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Literature Review
Brief Overview of Unit 7 Literature Review Assignment:
Take the information you outlined in your annotated bibliography and expand your thinking into a fuller literature review on your topic. Essentially, you will be adding some context to your Unit 3 work in the form of an introduction and conclusion, fleshing out some of the thinking you’ve already done in your annotated bibliography (adding in more critical thinking/insights, and supportive references), transition between these sections, and get practice constructing a full paper in APA format.
The instructions for this assignment walk you through this process step-by-step, teaching you how to write a report of this nature (and giving you an example paper to orient you) before asking you to try it yourself. This assignment will end up hitting the 5+-full page mark (with title page and references, 7+ pages), of which you’ve already written a great deal (carried over from your Unit 3 annotations).
You will leave this assignment confident in your ability to discern the take home messages from a scientific study, as well as in your own research skills, critical thinking ability, and aptitude for supporting a strong, meaningful thesis in a carefully crafted paper – skills that will carry you forward in the rest of your academic journey.
Detailed Instructions for Unit 7 Literature Review Assignment:
In Unit 3, you jumpstarted your final project for this course by selecting a topic, developing a thesis statement, finding and reading three articles relevant to your thesis, and annotating those articles – thinking critically about how those sources tie into your thesis. You’ll be pleased to know that you’ve already done a lot of the work! Now it’s about putting your research in context – establishing importance, in-text citing, fleshing out and transitioning between your article summaries, and wrapping up with a conclusion that packs a punch.
Here is the process for creating your final written project – a brief literature review where you make a strong argument for your thesis, establish its significance, and end with an impactful conclusion.
Writing Your Literature Review
Step 1: Read your Unit 3 Assignment again to refamiliarize yourself with your thesis and your research.
Step 2: Make any edits/revisions your instructor provided you in their feedback to strengthen your work (if you haven’t already).
Step 3: Write an introduction to your piece, ending with your thesis statement or a variation on it. The purpose of the introduction is to set the stage and get the reader interested in your topic by highlighting its importance and relevance to the field of psychology. An introduction answers these questions (below); you can use these questions to guide your writing process. You don’t have to literally answer these questions in an obvious way – this should read like a cohesive introduction and not a list of answers-to-questions. But after you’ve written your intro, circle back and read it through the eyes of your audience and make sure these questions are covered.
a.
· What is the research topic?
b.
· Why is this topic important or relevant?
c.
· What is the scope of the literature review?
d.
· What is the objective of this literature review?
See the EXAMPLE UPLOAD for an example of how an introduction might come together and how it answers the above questions in a cohesive, well-organized way. This introduction will hit the 250-word mark, going over a little is fine. It may include new sources (citations and references) that you need to justify any claims you make in your introduction. In other words, it is likely that this paper will, at the end of the day, have more than three sources (more than the three you reviewed for your Unit 3 assignment), but these resources are used differently. You don’t review them in detail, they are just brought in to justify any other claims you make throughout the paper. The EXAMPLE UPLOAD will demonstrate this.
From this point forward, you’ll see a lot of references to APA 7 Format. Click for information
on general APA document formatting,
citing and referencing in APA format, and
serration (subject headings).
Step 4: Start the body of your work by creating a subject heading (follow APA 7 guidelines for formatting) that describes the topic of the first article you are reviewing. So, for example, in our EXAMPLE UPLOAD, the subject is “Structural Brain Changes in Schizophrenia on MRI.” Notice that this subject heading is not the title of the article. Rather, it is a descriptive phrase that characterizes it.
Then, under that subject heading, bring over (via copy and paste) your annotation for your first article. You will want to segue into this summary, expand your thinking in your “how this ties into my thesis” section, and segue to the next article, but you’ll find that most of your work is done here. Don’t rest on that, though, make sure your summary here reads like a part of a larger work and not a stand-alone annotation. But, in general, you’ll find that you’ve already done most of the work/thinking here. You are just bookending it with segues, fleshing it out some, and expanding your thesis tie-in thoughts a bit. This may involve you bringing in other sources to justify any additional points you make.
