Literature Review

Assignment prompt for English 201

Assignment: Literature review using recent articles.

Audience: You are preparing this literature review for an academic audience, though not one that is necessarily familiar with your topic.

Choose an area of interest to focus on• Become familiar with the academic sources in an analytical manner• Identify themes or trends that emerge through our search of the literature• Communicate your findings in an academic tone•

Goal: Your task is to accomplish the following items:

Provide background that discusses the issue, problem, or question (the context) of why scholars are writing

•

Synthesize across the sources you have examined, highlighting themes, similarities, expansions, differences, or combinations of each

•

Highlight important differences among sources•

Has the review sparked questions about the field?○ Does the review point to gaps in the research?○ Does the review suggest future areas of study?○

Describe the conclusions you can draw from this examination of similarities/differences between these sources

•

Your essay should:

Literature Review Literature review can be understood as a critical analysis of a segment of a published body of knowledge through summary, classification, analysis, and comparison of prior research studies, reviews of literatures, and theoretical articles.

This makes it different from the annotated bibliography that you have created, because you are moving beyond summary of the individual sources to an examination of the group of sources to examine how the they are similar, how they are different, and what they mean when taken collectively. What are they saying about the topic?

Outline As I mentioned in class, I will give you a little more process type instruction, but please do not copy this outline. This is just an idea to get you started. You are in control of your rhetoric and the construction of your essay. Demonstrate that you can think outside of the outline provided below. Demonstrate that you can wield the powerful hammer of rhetoric!

Should explain why you are writing the review and make a claim about the current state of the literature (try to capture the trends debates, and gaps)

a.

Your introduction should end with a claim and a statement of the objectives for the paper or literature review

b.

Introduction1.

Should combine both summary and synthesisa. Organize by common denominators among sources (for example, themes)b. Use evidence and examples and provide plenty of detailsc.

Body2.

Literature Review

Major Assignments Page 1

Use evidence and examples and provide plenty of detailsc. Reference the sources you have gathered (MLA or APA format)d. Make connections about each sources is having a conversation about the topic at hand (remember, you need to write what they mean)

e.

Has the review sparked questions about the field? Does the review point to gaps in the research? Does the review suggest future areas of study?

Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing the literature thus fara. Conclusion3.

This assignment should be about 4-8 pages double-spaced • Times New Roman , 12-point font • Proper headings and page numbers• Title• In-text citations (MLA or APA)• Reference or Works Cited page •

Requirements

Major Assignments Page 2