Literature Review & Methodology

This section will describe how the literature review, which forms the basis of this work, was conducted, in terms of the methodology used to search for, and use, the literature that forms the basis of this work. This section explains exactly how the literature review was performed, in terms of what was done practically in order to find the literature that has been used as the basis for this work. This section essentially describes the methodology that was used to provide an analysis of the specific research question of interest in this work, i.e., “How is identity formed in this postmodern world?”

A literature review is, essentially, a classification and a thorough evaluation of the most relevant works that have previously been published on a particular subject. The literature review is usually organized depending on the particular research objective, so that it presents a systematic, comprehensive review of the work that has been previously published on that specific topic of interest.

From this basis, decisions as to what further research needs to be conducted on the specific topic of interest can be made, from the thorough understanding of the previous works on this subject. A full understanding of the existing literature provides not only a comprehensive review of the existing literature but will also enable the researcher to decide what specific sub-topics, for example, need further investigation.

In this way, therefore, a literature review can inform not only the current research plans but also map the way for future research. After due consideration to the human resources and time frame necessary to collect primary empirical evidence that would prove pertinent to this specific study, adopting a completely literature-based library approach was deemed the most efficient and pragmatic method of research.

Within the scope of this work, ‘the literature’ refers not only to literature such as textbooks, and specialist academic books, but also to the relevant research literature, via published journal articles. A review of the literature that is relevant to the research question of interest thus serves many purposes, including, as has been seen, showing how the current research programme fits in with previous research on the topic, presenting alternate views in order to allow an evaluation of how the proposed research should proceed, and, finally, showing that all of the relevant, previous, work on the current research topic has been evaluated and has been fully understood, validating the current research programme through the support of previously published work (see Ha