Lit Review Overview

1. The Pesky
Literature Review

2. Requirements & Dates
Length: 4-5 pages
Format: APA format
Library Day: Thursday, May 12
First Draft : Sunday, May 22
Final Draft: Wednesday, May 25
The Literature Review consists of:
 an introduction
 summary of scholarly sources
 a discussion and evaluation of the sources
(including disputes and disagreements)
 conclusion in which you put forth your own
potential original research questions that will
contribute something new to the conversation.
 Five scholarly, peer-reviewed sources (2 must be
2013 or newer)

3. So… What Is It?

4. What is it NOT?
1
• NOT a standard essay/research
paper(it may be part of a larger paper)
2
• NOT state or prove your main
point(that will be your ORA)
3
• NOT a Annotated Bibliography

5. What it IS:
3
Relationships between those snapshots
2
Reviewed = snapshot (major concepts, points, whatever)
1
Major works that have been published about your narrowed topic

6. The Purpose:
1
• To improve your own understanding
2
• Demonstrate your knowledge
3
• Bring your reader up to date (fill them in!)

7. Organizing your
Literature Review

8. Techniques
• Organize by date, decade, timeline (legal structures of
juries in America)Chronological
• From beginning to present, major advancements in the
field (DNA technology)Advancements
• Organize by area (juveniles tried as adults, race in
sentencing)Geographical
• What are the major questions in relationship to this topic
that have been addressed by researchers through the
years? (find this through research)
Questions

9. Structure (See your Outline)
Introduction
• Overall Topic
• Big Picture
• Narrow research
question
Theme A
• Overview
• Sub-themes
Theme B
• Overview
• Subthemes
Conclusion
(Discussion &
Evaluation)
• Contributions
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Missing?
• Next Steps
• Relation to Serial

10. Writing Process

11. Where do you start?
• Research. Gather scholarly articles and book chapters. Collect
more than you need.Collect
• Don’t read them. Scan the titles, abstract, headings, intro and
conclusion to assess possible usefulness. See what’s happening.
Get rid of what you don’t need. Then read what you need.
Analyze
• Figure out what kind of pattern happens with your sources.
Make an outline by organizational pattern.Arrange
• Summarize the literature. Pull together the connections
between the literature and make them clear to your reader. This
is synthesis. Discuss strengths and weaknesses of the literature.
Summarize&
Synthesize

12. Scholarly Articles
1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
› Introducing the problem
› Literature Review
› Purpose, rationale, and hypothesis
4. Methods
5. Results
6. Discussion
7. References

13. The 7-minute Challenge
Scan your journal article.
› Read the title
› Read the abstract
› Read the introduction, the headings, the first and last
sentence of every paragraph and the conclusion
 Summarize
 What is the research question?
 Key ideas and concepts?
 What did you find that wasn’t in the abstract?
 What is the conclusion?
 Useful/not useful?

14. Practice!
Based on the ridiculous abstracts,
identify potential patterns of
organization.