Week 2

Literature Review

1. A literature review is a research paper about your topic. Using at least eight (8)

professional (subject matter expert) and/or scholarly references.

2. This section is three to four pages long using a themed (topic sections) presentation

approach with as much detail as possible.

3. Depending on your topic, specific examples or literary support may be difficult to find. In

cases where there is little current research, describe how this was handled.

a. You may need to use a surrogate (somewhat related) topic in order to complete the literature review. For example, improving the ‘needs assessment’ process in

organization XYZ may not yield research results, so you will need to generalize

the topic. Generalizing the topic could may require examining research on the

value of need assessments, the processes associated with needs assessment, or

how to a conduct needs assessment.

The literature review section/paper must include:

4. Provide a concise synopsis of the current literature that establishes the relevance of the

problem.

5. Describe studies related to the constructs of interest and chosen methodology and

methods that are consistent with the scope of the study.

6. Describe ways researchers in the discipline have approached the problem and the

strengths and weakness inherent in their approaches.

7. Justify from the literature the rationale for selection of the variables or concepts.

8. Review and synthesize studies related to the key concepts and/or phenomena under

investigation to produce a description of what is known about them, what is

controversial, and what remains to be studied.

9. Review and synthesize studies related to the research questions and why the approach

selected is meaningful.

10. Concisely summarize major themes in the literature.