In this course, there are three literature review assignments. Using a building block approach, the exercise teaches you how to write a literature review on the topic you selected in the Week 2 Pick Topic assignment. This topic must be supported by the variables you selected in the same assignment.
Week 2 – Outline asks you to develop an outline for a literature review. It requires you to provide an introduction, develop five themes, provide a synthesis and integration section, and conclusion section in which you identify the research problem/gap to be addressed. This assignment should be 3-4 pages. There should be at least two references per theme, and you may find that some references cover more than one theme. A minimum of four references are required for this assignment.
Week 3 – Draft Literature Review is an assignment of EXACTLY two pages in which you will fully develop one of the themes from Week 2 while identifying the gap that will be studied in the notional proposed research. Because you are fully developing the theme, I would expect between 5 and 10 references to support your work.
Week 4 – Final Literature Review. Using the outline you developed in Week 2 and the section you developed in Week 3, you should complete the literature review. Yes, it is okay (encouraged) to use your previous work to develop this assignment. This assignment should be 7-10 pages and should be supported by a minimum of 10-15 articles from the peer-reviewed empirical literature.
A few notes: An important part of a literature review is to identify and develop the need for further research. You may have heard it called “the gap.” This is a critical element to the document, as it gives the necessary support for beginning new research of the topic you selected. Think of the literature review as an argument for why your research needs to be conducted. Describing the need for research (the gap) is so important that in each of the literature review assignments, it is a separate rubric item and the one worth the most points.
Dr. Alex Casteel