Literature Review

Drafting the Lit Review - Helpful Tips

Helpful tips regarding the Lit Review Paper:  Please read through the end carefully!

Just a reminder that the lit review section (Review of the Literature heading) of your paper should be organized by themes (threads) that you have chosen for your paper based on the main ideas found within all of the literature that you reviewed in regards to your research question.  They are the main points that you have noticed your sources discussing in relation to your research question. Two themes should be used for this paper (please do not use more than two themes).  You must use these as Level 2 headings within your paper, and you can see how this is set up within the Student Sample papers.  You should have three sources (their findings) to review under each theme  to provide a thorough review of the literature and to show similarities/differences within the literature you found.  Each review of the findings of the source must be in detail and list all of the findings within the article in relation to the research question, not just one or two sentences.  Your readers should be able to get a good sense of what the particular sources you've found in your lit searches have written about in relation to your research question, along with making those important connections between the sources so show similarities and differences within the findings.  

For example, if I was writing on the nursing shortage and my research question was "What are the factors that contribute to the nursing shortage?" I would then look at my Annotated Bibliography to see what all of my sources said about this particular question.  Then I would choose the top two factors (themes) that all authors stated about this research question.  Let's say out of all of my sources that I reviewed, the top factors that contribute to the nursing shortage that all authors talked about in answer to my research question was:  1. Faculty Shortage  2. Nurse Burnout/Dissatisfaction.  Those two themes would actually become the Level 2 headings underneath the Review of the Literature Section of my paper (see student sample).  Then, within each heading, I would review the sources that mentioned something about each particular theme under that heading.  I would review their studies (their purpose in only one or two sentences maximum!) and the findings in detail using paraphrases and summaries and some quotations regarding what each author had to say under that particular theme/heading. You should have a mixture of paraphrases, quotes and summary in your paper, with more weight leaning towards paraphrasing as that is preferred by APA.  Avoid over-quoting in your paper. Your reader should get a good sense of what the literature out there says about this particular theme and the connections (similarities/differences) between the sources.  Do not copy from your Annotated Bibliography, as that is considered self-plagiarism, but you can certainly refer to it to help you weave together the main points from the articles to show readers a glimpse into what the literature has to say about the particular theme.  Remember, in the literature review section, you are reviewing what the literature/authors stated on the issue only in relation to your research question, and you should be paraphrasing often and quoting some, too, by bringing in examples from the texts.

You should also be showing connections between your sources as you are reviewing them, using Transitional Devices to link and transition into new paragraphs (words like: in addition, further, moreover, similarly, in contrast, etc.)  You must cite everything that you take from the sources.  Direct quotes should include a page number citation.  Keep in mind that it is not enough to just have a citation at the beginning or the end of a paragraph in APA.  You will be citing often in this section of the paper since you're reviewing other sources so don't worry about having too many citations here -- it really is just a convention of APA Style. 

In a formal paper in APA, you should not use the first-person "I" in the Review of the Literature or other personal pronouns such as "me, we, us, our, etc.."  Many professors in the program do not allow the use of personal pronouns in the paper and most scholarly sources avoid this as well.  Just remember that your reader knows it's you talking as it's your paper, so there really is no reason to use "I" in formal writing.  I would encourage you to start practicing this now in this class as you will most likely run into this later in the program. 

In the Review of the Literature section, you should review only the articles related to that theme within that section of your paper. Please see the student sample and how it is set up with headings so that you can follow that structure.  In other words, you may not use all five of your sources in your review section, especially if one source does not fit within a theme you selected, though you most likely could use the source in your introduction or some other area of your paper like the Discussion section.  You may only end up with four sources on your final lit review, or you may need to find another source, and that is just fine.  You must use at least 4 sources for this lit review.   You should have three sources to review for each theme.  Again, you might have one source that doesn't fit within one of your themes, but it could be used in the introduction of your paper to show the history/background of the problem and to show the importance of the issue;  these are all items that should be part of the introduction so don't skimp on the intro! Keep quotes to a minimum in the introduction, but providing a surprising statistic or a really good short quote about your topic is often effective in the introduction of the paper to help provide some context for the rest of the paper and to demonstrate the importance of your topic.  (Refer back to your APA manual for how to write effective introductions). 

Very Important:  Please be careful about paraphrasing your sources and remember  anytime you use even a string of even three or four words exactly from the text you must put the words in quotation marks and cite the author/date and the page number of where you found the source.   If you completely paraphrase or summarize in your own words, you should not include the page number.  Also watch for patchwork phrasing as this is considered plagiarism (See the University of Wisconsin Handout on Acknowledging sources).

Please take a look at the student example Lit Review with my notes on it, please do so to help you with the formatting of your paper.  Your paper should have these sections: An introductory paragraph (no heading is used for the introduction though in APA), a Methods section (how you went about searching in the databases for your articles, what years you limited your articles to, etc.) your Review of the Literature section (a Level 1 heading) and then your subheadings/themes (Level 2 headings) with all of your sources reviewed for your reader, a Discussion/Recommendations section (you can separate these two if you'd like) and finally a short Conclusion. If you take a look at the student sample, you will be able to see how these headings are set up.  Below is a basic outline of the headings.  Level 1 headings are centered and in bold and each word besides those three letters or less would be capitalized.  Level 2 headings (your themes) are flush to the left Margin, in bold and capitalized.  There is no heading for the introduction -- you just note your title again and then indent for new paragraphs for the introduction.  It would look something like the following (and again see the student sample for more details).

 

                    Title of Your Paper Centered on Line One of Page Two (not in bold)

      Your introductory paragraphs (indent all paragraphs) would come next.  See the section on writing introductions in the APA manual, but you should be providing the background of your topic, any important statistics that might show the importance of it, and then noting the research question that prompted your lit search in the first place or a sentence about the purpose of the paper for readers.

                                                                Methods

                                                Review of the Literature

Theme 1

Theme 2

                                              Discussion/Recommendations

                                                                  Conclusion

                                                                  References  (this begins on a new page)

 All papers should include recommendations either within the Discussion heading or in its own heading.  You should include your table as part of the Lit Review under the Methods section and be sure to title it and refer your reader to it.  Just remember everything in APA should be double spaced.  The title of your paper should only be 12 words long in APA and the Running head can be no more than 50 characters, including spaces. Each introduction should provide the necessary background and context for the issue you've chosen and be thorough and the research question that prompted your search in the first place so that the reader can see the importance of the topic and your main focus for the review.   See the Lit Review Rubric as well for help with this and in writing the Discussion section of your paper.  There are some questions on the rubric that you should answer that will help you write the Discussion section.

IMPORTANT:  You should have a variety of summaries/paraphrases and quotes from all of the sources related to a particular theme for each section of the review part of your paper. You wouldn't use many quotes in your discussion section or in your conclusion, because this is your place to synthesize and analyze (critique) the literature on your own. Be sure to use signal phrases before every quote to introduce it (you never want to start a sentence with quotation marks) and cite all of your sources correctly in APA format.  Remember to include author/date/page number for a direct quote and only the author/date for a paraphrase and summary. **** Please remember that even a string of even three or four words copied directly from a source must be placed in quotation marks and cited with the page number .  A paraphrase is more than just changing a few words around -- it is a complete change of wording/structure.  This is very important to avoid plagiarism. You might also want to review the Video/PowerPoint on Integrating Sources that is within Panopto Recordings and take a look at the section on patchwork phrasing as noted above in the handout "Acknowledging Sources" from the University of Wisconsin to avoid doing this in your paper.  Don't forget the UWC Online is there to review your papers as well and provide you help along the way if you need more help citing your sources!