Abstract

The purposes of this study were to examine the extent to which literature was used to discuss findings in selected papers from Zimbabwe Journal, and to compare the quality of reviews in this journal with other international journals. The study was largely qualitative in nature and used convenient sampling. In the study, the Zimbabwe Journal was chosen because of easy access. Three papers were conveniently selected based on personal interest and areas previously studied. Content analysis was used to compare the quality of discussion of literature in the sampled papers. Findings suggest that authors cite relevant literature extensively in the background to the study but use the same literature sparingly in the discussion of their results. Further, in the discussion of findings, the use of literature was limited to confirming what was already known, and does not show how the new studies reported contribute to knowledge. The study concluded that the journal studied was failing to attract authors who write high quality papers. Perhaps the journal should broaden its brief and target an international audience, because at present as evident in the three cases cited, the journal can only reach out to practitioners within (Southern) Africa. 

Key words: Literature review, information and communications technology (ICT), mentoring, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).