Literature Review

Paper 1: Literature Review in your Discipline

A Literature Review is a composition on a specific subject summarizing (and providing complete references for) articles or other sources written on that specific topic. Your job is to provide an overview of what is out there being written on a subject in your field of study (the literature being written about a subject).

Literature Reviews are written FOR experts in a field, BY an expert of that field. They are written to organize, summarize, and reflect on important written information so that others in the field can

better understand the complexities of an issue in thefield

better understand the features or characteristics of the issue

access the information available on the issue moreeasily

In some ways, a Literature Review is like a research paper: the writer has to research the available information thoroughly in order to summarize and categorize it. But, where a research paper has as its focus the writers synthesis of the information and the sources themselves become only a part of the background for that synthesis, a Literature Review FOCUSES ON those sources, evaluating them, summarizing them, and organizing them.

Assignment: choose a topic in your field of study that is somewhat controversial or at least there is more than one point of view regarding this topic. Write a literature review paper in which you conduct a detailed synthesis and analysis of research that has been done on that topic of interest to you. Your purpose is to pull together related studies on the topic into a coherent whole and to examine the relationships among them, concluding your review in a way that points to possibilities for future research and/or allows readers to make educated decisions about the topic.

The paper should review 15-20 current research articles/sources on your topic and will be in the range of 5-8 pages, not including front/back matter (it may be slightly longer than this, but anything less than 5 full pages will not have the depth of review needed for this type of paper).Sources cited using APA style.

Audience: other experts in the field who are interested in the topic and who intend to follow-up your research by reading some of the items you present (as experts, they will not need basic definitions, explanations of technical terminology, or histories).

Purpose: to present an expert overview of the topic; to help other experts identify important issues related to the topic; to help other experts locate materials; to contribute to the academic conversation surrounding your chosen topic.

Organization:

Introduction

set context

introduce the purpose of your research

define the scope of your research

introduce the organization of the essay (the sections and subsections)

Sections and sub-sections

reflect the issues which comprise your topic

are organized logically (most important or significant to least?)

are introduced with headings which define thesection/issue

Discussion of materials: for each item (or grouping of related items)

introduce by authors name, article title, complete bib. info. (or reference number from your works cited pages)

summarize the key points, useful aspects

identify the significance of the item to the section and, thus, to the overall topic

evaluate the value of the item as a reference for other researchers

Summary/Conclusion

pull the essay together by restating your overallpurpose

pull the essay together by discussing the implications of the research may suggest direction for further research

For the purposes of this paper, we will write a rough draft that will go through peer workshop, before moving through the act of revision/refining and then the Final draft will be turned in. All pertinent dates will be identified on Blackboard.

Some topics that students have done well with in the past include:

Criminal Justice: Tasers; Community Policing; Use of Force; Prison overcrowding; gender equality in police work; racial profiling.

Education: Role of play in child development; MEAP ; NCLB; single-sex schools; inclusion.

Allied Health: Electronic Record Systems; need for Bachelors prepared nurses; Effectiveness of

anti-bacterial washes as opposed to soap and water; disposal of nuclear waste;

truth telling in oncology; use of unconventional treatments; use of placebos.