Steps for Literature ReviewSteps for Literature Review
STEP 1: Search online to find a controversial topic in your major.STEP 2: Once you’ve found a controversial topic, start adding all sources (articles) that are relevant to your topic in the “Need to Sort Folder”. You should have at least 100 sources in this folder.• Keep in mind that each article should be OVER 8 pages, published within the past 10 years, preferably in the past 5 years, and be an academic article. No newspapers or magazines.STEP 3: Go into the “Need to Sort Folder” and review each one. Read the TITLE and the ABSTRACT. If the article fits into your topic, then COPY it to the “Literature Review Folder”. Go through all the articles in the “Need to Sort Folder.”STEP 4: Go into the “Literature Review Folder”, which should have from 30-50 sources in it, and review each one again but more closely. Read the TITLE and ABSTRACT very carefully. COPY the sources that “fit” your topic into the folder “Literature Review – Revised.” STEP 5: The folder “Literature Review – Revised” should have only 15-20 sources in it. This is the folder where you want to print out the list, then beside each title, write down the subtopics. Your goal is to find articles that are about the same topics BUT that have different opinion. These topics are called “trends”. You want to find 2-3 trends. In this step, we will select the final 6-8 articles for your essay.STEP 6: Copy the final list of articles to a folder called “FINAL Articles”. This folder has all the articles for your essay. Print them and label them.
Literature Review – Essay Structure SpecificsProper Heading (Name, Class and Section Number, Assignment Name, Prof’s Name, and Date)Creative Title for PaperIntroduction Paragraph Introduce overall topic – discuss for several sentences so your reader knows what is going on What do they agree on? – 1 sentence What do they disagree on? (What’s the controversy?) – 1 sentence Thesis—state the trends (last sentence of paragraph)
Topic SentencesAt the beginning of every body paragraphIndicate the title, authors’ names, and the main idea of the article (1st sentence) – no citations hereDo not include textual evidence in this sentence
Body Paragraphs –Oldest to newest articles (one article per paragraph)Summarize main ideas of articles (6-10 sentences with citation at end of each sentence) Use APA citations that range multiple pages/no quotes Next to Last sentence in the paragraph – State the significance of the article (in your own words) Last sentence of paragraph – State the authors’ last names and how they are connected to one another NOTE – This last sentence will NOT appear for the 1st article but it will for the other seven.
**You should have 8 body paragraphs.
Controversy Paragraphs Write one paragraph per trend Topic sentence—state the trend of controversy Rest of paragraph—discuss what they agree on? Disagree on? Who agrees with whom? Disagrees? (be specific) **Only discuss articles that talk about that specific trend **No citations here.
Conclusion Paragraph Recap overall controversy and trends Future research (what do they need to do now?) Big idea (usefulness of this research) Clarity of Prose Sentence structure, grammar and punctuation, word usage and tone
Includes a Reference page Title of Page correctly done Includes all references alphabetically