Remember to cite your sources in this section in APA 7 format. The EXAMPLE UPLOAD will guide you here.
Step 5: Repeat Step 4 but with a new subject heading (APA 7 Format) for your second article. Do the same thing here as you did above (segue in and out, make sure things flow like in a cohesive paper vs. “just a stand-alone summary,” and flesh out your critical thinking/thesis tie-in section).
Step 6: Another repeat of Step 4, but with a new subject heading (APA 7 Format) for your third article. Do the same thing with this on as you did above (segue in and out, make sure things flow like in a cohesive paper vs. “just a stand-alone summary”, and flesh out your critical thinking/thesis tie-in section). It is likely that you reserved your article that challenges your thesis for this third section. Make sure to discuss this angle and how it fits into your thinking on the topic as this is a required part of this assignment (and of your learning – here, we are practicing mindful awareness of confirmation bias and showing our reader we have made an effort to consider things from all angles).
Step 7: Read your introduction and body in preparation for composing a compelling conclusion. The conclusion does the job of reviewing the take home messages, reinforcing the importance of the topic as well as your thesis statement, and offering suggestions or thoughts about where things are trending and where researchers should focus in the future. The conclusion should hit the 250-word mark. Going over a little is fine. To help guide you, here are some questions the conclusion should answer (below). Remember, do not literally answer these question-and-answer style in your conclusion, but just to say that when someone reads this section of your work, they should have answers to these questions:
· Based on your review, what are the main findings? Tie this into your thesis statement somehow.
· What gaps or limitations still exist in the literature as it pertains specifically to this topic?
· What recommendations can be made for future research in this area?
· What is the overall significance of this topic? (A
packs-a-punch ending here!)
Also remember that you may be bringing in additional sources to justify any claims you make in your conclusion. This is in addition to the three references you are reviewing in detail for this paper (although you probably aren’t going into a ton of detail with these new sources – the are just here to justify any specific point or statistic you are bringing into your conclusion).
Step 8: On the last page (on its own page, per APA format), create your reference section. Make sure to follow APA 7 formatting guidelines. The Example Paper will guide you here. Remember, you will likely have more than three references; you’ll also have some sources that you use to justify any claims you make throughout the introduction, conclusion, or body that you needed. The minimum number of references required for this paper has been set to 5 – three of them you already have.
Step 9: Finishing up! Create a title page in APA 7 format. Some APA formatting templates often have an abstract included.
You are not required to include an abstract for this assignment. So, you can skip this step. APA 7 formatting does include page numbers, so you will want to add these.
No running head is required.
Step 10: Proofread your work several times (to yourself and out loud). Have a friend of family member read it with a fresh pair of eyes, checking for grammatical/mechanical errors. Or, you can have your favorite dictation software read it to you (sometimes listening to a work helps us identify things that could be said more clearly). Make any changes and tah-dah! You are finished.
Here is an outline that will help you format your paper.
I. Title Page (on its own page)
II. Introduction (starts on page 2)
(Remember – per APA formatting we do not label the introduction. Just start writing, do not use the subject heading “introduction”)
III. Body
I. Article 1 from Annotated Bibliography
II. Article 2 from Annotated Bibliography
III. Article 3 from Annotated Bibliography (presents challenge/contrasting view)
IV. Conclusion
V. Reference Page (on its own page)
See attachment for EXAMPLE PAPER UPLOAD
Tips for Success:
1.
Re-Read Your Annotated Bibliography and Incorporate Edits. It may have been some time since you looked at your Unit 3 Annotated Bibliography. Pull it back out and read it again to reconnect yourself with your topic and thesis. If your instructor provided you with feedback, incorporate those edits before moving on to writing your paper. This process will break the ice and get you rolling on your literature review.
2.
