Читать книгу GIS Research Methods - Steven J. Steinberg - Страница 92

Conducting a literature review is an essential next step in the academic research process. Even if you are not conducting an academic research project, a review of some of the pertinent literature will help to inform and support the approaches to the topic that other researchers have used, which is important when you need to convince colleagues. The literature review should present relevant information from a variety of literature. A broad review is especially important if you are dealing with an interdisciplinary topic where one source does not adequately address all of the issues you are interested in studying in your analysis. Because GIS-based projects by nature draw on information from a variety of disciplines, a review of several areas of literature may be necessary.

For example, if you are using a GIS to analyze gaps in the public transportation system in a particular community, you will want to examine literature in fields as diverse as sociology, psychology, transportation, and GIS. Such sources might help in your understanding of which people use public transportation and in what ways, how public transportation systems are designed and routed, how GIS is used in modeling systems and behaviors, and perhaps other areas. Figure 3.7 illustrates how GIS can be used to portray public transportation in New York City.

Figure 3.7 A portion of a public transit map for New York City. Analyzing such maps, in conjunction with data on demographics, ridership, crimes, or access to shopping, day care, or other services, could serve as an essential component of many studies. Questions that might be explored would be opportunities to add stops or adjust routes and schedules, increase the visibility of police on the beat, or site new social service agency offices to better serve the target population. Map courtesy of Jake Berman, http://maps.complutense.org. Subway service information courtesy of the MTA. CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Ultimately, by reviewing how others have thought about modeling or analyzing data in a spatial context—even if they never used a GIS—you will be better able to develop an appropriate model to implement in a GIS. (Note that researchers have, for many years, thought about questions spatially. The presentation of Dr. John Snow’s research in London in the mid-1800s is one of the earliest published examples. Although the advent of GIS was more than a century off, the design of Snow’s analysis would be easily carried out in a GIS today. For additional, classic examples of spatial concepts in social sciences, visit the Center for Spatial Integrated Social Science website’s section on classic research at http://www.csiss.org/classics/.)

In writing a literature review, be sure to include a thorough review of the relevant information that pertains to your topic. This involves searching for a variety of sources of relevant information. It is always good to include many types of information in your literature review, ranging from journals to books, news stories, and websites. Check sources and credentials when relying on information from websites because it may not have been vetted for quality and credibility. It is up to you, the researcher, to critically assess the sources of information you find on the web, or anyplace else, before deciding which sources you will use.

When reviewing the literature, try to search for studies conducted on your topic using a GIS. This information may give you ideas about how to incorporate a GIS into your own study. Use the keywords “GIS” or “geographic information systems” when searching for these studies in the literature related to your study. This approach is generally more successful than going to journals focused on GIS and looking for information particular to the discipline you are analyzing; although, sometimes this approach can also yield good resources.

Your literature review should contain common themes and specific, relevant ideas and concepts and should also present relevant debates that pertain to your problem statement. By conducting a thorough literature review, you may gain insight into research methodologies, study designs, and variables that are directly relevant to your own study. You will also find that the literature can help to justify or legitimize the methods you will use in your own study.