Literature Review Paper

Literature Review Paper

This will prepare you for your final presentation.

Of all that we have studied so far in this class, what topic has interested you the most? The purpose of this assignment is to conduct a review of the literature that currently exists on the topic you have chosen. The review must include at least four research articles from peer-reviewed journals that pertain to your topic. You will likely need to supplement your literature review with additional materials (examples from the book). This assignment also provides you an opportunity to continue mastering your use of the American Psychological Association (APA) publication guidelines for proper citation of sources, to show that your thoughts and ideas are based on experts and research (not fake news).

REMEMBER WE HAVE THE LIBRARY LINK FOR FREE: http://www.sdmiramar.edu/library/
(Links to an external site.)

Access to thousands of full studies for free. Make sure you filter “Academic Journals” on the left-hand side. So easy to search and citations are done for you if you know how to find them. Hint: look to the right of the publication, hit “cite” and click on “APA” for formatting. I guess those are more like directions rather than a hint 🙂 *Be sure you check formatting once you copy and paste (TNR, double space and hanging indents).

Basic outline for the literature review:

Introduction to the topic (about 2 paragraphs in length)
What is the area of interest?
Describe the scope of the problem (i.e., who is affected by the problem?).
Why is this an important problem to study? Does it have cultural, societal, etc. impacts? Will it change people’s lives for the better? etc.

2) Review of the journal articles (about 1-2 paragraphs for each publication)

In this section, you should synthesize and evaluate the information you have gained from reading the journal articles you chose. You must include a minimum of four research articles. Articles should be published within the last five years and never more than 10 years old. Research studies should always be referred to in the past tense as they have already been completed.

Write this in your own words, citing properly throughout (Last Name, year). “For direct quotes” (Last Name, year, p. #)

If you are new to article summaries:

Make sure the research articles you are using are full-length articles and not just abstracts.
This should read like a paper, not bullet points.
Summaries should include: the purpose of the journal article (i.e., hypothesis, objective, or research question). The type of research design used? (i.e., qualitative, quantitative, survey, evaluative, single-subject). How the variables were measured. Date data were collected (should not be more than 10 years previous). What type of sampling method the authors used (how many people, how diverse, how they solicited them, etc.). What the study’s findings were. The study’s problems or limitations.

3) Summary of material across the articles (about 2 paragraphs in length):

Overall, what can you say is known about this topic? Summarize and integrate the knowledge in brief. Is there general agreement among the authors of these journal articles? Are themes emerging? If there is disagreement, what were some possible reasons for this? What is still unknown about your topic; how does this lead to your proposed study?

4) If you could look into this further, what would you do?

Propose a study of your own. What would you do and what would you hope to learn. Make a hypothesis (guess) about the results. Use the articles you chose to review as guides. Look on Canvas for more examples as well.

5) Reference Page (annotations not necessary since reviews are in paper).

Formatting requirements:

Your paper should be double-spaced, in 12-point font, using Times New Roman font with pages numbered. Your paper should be 1,000 – 1,750 words in length, excluding your reference page and title page.
Follow the American Psychological Association (APA) publication guidelines for this assignment. Using the APA publication guide, include a reference page for all of the journal articles used in your literature review,
Points will be deducted for citation, punctuation, spelling, or grammatical errors.

Resources:

Additional information about APA citation of sources can be found on the Purdue OWL Writing Lab: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
(Links to an external site.)
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See sample papers on Canvas
See peer videos on finding credible sources, citing in a paper, etc.