Literature Review
The purpose of this assignment is to give students an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of APA writing style and their ability to write a coherent paper. Students also gain a couple of additional benefits from this assignment:
1.Less stress at the end of the semester: by writing the literature reviewnow, you will get a major section of the paper written early.
2.A chance to improve the quality of your paper before turning in a final copy: You will be able to use feedback from this assignment to make revisions to your literature review before the final proposal is turned in.
Remember, this literature review will make up the majority of your introduction for the final research proposal. Take the time and effort to try to turn in as high-quality a paper as possible!
What is a literature review?
A literature review is a broad overview and summary of a particular topic. For this class, you will be reviewing a topic related to psychology. For your literature review, it is important to choose a topic that is not too broad (i.e. gender differences in all types of psychopathology) and not too narrow (i.e. gender differences in a specific symptom of depression in women from a certain country). You will need to summarize, compare and contrast and evaluate the literature that exists on your topic and identify a gap in the research that can serve as the foundation for your final research proposal.
Where do I find literature to review/what should be included in a literature review?
You will need to include only peer-reviewed articles in your literature review. This means you will need to use empirical, scholarly sources to find articles (i.e. the library, not Wikipedia or google). Different sources you can use are summarized in the textbook in Chapter 2 under the heading “Exploring Past Research”.
How do I summarize the literature?
I highly recommend you read the introductions of several research articles to get a feel for how literature reviews are written. Your literature review should consist mostly of your own words and ideas. You should only use direct quotes of articles to define a key word or concept, use significant phrases, or because the way that the authors stated a concept is the only way to describe it in a meaningful way. Mostly, you will be paraphrasing articles you review. Paraphrasing involves summarizing and restating a point from another article while providing a citation.
Below are some example questions that you might want to answer in your literature review. The literature review that you turn in should be in paragraph format, just as you would see in a final paper.
Background on each study
Why did they do this study?
What were they expecting to find, and why?
What did they actually find?
Were there any limitations of this study?
What is important about these findings in the context of your study?
(Transition to next study)
(Repeat these questions for each study)
Tying it all togetherSYNTHESIZE
What are the gaps/inconsistencies in this body of research based on your review of all of these articles?
Why are these gaps/inconsistencies important?
How will your study help fill these gaps?
How should my literature review be structured?
Literature reviews should not be simply a list of articles with no organization or bigger meaning. Instead, they should be structured in a way that tells a story. You tell a story about the topic you are interested in by synthesizing or summarizing all the knowledge you’ve come across in a useful way. The next page outlines the general structure of a literature review.
How do I cite literature and provide references?
Please reference the APA publication manual (7th edition) for full APA formatting guidelines (title page, references, and in-text citations). However, your textbook provides all of the information you will need, as well. I highly recommend reading Appendix A while writing your literature review and full research proposal. This appendix reviews each piece of a research proposal, citation styles, formatting a reference list, and provides a sample paper as an example.
In text citations in APA format can look as follows:
- “Camden, Wallace, and Miller (2020) examined the relationship between….”
- “Prior research has examined the relationship between….(Camden, Wallace, & Miller, 2020).”
You will need touse in-text citations to cite ANY and ALL information that you use from other sources (even if you do not use a direct quotation). You need to use a minimum of sevenprimary peer-reviewed sources (this means peer-reviewed journal articles and does not include books, magazine articles, or websites). For all sources that you cite in-text, you should also include the full citation in the References section.
| Introduction | – introduce the topic you will be reviewing and explain why it is important
– briefly introduce any theories that are relevant to your topic – provide any key definitions about the psychological constructs/ideas you will be reviewing – give a brief outline of the structure of the body paragraphs (i.e. I will first summarize literature that examines whether X causes Y, then alternative theories of the cause of Y, and finally, I will review the influence of gender on Y) |
| Body | – will consist of multiple paragraphs
– should follow the outline you provided in the introductory paragraph – should describe the findings of articles you found, compare findings of different studies, address the limitations of studies or highlight inconsistencies between studies, and summarize any consensus in the field – each paragraph should have a strong topic/introductory sentence |
| Conclusion | – summarizes overall take home understanding of the literature
– points out what gaps exist in the literature – briefly mention, again, why this topic is important or why it is significant to understand this topic |
| References | – all references should be listed in APA format
– references should be listed on a separate page |
General structure of a literature review
Deliverables for this assignment:
- Title Page
- Literature Review (4-5 pages long, not including the title page)
- References Page (must use at least 7peer-reviewed references)
See the Literature Review Grading Rubric on the next page for more detailed information on the requirements for this assignment and how it will be graded. Feel free to email me if I can help you in any way or answer questions you have about this assignment.
Literature Review Grading Rubric
| Grading Criteria | Your Points | Possible Points |
|
Title Page
Title (centered on page) Name (centered on page) Institution (centered on page) Running head (in header on all pages) Page numbers (in header on all pages)
|
10 |
|
|
Literature Review: Content
Summarizes relevant main ideas of each source clearly Explains results of each source accurately Sources are presented in an organized, logical way Uses clear and precise writing style Integrates all sources and gives an overall summary of the literature review
|
40 |
|
|
Literature Review: Style (APA Format)
Title (centered on first line of main body) Correct use of APA in-text citations APA-style margins and font 4-5 pages (not including title and references) |
15 |
|
|
References
Referencestitle (centered on first line) Hanging indentions Alphabetical order Correct use of APA formatting for each reference
|
20 |
|
|
Use of at least 7 sources from peer-reviewed journal articles
|
15 |
|
| Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation | 10 | |
| Total Points | 110 |
