Literature Review Overview and Examples

Reviewing the Literature: Writing
• Analyze and critically evaluate the past research
(“critical” is not a negative word!)
◦ contributions, shortcomings, conclusions, ideas, or techniques
of the research you’ve read (and how it fits into the topic)
◦ this is part of the culture of doing academic research
• Organize sections by concept or theme – you
should not be giving just a summary of each article
• Be selective and choose examples that give the
reader relevant information
MME9617 - Lise Doucette - Engineering Librarian

Example #1
Several researchers have looked at the issue of solar-powered
refrigeration for storing vaccines in developing countries:
A. S. Bahaj, "Photovoltaic power for refrigeration of transported
perishable goods," in Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2000.
Conference Record of the Twenty-Eighth IEEE, 2000, pp. 1563-
1566.
D. Kilfoyle, B. Marion and G. G. Ventre, "Lessons learned from
testing, photovoltaic vaccine refrigerators," in Photovoltaic
Specialists Conference, 1990., Conference Record of the Twenty
First IEEE, 1990, pp. 985-990 vol.2.
M. N. Mansouri, M. F. Mimouni and M. Annabi, "Vectorial
command of an asynchronous motor supplied by a photovoltaic
generator," in Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 2002 IEEE
International Conference on, 2002, pp. 5 pp. vol.5.
MME9617 - Lise Doucette - Engineering Librarian

Example #2
Several researchers have looked at the issue of solar-powered
refrigeration for storing vaccines in developing countries.
Jones and Smith (2010) wanted to develop a photovoltaic
system to replace the diesel generator used on conventional
trailers. Bahaj and Xie (2004) found that in general, for the PVpowered
units, the arrays are stable and the refrigerators are
reliable. The long-term limitation for these systems appears to
be a gradual decline in battery capacity, while the short-term
problem is the periodic unwarranted refrigerator cutoffs due to
the system controller reacting to surge voltages. Kilfoyle and
Marion (2002) looked at the vectorial control of an
asynchronous motor supplied by a photovoltaic system.
MME9617 - Lise Doucette - Engineering Librarian

Example #3
A large number of authors refers to inverter topologies
for off-grid applications, as well as for direct conversion
into the electricity utility grid. The need for a highefficient
but low cost power conditioning system led to
the development of this combined inverter, maximumpower-point-tracker
and regulator. Only two switching
elements, four diodes, one transformer and two
electrolytic capacitors are used. For two researchers,
reduction of harmonic generation is obtained by means
of filters and simple sinusoidal modulation techniques.
MME9617 - Lise Doucette - Engineering Librarian

Example #4
Several researchers studied inverter topologies for off-grid
applications (Smith, 2010; Jones, 2003; Kilfoyle, 2009), as
well as for direct conversion into the electricity utility grid
(Smith, 2010; Xie, 2009; Marion, 1999). The need for a highefficient,
but low cost power conditioning system led to the
development of this combined inverter, maximum-powerpoint-tracker
and regulator (Jones, 2003). Only two
switching elements, four diodes, one transformer and two
electrolytic capacitors are used. Reduction of harmonic
generation was obtained by means of filters and simple
sinusoidal modulation techniques (Marion, 1999; Smith,
2010).
MME9617 - Lise Doucette - Engineering Librarian