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SLP Assignment
What Is a Literature Review?
A Literature Review is "a systematic, explicit, and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing the existing body of completed and recorded work produced by researchers, scholars, and practitioners."
- From Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From Internet to Paper, by Arlene Fink, 2nd ed. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, 2005
Scholars often write literature reviews to provide an overview of the most significant recent literature published on a topic. They also use literature reviews to trace the evolution of certain debates or intellectual problems within a field. Even if a literature review is not a formal part of a research project, students should conduct an informal one so that they know what kind of scholarly work has been done previously on the topic that they have selected.
How Is a Literature Review Different from a Research Paper?
An academic research paper attempts to develop a new argument, and typically has a literature review as one of its parts. In a research paper, the author uses the literature review to show how his or her new insights build upon and depart from existing scholarship. A literature review by itself does not try to make a new argument based on original research, but rather summarizes, synthesizes, and critiques the arguments and ideas of others, and points to gaps in the current literature. Before writing a literature review, a student should look for a model from a relevant journal or ask the instructor to point to a good example.
Picking a Topic
First, the writer needs to pick an academic topic that she finds compelling. Second, the topic should be relatively narrow so that it does not overwhelm the writer. For example, the literature on the causes of the U.S. Civil War is much too vast for a short review essay. A review of recent scholarship published on the economic impact of secession on the Confederacy is probably narrow enough for a relatively short essay. In most cases, students will need to clear a topic with the instructor before proceeding to make sure that it is a relevant topic of the proper scope.
Finding Relevant Literature
In order to find relevant and trustworthy sources, we will access the electronic databases in the Trident Library. Review the video tutorials on the SUMMON database tool. Use the Boolean search strategies that you learned in Module 1 to refine your search. Reference the materials in Module 2 on critiquing research articles to identify relevant peer-reviewed articles.
SLP Assignment Expectations
Search the Trident library database and find 20 articles that seem relevant to your specific research topic. List the articles below in APA format. Use the tools in the earlier lessons to automate your formatting.