Apa Papers Literature Review Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

The format of a review of literature may vary from discipline to discipline and from assignment to assignment. A review may be a self contained unit an end in itself or a preface to and rationale for engaging in primary research. A review is a required part of grant and research proposals and often a chapter in theses and dissertations.

Generally, the purpose of a review is to analyze critically a segment of a published body of knowledge through summary, classification, and comparison of prior research studies, reviews of literature, and theoretical articles. In the introduction, you should: define or identify the general topic, issue, or area of concern, thus providing an appropriate context for reviewing the literature. Point out overall trends in what has been published about the topic or conflicts in theory, methodology, evidence, and conclusions or gaps in research and scholarship or a single problem or new perspective of immediate interest. Establish the writer's reason point of view for reviewing the literature explain the criteria to be used in analyzing and comparing literature and the organization of the review sequence and, when necessary, state why certain literature is or is not included scope. Group research studies and other types of literature reviews, theoretical articles, case studies, etc. According to common denominators such as qualitative versus quantitative approaches, conclusions of authors, specific purpose or objective, chronology, etc.

Summarize individual studies or articles with as much or as little detail as each merits according to its comparative importance in the literature, remembering that space length denotes significance. Provide the reader with strong umbrella sentences at beginnings of paragraphs, signposts throughout, and brief so what summary sentences at intermediate points in the review to aid in understanding comparisons and analyses. Last updated: november 21, 2014 note: for these guidelines, in some sections i have quoted directly some of the the steps from: galvan, j. 2006. writing literature reviews: a guide for students of the behavioral sciences 3rd ed. Glendale, ca: pyrczak publishing. a literature review is not an annotated bibliography in which you summarize briefly each article that you have reviewed.

While a summary of the what you have read is contained within the literature review, it goes well beyond merely summarizing professional literature. It focuses on a specific topic of interest to you and includes a critical analysis of the relationship among different works, and relating this research to your work. It may be written as a stand alone paper or to provide a theoretical framework and rationale for a research study such as a thesis or dissertation. Galvan outlines a very clear, step by step approach that is very useful to use as you write your review. I have integrated some other tips within this guide, particularly in suggesting different technology tools that you might want to consider in helping you organize your review. In the sections from step 6 9 what i have included is the outline of those steps exactly as described by galvan.

I also provide links at the end of this guide to resources that you should use in order to search the literature and as you write your review. It will help you considerably if your topic for your literature review is the one on which you intend to do your final m.ed.

    familiarize yourself with online databases see umd library resource links below for help with this , identifying relevant databases in your field of study. Using relevant databases, search for literature sources using google scholar and also searching using furl search all sources, including the furl accounts of other furl members.
      start with a general descriptor from the database thesaurus or one that you know is already a well defined descriptor based on past work that you have done in this field.

      You will need to experiment with different searches, such as limiting your search to descriptors that appear only in the document titles, or in both the document title and in the abstract. Redefine your topic if needed: as you search you will quickly find out if the topic that you are reviewing is too broad. Try to narrow it to a specific area of interest within the broad area that you have chosen remember: this is merely an introductory literature review for educ 7001.

      It is a good idea, as part of your literature search, to look for existing literature reviews that have already been written on this topic. As part of your search, be sure to identify landmark or classic studies and theorists as these provide you with a framework/context for your study.

    import your references into your refworks account see: refworks import directions for guide on how to do this from different databases.

    Once you have identified and located the articles for your review, you need to analyze them and organize them before you begin writing:

      overview the articles. Skim the articles to get an idea of the general purpose and content of the article focus your reading here on the abstract, introduction and first few paragraphs, the conclusion of each article. Tip: as you skim the articles, you may want to record the notes that you take on each directly into refworks in the box for user 1. You can take notes onto note cards or into a word processing document instead or as well as using refworks, but having your notes in refworks makes it easy to organize your notes later. You can record the topics in the same box as before user 1 or use user 2 box for the topic s under which you have chosen to place this article.
        decide on the format in which you will take notes as you read the articles as mentioned above, you can do this in refworks. You can also do this using a word processor, or a concept mapping program like inspiration free 30 trial download , a data base program e.g.

        Access or file maker pro , in an excel spreadsheet, or the old fashioned way of using note cards. Define key terms: look for differences in the way keys terms are defined note these differences. If you copy the exact words from an article, be sure to cite the page number as you will need this should you decide to use the quote when you write your review as direct quotes must always be accompanied by page references.

        To ensure that you have quoted accurately and to save time in note taking , if you are accessing the article in a format that allows this, you can copy and paste using your computer edit gt copy gt paste functions. Note: although you may collect a large number of quotes during the note taking phase of your review, when you write the review, use quotes very sparingly. The rule i follow is to quote only when when some key meaning would be lost in translation if i were to paraphrase the original author's words, or if using the original words adds special emphasis to a point that i am making. Note emphases, strengths amp weaknesses: since different research studies focus on different aspects of the issue being studied, each article that you read will have different emphases, strengths.

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        Your role as a reviewer is to evaluate what you read, so that your review is not a mere description of different articles, but rather a critical analysis that makes sense of the collection of articles that you are reviewing. Critique the research methodologies used in the studies, and distinguish between assertions the author's opinion and actual research findings derived from empirical evidence. Identify major trends or patterns: as you read a range of articles on your topic, you should make note of trends and patterns over time as reported in the literature. This step requires you to synthesize and make sense of what you read, since these patterns and trends may not be spelled out in the literature, but rather become apparent to you as you review the big picture that has emerged over time. Your analysis can make generalizations across a majority of studies, but should also note inconsistencies across studies and over time. Identify gaps in the literature, and reflect on why these might exist based on the understandings that you have gained by reading literature in this field of study.