Purpose: Guided by your topical outline, write a synthesis of the chosen current articles in your field of interest to sum up what is know about the topic, and identify possible future directions for further research or implications for practice.
Audience: The academy. ie. Other researchers in your chosen field.
Genre: Academic, scholarly writing.
Using your revised topical outline as a writing guide, flesh out your notes in to a fully drafted lit review. Add a title page, and then an abstract with keywords in italics on a second page at the beginning of your paper. Make sure you have page numbers in the upper right hand corners. The paper must be in correct APA 7 format.
Revise the Introduction and Methods sections of the Literature Review based on faculty and writing center feedback from your topical outline.
Your literature review methods section should contain the following information: keywords searched, databases searched, years of publication searched, and the dates the search was conducted by you,
Write a proper, fully written draft of each of your identified themes from the literature, with headings for each section. You should have three to five themes, with a title, and a page of discussion for each one. Be sure to provide supporting sources from the articles for each point that you make. Make sure that any key definitions have been identified for the reader along with a source. Direct quotes must include the author, year and page number in a citation.
Write a concluding statement that draws the themes together around your chosen topic, and identifies directions for future research.
Be sure to include a full reference page in correct APA 7 format on a separate page at the end. Make sure you have the following sections included in your paper.
- Title page with page numbers (APA 7 format)
- Abstract on a new page (must be 125 words or less)
- Keywords on the topic in italics after the abstract (4-6 keywords)
- Introductory paragraph addressing each of the following points;
– Background – What is the nature or context of the problem?
– Scope – How big is the problem, and how many people are affected?
– Consequences – What are the potential consequences of not fixing the problem?
- Literature Search Methods; brief statement describing databases and keywords used, dates of literature searched, and the timeframe when the search was conducted.
- Themes discussion; This section is the bulk of the paper. Discuss the content of your five articles arranged by themes within them, not one individual article at a time. You should have three – five themes with a heading and a page length of discussion that synthesizes the content of the relevant articles for each one. Be sure to provide supporting sources from your articles for each point that you make from the literature.
- Conclusion and Recommendations; what should be done in future research based on the findings of the lit review.
- References: Five research-based, scholarly references – no more than five years old, in correct APA 7 format.
The final product should have a properly formatted title page in APA 7 with page numbers, and a complete and correctly formatted references section with hyperlinked dois for each article. The content should be 6-8 pages, not including the title page and references.