Read instructions carefully. The above instructions are intended as much more than a list of “expectations”. The instructions represent a teaching moment, leading you – step by step – through the process of writing a literature review. You will leave this class confident in your ability to write similar papers in your future courses. The job of the instructions and your instructor is to teach you this process. Your job is to authentically engage in it, doing your best to work the steps and learn the method so that you can leave confident and ready to tackle such projects in the future. The output here is a demonstration of your willingness to try and learn. Use this as an opportunity to showcase your interest in developing yourself from a student and into a scholar!
3.
Read the guidance about use of Generative AI/ChatGPT-style platforms below. This will clarify for you what is deemed inappropriate use/overreliance on these platforms for producing your content and discusses why content generated by these platforms will not yield a high quality paper. It is your authentic engagement with learning this activity that is being assessed, and engagement is not evidenced in AI-speak.
4.
Read the EXAMPLE PAPER UPLOAD An example paper is intentionally provided as another teaching moment, one that helps you “see” what this project looks like. Reading it will likely answer a lot of questions and give you confidence to move forward.
5.
Read the Rubric. The
Literature Review Rubric will guide your thinking and help you feel confident when turning your paper in (ask yourself “does my piece quality as exemplary? Strong?”). It serves to reinforce the points illustrated in the example paper.
6.
Keep track of references. As you are writing your piece, you will likely go to the web, Google.com/scholar to find sources to back up some of the smaller claims you make (i.e., statistics you share, etc.). Copy and paste those URLs somewhere so that you can collect them. Often, we use a source, cite it in our paper and then when we go to write our reference section, we forgot where we found that source. Pasting the URLs somewhere will prevent you from losing your sources before you can circle back to crafting your reference section.
7.
Get an early start. There are ten steps to this project. You might think of this as ten circumscribed “work sessions.” Schedule those sessions throughout the days or weeks prior to the due date so that you aren’t working all ten in the same day. This early start will increase your confidence and provide time for asking questions. Speaking of…
8.
Ask questions! Don’t let questions go unanswered
Use of Generative AI (ChatGPT) Technology
Generative AI programs like ChatGPT can produce content that, on the surface, looks like a good effort on a literature review. However, because the goal of this assignment is less about the output and much more about the process, Generative AI platforms won’t capture this vital learning moment. This assignment will showcase your interest in the topic and engagement in the writing process, and this is something AI databanks simply cannot do, well or authentically, anyway.
And, because this paper focuses on a central thesis, AI databanks do not have the insights necessary to provide the attention to nuance, critical thinking, and authentic point-of-view needed to do well on this assignment. It will offer vague connections and overgeneralized commentary, but not the level of specificity and authenticity we are looking for here. So, in this instance, over-reliance on AI generative tools will not satisfy this assignment.
You can certainly use ChatGPT and other Generative AI software to ask general questions on the writing process (i.e. “How do you make a compelling argument in a conclusion section?” or “What is a good synonym for the word “scientific?” or “How do you cite a source when there is no author listed?”), but in your writing – the content you submit, or the output – you must speak from the point of view of the scholar of psychology that you are, and bring in points that authentically represent your effort at honing your research skills and acumen.
In other words, the written, submitted text must be exclusively your own. It is this concerted effort and authenticity that is being evaluated, not absolute perfection. This assignment was intentionally crafted to help you perform your best, and you should be confident in your ability to do so!
Writing Format and Guidelines
· With the APA-formatted title and reference section included, this paper will reach the full 7-page mark at least (1 title page, 5 full pages of content, 1 reference page). Going over some is fine (i.e., +2 pages of content, +1 page of references). See the EXAMPLE UPLOAD which gives you a sense of the scope/length of this work). Focus more on executing the assignment and engaging in the process of learning how to do a literature review; the length will be a natural byproduct of your effort.
· Typed in an APA-accepted font and font size
· sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 12-point Times New Roman
· Double-spaced with one-inch margins and page numbers in the upper right-hand corner.
· In other words, follow APA 7, with no abstract required. If you do want to write an abstract for practice, you can, but this will be an additional page (your paper will end up being 8 full pages, minimum).
· Submitted as a Word document
· 5-7 scholarly, academic resources are required, three of which are those sources from your annotated bibliography (so you need two more additional). If you go over this, it is fine.
