I. Thinking About Your Literature Review Show
The structure of a literature review should include the following:
The critical evaluation of each work should consider:
II. The Development of the Literature Review Four stages: 1. Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not very specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1. Roughly how many sources
should I include? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature reviews. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make your job easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the HOMER catalog for books about the topic and review their contents for chapters that focus on more specific issues. You can also review the subject indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is very common in the sciences where research conducted only two years ago could be obsolete. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be what is needed because what is important is how perspectives have changed over the years or within a certain time period. Try sorting through some other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to consider what is consider by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not. III. Ways to Organize Your Literature
Review Chronological of Events By Publication Thematic (“conceptual categories”) Methodological Other Sections of Your Literature Review Here are examples of other sections you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:
IV. Writing Your Literature Review Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues. Use Evidence Be Selective Use Quotes Sparingly Summarize and Synthesize Keep Your Own Voice Use Caution When Paraphrasing V. Common Mistakes to Avoid The most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature are that the researcher:
All contect is from The Literature Review created by Dr. Robert Larabee. Which of the following developments helped explain the change in agriculture depicted in the graph?Which of the following developments helps to explain the change in agriculture depicted in the graph? The extraction of western resources led to the growth of new towns and cities that demanded agricultural goods.
Which of the following pieces of evidence would most directly support the argument that a woman's role was in the private sphere?Which of the following pieces of evidence would reinforce the argument that a woman's role was in the private sphere? Consumer advertisements from the 1950s.
What US foreign policy action was most directly influenced by the events from the excerpt?What U.S. foreign policy action was most directly influenced by the events from the excerpt? The Louisiana Purchase.
Which of the following best describes the historical situation in the 1960s that prompted?Which of the following best describes the historic situation in the 1960s that prompted the emergence of social and political reform movements such as the Black Panther Party? The United States became increasingly divided as conflicts within and between liberal and conservative movements intensified.
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