For this assignment, you should assemble four(4) to five(5) pieces of scholarly literature related to your topic.
A literature review is a descriptive summary of research on a topic that has previously been studied. The purpose of a literature review is to inform readers of the significant knowledge and ideas that have been established on a topic. Its purpose is to compare, contrast and/or connect findings that were identified when reviewing researchers’ work. Oftentimes, literature reviews are written to ground a study in a particular context of what is known about a subject in order to establish a foundation for the topic (or question) being researched.
Assignment Description:
For this assignment, you are asked to complete a draft literature review your topic. You are to locate at least 4-5 academic articles on your topic and write a 4 page literature review on the articles you’ve selected.
Organize your articles by sorting and classifying their findings in a meaningful way, always considering your original topic and inquiry question.
**I also suggest you take a look at the samples I provided to assist you in your writing, especially if you’ve never done this before. Please pay attention to the samples as they could be really helpful
Below is a pretty general outline of how a literature review CAN be organized; please follow this outline
I have already written the introduction (1a-1c). Please complete part 2 and 3
1. Introduction
The introduction is used to establish the context of your review to the reader. To establish the context, it is important to do the following in this opening paragraph:
a. Define the topic of your study and provide any background information that helps your reader to understand the topic.
b. Explain your reason (perspective) for reviewing the literature on this topic.
c. State your research question explicitly.
2. Body
This section of your paper begins with an explanation of how you have organized your literature review and describes findings from articles that provide answers to your research question. Before you begin this section, you may want to organize your articles by themes based on the articles’ findings (sometimes called results). After you sort your articles, it is important to give your sorted groups a descriptive name. The names of the sorted articles will become your headings for each of the paragraphs that you write in the body of your review. To write the body of your small-scale literature review, it is important to include the following:
a. Write an introduction paragraph for the body of your review. This paragraph tells the reader specific information on how many articles you reviewed and how you sorted the articles into common themes based on the findings (results).
b. This will be a paragraph that describes the first theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the articles you’ve selected.
c. This will be a paragraph that describes the second theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the articles you’ve selected.
d. This will be a paragraph that describes the third theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the articles you’ve selected.
3. Summary
This is the last paragraph of your small-scale literature review. In this paragraph, it is important to summarize the main findings from the articles that you reviewed and to point out the information that you found particularly important to know that answered the inquiry question that you established in the first paragraph of your review. Try to conclude your paper by connecting your inquiry question back to the context of the general topic of study.
4. References/Works Cited
This is the last page of your review. It serves as a listing of all references that you mentioned in your paper.
Cite in APA7