"The line of words is a hammer. You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years' attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are load bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a load bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck." Dillard in The Writing Life.

Week Four PW4 - Search appropriate data bases for all literature related to study, organize literature graphically according to topics, subtopics and overlapping topics, begin writing literature review

Rationale - Searching and understanding the scholarly work related to your topic introduces you to a research community (discourse community) that you could be connected with the rest of your professional career. These are the people you will meet and talk to at conferences. Understand them well! And plan to revisit them as your study unfolds - especially with qualitative studies. Literature is most often synthesized in chapter two of the dissertation but it need not always be there - in a qualitative study it is often placed after or with the findings - however, it's important that you know something about the scholarly literature related to your topic before you start collecting data.

**Required Readings and Activities

A. Reading:

**Hart, Chaps 3,5,6 OR Galvan 4,5,6,7; Creswell, Chap 2

B. Web and Other Links:

Organizing Your Literature Review - Edward G. Rozycki, Ed. D.
Download a demo copy of Inspiration - a great software program to show visually the relationships between topics, subtopics, overlapping topics, concepts etc. in the literature.

C. Experiences/Activities:

** Search all appropriate data bases for literature related to your study, analyze and organize your literature, begin writing a synthesis of your findings.

** Search online for web resources related to your topic.

D. Discussion Starters/Reflective Journal Topics: (Choose one topic and start or continue a discussion thread.)

1) Discuss the notion of theoretical framework. What broad literature is your research topic connecting with?
2) How do you approach the scholars in your field?
3) How do you know when you have searched long enough? How do you know when you're finished searching?