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SOCW 3350—Spring 2022—Detailed Instructions for the Literature Review Paper

The final version of your 5-7 page literature review paper (worth 20% of your course grade) is to be submitted electronically in Blackboard Learn, and is due by 11:59PM on Sunday, March 13th. You will FIRST submit a DRAFT of this Literature Review for a PEER to Review by Feb 27th (and you will review a Peer’s by March 6th).A Literature Review tells a “story” about the information you uncover during your electronic database searches. Electronic databases such as PsycINFO, Medline/PubMed, Social Work Abstracts, and SocINDEX (all located within Academic Search Complete) may be very helpful to you as you perform the database searches necessary to complete your review.

As examples, previous students have written literature reviews related to the following research topics:

•  Adverse Child Experiences (ACE)-toxic stress and adult depression
•  Male sex workers and risky sexual behavior
•  Childhood trauma-sexual and adult high-risk sexual behavior
•  U.S. Veterans and PTSD treatment interventions
•  Foster Care and educational attainment
•  ACE-parental incarceration and negative social behaviors (childhood bullying)
•  Access to healthcare and mental health diagnoses
•  Childhood trauma-physical and adult substance use disorders

Throughout this paper, you will have an opportunity to demonstrate the range of knowledge, skills, and cognitive processes (logic/critical thinking) you have acquired through this course in terms of 2015 EPAS Competency #4—Engage in practice-informed research and research-informed practice. Remember, research topics are often very broad and that your papers will need to be sufficiently detailed to analyze and summarize the available peer-reviewed literature. In grading your papers, I will also be looking for evidence that you are actively engaged with the primary source material (peer-reviewed articles) from electronic databases.

As a rule of thumb, you should have at least two peer-reviewed articles per page of text (see below). You should NOT use quoted material. No Quotes. This does not mean that the paper is a listing of research article summaries, rather you should endeavor to write a paper that is cohesive and topical, using the research you are citing to substantiate the ideas and findings of previous work.

Make sure to emphasize the following in your literature review:

• Brief description of the population(s) affected or of interest (Who are the people within your population of interest? How many? Risk factors? Relevant historical, biological, psychological, cultural, political, and social influences on the population/research topic?) (Maximum 1 page) --- Ask yourself WHO were they studying and why is it that these persons are linked to your research topic or working research question.
• Detailed descriptions and definitions of key variables (at least address those in your working research question or implied by your research topic) and how and with whom these variables have been studied in the past, as well as instruments used to measure these variables (STUDY DESIGN, METHODS, SAMPLES).

(Minimum 2 pages) ---Ask yourself what were they measuring and how did they measure it.

• Detailed descriptions of the evidence of program or intervention efficacy, effectiveness, results, or “best practices” (RESULTS) from research/evaluation studies AND how does this impact what is known about your research topic or working research question. (RESULTS, DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION) (Minimum 2 pages) ---Ask yourself what did the researchers find out and describe their findings related to your research topic or working research question.
• Your paper should be 5-7 pages in length, double-spaced, and use 12-point Times New Roman font and 1-inch margins.
• Every paper should have an APA 7th edition style title page and reference page; however, they are not included in the overall paper length.
• A “rule of thumb” is at least two individual (unique) peer-reviewed literature sources per page of text. Therefore, your paper should use at least 10 peer-reviewed articles. (Government and other sources will not count towards this number.)
• You should use APA 7th edition style and carefully edit so that the paper is free of grammar, syntax, and typographical errors. Paraphrase! Your paper should not use direct quotes. Papers containing plagiarism will receive a “0” (see syllabus for additional details).

Rubric (100 points total)

Paper Content (90 points)

• Good (75-90 points):
  • Research topic is well-described using peer-reviewed articles;
  • Paper provides a strong introduction/background to the selected aspect or dimension of the selected research topic;
  • Paper provides a thoughtful, critical analysis of information available in the peer-reviewed literature;
  • Paper synthesizes the information from the articles such that this is NOT just a list of article summaries;
  • Paper leads to a RESEARCH QUESTION; and
  • Paper meets minimum length of five (5) pages, not including title and reference pages. Paper must have 1-inch margins and conform to other APA elements (in text citations, references, headers, etc).
• No grammar errors or typos, CLEARLY HAD SOMEONE PROOF READ BEFORE SUBMISSION
• Average (74 points maximum):
• Review provides only surface-level (superficial) details on an aspect or dimension of the research topic using mostly scientific/government websites, books, and other materials rather than peer-reviewed articles;
• Paper only provides an introduction/background, but the information is not well-researched or cited;
• Paper provides a some analysis of information and responses to research questions, but the analysis may not be thorough and detailed enough to provide a solid response to one or more of the research questions;
• Paper reads like a list of article summaries,
• Paper may or may not meet minimum length of 5 pages.
• Poor (55 points maximum)
  • Review is not appropriate or applicable to the selected research topic and contains very few or no citations from peer-reviewed literature;
  • Paper clearly lacks editing in terms of outlining evidence of research, critical thinking, and analysis; or
  • Paper does not meet minimum length of 5 pages.