Review of the Literature

Literature used in this way does not mean belles lettres, such as poetry, but the materials produced by researchers and writers on a particular topic in a professional field. In every profession, writers will read and consider research articles and other materials to get a sense of what research and studies have been done, what the findings are, what debates and conflicting results show up, and perhaps also what areas still might need exploration. There are several types of literature reviews, but you really only need to be concerned with what is required for this assignment. Your essay should combine accurate summary of sources (or the parts of the sources which are relevant to your focus) and evaluation of these studies. In the introduction, you should provide important background material to set up the discussion; you should also draw and state some conclusions.

First you should decide on a topic which will allow you to read materials in journals or on good Websites which provide information on research. This could be an academic subject, a topic in the sciences or history. You should narrow down your topic to one that will allow you to do in-depth research. Thus broad subjects like “poverty” or “global warming” –subjects which have massive amounts written about them and could not possibly be covered in detail in a short essay--are not at all appropriate. You will want to explore the topic in-depth, not attempt to produce something like an encyclopedia article.

Once your topic has been submitted (in writing) and approved, you should begin summarizing and analyzing materials, working toward a synthesis. Your essay should follow the basic format in the sample below, though you may instead deal with the articles one-by-one instead of synthesizing the entire group as this article does. You should provide transitions between sections and be sure your reader knows what your main point is throughout the essay.

Your review should have at least as many sources as pages assigned. You may use older sources if your purpose is to trace the history of approaches to a topic, for example. But a great deal depends on your topic, so we may need to discuss individually what sources are appropriate.

The University of North Carolina Writing Center has a good overview of literature reviews. Read this at http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html.

Bibliographical information for the sample review of the literature follows. You will have to log in and find the article in the database (which you should know how to do at this point).

Example of a Literature Review:

Cawley, John, Harry F. Hull, and Matthew D. Rousculp. "Strategies for

Implementing School-Located Influenza Vaccination of Children: A Systematic Literature

Review." Journal of School Health 80.4 (2010): 167-175. Academic Search Complete.

EBSCO. Web. 10 Mar. 2010.