DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH VS LITERATURE REVIEW

What is documentary research and how does it differ from the Literature Review?

What is documentary research and how does it differ from the Literature Review?

Introduction

According to different sources, it can be interpreted that documentary research contrasts from the literature review. There is a drastic difference between documentary research and literature review. A literature review is written to analyze and discuss published scientific reports generally in a particular area of knowledge and certain period. The scientific reports may be empirical, theoretical, critical, analytical or methodological. The literature review is an activity that takes place as part of developing a dissertation proposal or dissertation research. In this case, the literature review is an important part of the research and its purpose is to provide a context and justification of research to be conducted.

Comparison between Documentary Research and Literature Review

Documentary research is a variant of scientific research, whose objective represents the analysis of different phenomena (historical, psychological, sociological, etc). Documentary research uses precise technical documentation existing directly or indirectly in form of the information. Documentary research can be illustrated as an essential part of a scientific research process, constituting a strategy which systematically observes and reflects via realities used to execute different types of documents. This form of research includes investigation and interpretation of the data; moreover, this form of the research presents data and information on a topic related to any branch of science. This form of research uses methodical analysis; the purpose of methodological analysis is to obtain results that could be the based on development of scientific reasons (Coles, 1997, 66-74).

Documentary research can be characterized by the process which includes the use of documents, data collection, analysis and presentation of consistent results. This form of research uses logic and mental processes of all research, analysis, synthesis, deduction and induction. Through this form of the research, the researcher can formulate an adequate collection of data that allows him/her to rediscover facts suggest problems, direct to other research sources, direct ways to develop research tools, develop hypotheses, and draw conclusions (Scott, Ed, 214-227). It can be considered as a fundamental part of a process that represents scientific research. It is based on the use of different techniques: location and setting, analysis of documents and content. In a narrow sense, one can illustrate documentary research as a research process that makes a bibliographic research to produce new bibliographic entries on the subject (Lightfoot, Hoffman, 1997, 44-68).

The documentary research includes the analysis section in which the data collected from different sources is analyzed through the use of specific qualitative or quantitative approach in order to validate the findings of the study. The analysis in the documentary research accompany methodology that describes that process through which the data will be collected, sample that will be used in the study, approach through which the data will be analyzed and the patterns through which results will be presented. The analysis to be carried out in documentary research is based upon the variables that are ...