Literature-based research

Ross Woods, 2025.

What is literature based research?

It is research that uses existing documents as its data. Literature based research is often categorized as qualitative because it focuses on interpretation of perceptions and values. However, it is different in that uses existing documents as its “data”, in contrast to collecting data from respondents in the field.

In which fields of study is it dominant?

It is the dominant research method in history, literature, philosophy, theology, some aspects of education, and law.

What is the research goal?

The goal is to create a new interpretation based on existing literature. By being a new interpretation, it qualifies as research.

How does this compare to a literature review in field-based research?

The similarity is that both are analyses of existing literature. The main difference is the purpose of the literature review. In field-based research, the purpose is to identify the state of current research so that the following field-based work will be new. In contrast, literature -based research uses written documents as data to establish new findings.

What sources?

Researchers in all fields of study must review current research regarding their topics. Otherwise, the actual sources vary according to the field of study.

Consider the example of ancient history. The historian examines ancient documents and the extent to which they have survived as originally written. He/she might also consider the linguistics of the language and its cognates, and archaeological reports.

What kind of outline?

The introduction and conclusion are much the same as research that uses data collected in the field. Moreover, like other methods, it still needs to include:

1. A focused topic and research question
2. A critique of current research on the topic
3. A comparison of your work with the findings of current research.

However, the outline of parts other than the introduction and conclusion can be original, as long as they are a good fit for the topic. They do not need to fit the standard outline for field-based research of Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Analysis, Discussion, Conclusion.

It is a good idea to put a tentative outline in your proposal. The fact that you have planned thus far makes your proposal look more plausible and easier for assessors to accept. However, the outline should be tentative and you should include a caveat that it might change based upon better understanding during research. It would be a mistake to lock yourself into a particular outline that you could not change.

What specific methods does it involve?

The specific methods are numerous, but these examples might be helpful:

1. Exposition
1. Who was the author?
2. How did his/her personal characteristics and circumstances affect the document?
3. When and where was it written? Did the author revise it over time?
4. Why did the author write it? For example, was it to respond to a particular problem or movement?
5. What were the effects of culture and cultural assumptions at the time of writing?
6. What were the effects of the literary genre?
2. Logical analysis
1. Analyzing assumptions (which are often hidden)
2. What kind of logic was used? Inductive, deductive, adductive?
3. Are there contradictions or paradoxes?
4. Are there logical fallacies, such as circular logic?
5. Are definitions clear and consistent, or are they vague, or used inconsistently?
6. Do conclusions follow from premises or data?
7. Has the writer failed to differentiate between correlation and cause-effect?
8. Has the writer failed to differentiate between what is possible, what is actually so, and what is necessarily so?
9. Are some ideas unjustifiably conflated?
10. Etc.
3. Comparing, compiling, identifying relationships between documents
4. Identifying trends and changes
5. Building theoretical models
6. Identifying key concepts and theories

Literature analysis is frequently (but not always) marked by a level of proof that commonly ranges from highly likely to highly unlikely, with many points that cannot be made with finality. In some cases, conjecture and subjectivity taint the value of the research.

What is the writing process?

Other than the first stages of the introduction, this method has some unique features.

The first stage is always lots of reading. The amount of relevant literature is usually quite daunting.

Writing and research are inseparable in documentary analysis: doing research is writing. Contrast this with the laboratory researcher who uses uses equipment to test an hypothesis and separately writes up the lab work in a report.

A PhD dissertation using documentary analysis is normally longer than a dissertation that uses field data, usually because the researcher must process such a wide range of literature. It is arguable that this kind of research is more difficult than setting up an experiment to test an hypothesis, the reason being that the range of variables is unlimited.

Another factor is that it is iterative. As one writes and reads more, one’s ideas might develop and change, perhaps creating the daunting task of completely restructuring the dissertation. It is fairly common that the researcher finds that the original question was inadequate or erroneous in some way, and needs to be replaced. This further creates a whole new direction for the research.

CC BY-NC-ND
This work is released under a CC BY-NC-ND license, which means that you are free to do with it as you please as long as you (1) properly attribute it, (2) do not use it for commercial gain, and (3) do not create derivative works.