Literature Review

Assignment Prompt:

Choose a topic that you would like to know more about and dive into the academic literature! The purpose of this is to craft a literature review around a research question of interest to you. Once you have decided on a topic and found your sources, complete a 4-6 page literature review following the guidelines below.

Be sure that your literature review accomplishes the following tasks:

1. Clearly explain your research question and why it is important.
2. Briefly describe your theoretical expectation for the research question.
3. Define the critical concepts in your theory and analysis.
4. Carefully describe how you searched for articles (e.g., what keywords you typed into search engines like Lexus-Nexus and Google Scholar)
5. Provide accurate in-text citations for the articles and complete a bibliography in any standardized format that you like (e.g., Chicago, MLA, APA) at the end of the document.
6. Explain the criteria you used to decide if an article was relevant to your question (i.e., make sure that all the articles discussed are germane to the subject!)
7. Carefully and clearly walk the reader through the analysis
8. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the articles that you discuss (articles often use similar approaches, so your assessment may apply to multiple articles
9. Compare and contrast across articles.  Was the evidence used from previous studies convincing?  What picture does it paint of the topic?
10. Assess the ultimate conclusions you reached after this research and whether there is interest in pursuing this question further.

Remember, a good literature review does not only summarize articles, but SYNTHESIZES the lessons from each study to test theories and reach conclusions.

Drafts can be e-mailed for review as long as they are received by Tuesday, February 26, 2018.

For formatting and citation requirements, please review the guidelines found here: (attached)