Literature mapping is replacing the proposal for Undergraduate Project Topics. The literature mapping is gaining fame in the research world. Before now every project supervisor ask their students to come with a project proposal before they can get there undergraduate project topics approved. The demand for proposal by project supervisor has been seen as a kind of model for all supervisors in tertiary institution to follow.
As the education sector continue to evolve, new ideas in ways of handle Undergraduate Project Topics, Research Works And Materials continue to improve. That is not to say that the latter is no longer acceptable; in fact most project supervisors still demand for proposal before approving an undergraduate project topics presented to them by their students.
Project synopsis is another form of mini proposal that students normally present before their supervisor for their project topics to be approved. But the synopsis is major used for post graduate or masters students. The synopsis is usually a kind of summary of everything you need to do in your research project work.
The introduction of literature mapping does not mean that the use of synopsis and proposal are no longer important in the education sector. However the use of literature is more refined and provides a detail understanding of the topic.
The literature mapping is applicable to all undergraduate project topics viz education, accounting, economics, human resource management etc. The methods and approaches to literature is the same for all departments.
A good literature mapping should be able to capture the name of the author of a particular article or journal, the year his/her journal or articled was published, the actual topics the author did his/her research on; the dependent variable, the independent variable, the contribution to knowledge, the findings, the gap and the recommendation.
The literature mapping to me is very important; sometime I feel it is more important than the undergraduate project topics proposals because it detailed enough and anybody can clearly see the gap identified.
Another beautiful thing about literature mapping is that when you are able to do a comprehensive literature mapping with all the journal articles; you may not need to further seek for research materials to write your research project. This is because your project supervisor will ask you to review about 200 articles concerning the topic you wish to research on before he or she will approve the topic. At the end of the day you already have about 200 complete materials for your undergraduate project topic.
Click here to see an article I wrote on how to do a good literature mapping
The literature mapping will help you identify the statement of the problem for undergraduate project topics given to you by your project supervisor without much and stress. If you are able to understand the determinants of a good literature mapping you will be able to write a good research hypothesis; then write your aim and objectives of the study to solve the problem identified.
