Thesis Statement for the Integrative Literature Review

Thesis Statement for your Integrative Literature Review

Literature reviews are one of the most important forms of academic communication.  They should provide a clear, compelling, and detailed overview of a topic.  Many literature reviews begin with a standard essay style introduction including a thesis sentence.  For your introduction this week, please begin with an attention-getting opening statement and a clear demonstration of the value to readers.  If we do not attract people's attention or demonstrate the value of our work, readers will tune out.  Give readers compelling reasons to continue reading.  This rationale will lead to your thesis statement.

Step 1

Our first goal this week is to create the introduction to your paper by identifying your topic, stating its relevance to psychology, and stating your perspective as a thesis statement.  The thesis statement provides the rationale and outline of the subsequent literature review and is found at the end of an introduction.  See below for supporting resources and remember to review the grading rubric for this part of the assignment.

• https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/writing-a-thesis (Links to an external site.)

• https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/thesis-generator (Links to an external site.)
  

Step 2

The second goal is to begin presenting the relevant arguments and evidence.  The body of a general literature review provides a well-organized overview of the field including the primary claims, themes, and key evidence.  It is also important to summarize key methods, limitations, controversies, or contradictory findings from

research reports.  Consider comparing and contrasting the core claims and evidence from each domain, and prepare to give readers a final take home message at the end of the integrative literature review.  You will not know the full message until after reading all of your sources, but in general, conclusions are an inverted version of the introduction, so many of the same ideas from your introduction will be highlighted again in the conclusion.

Organize by domains:  The body of your integrative literature review is first organized by domain. You will have four primary subsections in the body of your paper, one for each domain.  For this week, please use at least one peer reviewed reference and at least one well-developed paragraph per domain. 

As you work towards the final paper, add information to each of these domain specific sections and organize that information by theme, **NOT** by source or author.  In this way, the body of your paper will first be organized by domain and will then be organized by themes within each domain, providing an overall logical structure and story for the paper. 

Your readers do not want to see an article-by-article description of the sources. Instead, each paragraph in a literature review should summarize, compare, and contrast ideas from multiple articles and the in-text citations for these paragraphs often list more than one source.  Remember to start each paragraph with a topic sentence, but almost never start a sentence with a citation or author name.  Readers first want to know about the topic or your discoveries about a topic. The citation information should then appear at the end of the sentence.  Remember, “information first, source second”.  This will help with the overall storytelling in your literature review and will help readers remember the main points.

Critiquing evidence:  When using empirical research, look for numerical evidence as well as verbal claims.  For example, if

researchers discovered that a therapy provides statistically significant relief or improvements in symptoms, mention which symptoms this applies to and report the size of those changes as well.  How much of an improvement is seen?  How many people were in the study? How strongly does the quantitative evidence support the authors’ conclusions?  Quantitative information is typically found in the results section of the paper and key results are often highlighted in the abstract and discussion.   See below for supporting resources and remember to review the grading rubric for this part of the assignment.

• Literature reviews: https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/writing- literature-review (Links to an external site.)

• Critiquing research: https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/writing- article-critique (Links to an external site.)
  

Step 3

Our conclusion provides a final chance to repeat key claims, remind readers of key evidence, and present this as a succinct take-home message.  This is the same method you might use in a presentation where you will “1) tell the audience what you will tell them, 2) tell them, 3) tell them what you told them.” See below for supporting resources and remember to review the grading rubric for this part of the assignment.

• Introductions and Conclusions: https:// writingcenter.uagc.edu/introductions-conclusions (Links to an external site.)

Reminders for the Final Integrative Literature Review: 

Writing is most effective when other people find and read it.  Use the tips below as preparation for your final paper.  You do not need to include a title and abstract this week, but please begin thinking about these final steps which are required in Week 6.

To increase the chance that people will read your paper, create a noteworthy title and abstract.  Readers scan titles to find interesting information, and they read abstracts to gain a quick understanding and to decide if they will read the rest of the paper.  While titles and abstracts are critical, we recommend writing them last.  Once you have written your whole literature review, the title and abstract become your chance to attract a reader’s attention and summarize the message succinctly.

• Tips for Titles: http://writing.umn.edu/sws/quickhelp/process/ titles.html (Links to an external site.)

• Abstracts: https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/writing-abstract