On the difference between literature review and desk research: a note for housing studies students

On the difference between literature review and desk research: a note for housing studies students

About literature review:

Literature review is useful for informing the whole dissertation project work in housing studies. Nevertheless, there is a chapter devoted to the literature work of a dissertation report, which is Chapter 2: Literature Review. For that, students are expected to review relevant academic literature, mainly academic journal articles, textbooks and dissertation project reports (finished and "published").

The problem is that, quite a number of students made use of desk research (notably Internet Research) and utilized desk research findings (notably newspaper articles and government policy reports) to write up their literature review chapter. This is not correct and indicates poor literature review skill.

About desk research:

This is not say that desk research is not important for dissertation project work. Findings of desk research is valuable to inform the discussion of project background (as presented in Chapter 1 of a dissertation report). Desk research is very often a useful secondary research method, for example to study the external drivers (zone 1 [re: the agile literature review approach]) of a housing topic (e.g. housing affordability and homelessness). To discuss the desk research design, the research student could do so in Chapter 3 "Research Methodology" in his/ her dissertation report; to discuss the desk research findings, the student could do so in dissertation report Chapter 4 "Findings and Analysis". Try to avoid presenting the desk research design evaluation  and its findings (especially not using research methods terms) in dissertation report Chapter 2 "Literature Review".