APA Style Writing: Small-Scale Literature Review Assignment
Small-Scale Literature Review Assignment
A literature review is a descriptive summary of research on a topic that has previously been studied. The purpose of a literature review is to inform readers of the significant knowledge and ideas that have been established on a topic. Its purpose is to compare, contrast and/or connect findings that were identified when reviewing researchers’ work. Oftentimes, literature reviews are written to ground a study in a particular context of what is known about a subject in order to establish a foundation for the topic (or question) being researched. In your journal article assignment, a basic literature review was included.
The purpose of this assignment is to (1) facilitate your abilities to research a topic of study, (2) apply your knowledge of using APA Style-7th Edition skills that you’ve learned in class, (3) analyze information found in educational sources, and (4) synthesize this knowledge into a written small-scale literature review.
Assignment Description:
For this assignment you are asked to complete a small-scale literature review on an educational topic of your choice. You are asked to locate at least 5 sources of information (can include educational journal articles, reports, presentations, dissertations, webinars, online media, webpages/websites) on your topic with at least 3 being different types of sources cited in your paper (for example you could include (1) journal article, (1) website, and (1) government report). You will write a literature review with minimum of 4-5 pages on the sources you’ve selected and include in-text citations and a reference page. Remember to include a title page as well.
Steps to complete your small-scale literature review:
- Develop a draft title page.
- Choose an educational topic and inquiry question area that you are interested in studying (Example-How to support gifted elementary boys to increased engagement in reading?)
- Search for and locate sources on your topic and inquiry question.
- Select at least 5 sources to include in your literature review (using 3 different types of sources).
- Read your sources and begin to sort and classify them according to their findings.
- Organize your sources by sorting and classifying their information in a meaningful way, always considering your original topic and inquiry question.
- Write an outline for your small-scale literature review to help you better organize your thoughts.
- Write your review and finalize your title page.
Components to include in your small-scale literature review:
- Introduction
The introduction is used to establish the context of your review to the reader. To establish the context, it is important to do the following in this opening paragraph:
- Define the topic of your study and provide any background information that helps your reader to understand the topic.
- Explain your reason (perspective) for reviewing the literature on this topic.
- State your inquiry question for this review.
- Body
This section of your paper begins with an explanation of how you have organized your small-scale literature review and describes findings from sources that provide answers to your inquiry question. Before you begin this section, be sure that you have sorted your sources into different themes based on the articles’ findings (sometimes called results). After you sort your sources, it is important to give your sorted groups a descriptive name which will become your APA Style 7th Edition headings for each of the paragraphs that you write in the body of your review. To write the body of your small-scale literature review, it is important to include the following:
- Write an introduction paragraph for the body of your review. This paragraph tells the reader specific information on how many sources you reviewed and how you sorted the articles into common themes (identified by APA Style Headings) based on the findings (results).
- This will be a paragraph that describes the first theme (can be multiple sources included in one theme) that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the sources you’ve selected.
- You will develop a paragraph for each remaining theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the sources you’ve selected.
- Summary
This is the last paragraph of your small-scale literature review. In this paragraph, it is important to summarize the main findings from the sources that you reviewed and to point out the information that you found particularly important to know that answered the inquiry question that you established in the first paragraph of your review. Try to conclude your paper by connecting your inquiry question back to the context of the general topic of study.
- References
This is the last page of your review. It serves as a listing of all references that you mentioned in your paper. Please use APA style 7th Edition when completing this list.
** BE AWARE THAT YOU ARE SUBMITTING THIS DOCUMENT THROUGH TURNITIN TO CHECK FOR AI AND PLAGIARISM. YOUR SCORE NEEDS TO BE LESS THAN 30% TO BE ACCEPTED. IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN 30% YOU WILL NEED TO PARAPHRASE INFORMATION INTO YOUR OWN WORDS.
Small-Scale Literature Review Assignment Grading Rubric
