Homework answers / question archive / Unit 2: Research in Your Discipline Project: Literature Review Writing Process Schedule: Literature Review Introduction Rough Draft & Method of Organization:  Description: College-level writing emphasizes adding to the academic conversation within a discipline, and the literature review helps you to do that

Unit 2: Research in Your Discipline Project: Literature Review Writing Process Schedule: Literature Review Introduction Rough Draft & Method of Organization:  Description: College-level writing emphasizes adding to the academic conversation within a discipline, and the literature review helps you to do that

Writing

Share With

---

Unit 2: Research in Your Discipline

Project: Literature Review

Writing Process Schedule:

Literature Review Introduction Rough Draft & Method of Organization: 

Description:

College-level writing emphasizes adding to the academic conversation within a discipline, and the literature review helps you to do that. There are many goals of the literature review: early inquiry, focused research, evaluating sources, synthesizing sources, and most importantly, bringing all of these goals together to form a clearer and greater understanding of an issue in your discipline.

 

In a research paper, you use the literature (another word for the sources that you found) as a foundation on which to build your own argument. The focus of a literature review, however, is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions. You will use the sources that you searched for and selected in the researching scholarly sources assignment to explain trends in the discipline, new findings and research, or even gaps in the research for a specific field.

Format:

There is a set format to the literature review genre, but it does vary across disciplines. Throughout this unit, you will find sample literature reviews in your discipline to use as models for your own literature review. In general, literature reviews include the following sections:

 

Introduction:

You will need to explain your research question, important background information about your topic, the context surrounding the issue that you are writing about, and why this topic or issue is important right now in your discipline. You’ll also need to make a statement about the way in which you will be organizing your literature review, and your purpose/aims in writing the literature review.

 

Methods or Methodology:

Your discipline may require that you explain the criteria you used to select the sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed articles and journals, or what databases and key terms you used to find these articles.

 

Thoughtful Organization of the Body of your Literature Review:

Literature reviews rely heavily on the organization. In your literature review, you will not simply introduce each source one at a time, but you will choose a thoughtful organization that groups and showcases both the sources that you have found and the connections that you have made between them.

 

Conclusion:

Wrap-up your literature review by summarizing the main findings of the literature and making a statement about what next steps your discipline should take in the research and/or application of these findings.

Lit Review Requirements:  

You must discuss at least 7 sources (4 of which must be scholarly/peer-reviewed). These can all be from your researching scholarly sources assignment, or you can add new sources to replace the ones you worked with previously. The final draft of your lit review must be formatted in the following way:

• Times New Roman, 12 pt. font
• Double-spaced
• Citations and header/title page in the citation style appropriate for your discipline
• Works cited/reference page in the citation style appropriate for your discipline
• Minimum word count: 1,500 words