews are good assignments by themselves, and the expectations for an assignment are not necessarily the same as those for a thesis or dissertation. If you are writing an assignment, check your institution's rules.
Some institutions assume that research frontiers progress rapidly, so they specify that articles must be published within a certain time, for example, within the last three or five years. Having said that, it depends on the topic. I suggest that students should include older writings if they are are still useful and helpful. Standard works
might be quite old but are still very influential and frequently discussed.
Many institutions allow older items and do not specify that articles must be recent. This prevents research from going in circles. Some topics have become unfashionable but later come back into fashion. Some problems were adequately resolved in the past, and researchers might re-consider those solutions. However, researchers also need to make sure that they also use newer sources to make sure they consider any recent developments.
It depends on how much has been written, when it was written, and the size and complexity of the topic. If a lot has been written recently, you should ask your lecturer whether you should narrow the topic. If your literature review is part of a dissertation, then it needs to be comprehensive and exhaustive. In other words, it is not complete until all relevant documents have been reviewed.
Literature reviews are normally permitted because they contribute to the current understanding of the topic. However, some students believe they are only permitted to use empirical research.
Some allow older materials if they are still relevant to current research, such as seminal and watershed works.
Institutions normally allow these. These works are longer and the ideas are normally much more developed. However, they might start to be out of date because it takes longer to get them into print. It is also up to the student to ensure that they belong in the classification of original research.
Institutions normally do not allow Wikipedia articles, even though the information is generally correct and up to date. However, the footnotes contain links to external supporting sources that might be useful. They might also lead to other sources.
The reasons for not allowing Wikipedia articles are as follows:
Check your institution’s style guide. The requirements for references vary greatly. Even in the same institution, different departments might use different style guides, and even a particular style guide can have different versions with different requirements. If you know exactly what to put in the references, you won’t have to go through them all again later to gather missing bits.