“Writing a literature review can take a lot of time—it’s often the most difficult part of writing a research
manuscript or a dissertation. Rather than writing one in this course, you are to review and evaluate a literature
review of a research article and explain how you could model your own literature review using the one you
are reviewing as a model. The article you choose must have a clearly identifiable research question and at least
one hypothesis.
The articles you select must be a research article. No other article type is allowed (see Topic X). Remember, a
research article will have a clearly identified method section. You are only reviewing the literature review of
the research article. Remember, this is the section immediately following the abstract.
Do not just select the shortest article you find—it will make your job harder to do it that way. Find an article
that is relevant with a literature review section without a lot of subsections. I would avoid articles from
Criminology (journal) for this assignment because the literature reviews tend to be long and complicated. You
should not avoid Criminology for other assignments and other courses because it is the top journal in the field.
Before you begin, skim the article. Verify that there is at least one clearly identifiable research question or
research statement that tells you exactly what the researchers intend to study. Also verify that there is at least
one hypothesis in the article you selected.
Read through the literature review once to get familiar with it, then go back through looking at the information
required for your submission. Either take notes or highlight it or something similar for easy reference. Now
you’re ready to start writing.
Your submission will have four distinct parts. Use headings for Parts B, C, and D. The parts are:
ï‚· Part A: Restating the Research Question
ï‚· Part B: Background Content
ï‚· Part C: Hypothesis Content
ï‚· Part D: Literature Review as a Model
In Parts B and C, you will be summarizing and evaluating the literature review. For Part D, you will focus on
your research question. While the parts should be in the order above, the content within each part does not have
to be in a particular order. It just needs to be included (when applicable) and to make sense in the context. Here
are directions and considerations for each part of the assignment.
Part A: Restating the Research Question
Please start your assignment by restating (not quoting!) the research question(s) or statement(s) in the first
three sentences and bold the actual question(s) or statement(s). Note whether these are presented in the form of
a question or a statement and discuss how it is presented. For example, if there is more than one aim of the
study, are they presented as a numbered list? Is it just a simple sentence that starts with something like, “The
purpose of the current study is to…â€� If there are multiple questions, it might be that they are spaced out in the
body. If you are unsure, then you might not have an appropriate source (see above). This will be a brief section.
You will not always find this at the beginning of the literature review. Sometimes it comes in the middle or
even at the end. It depends a lot on necessary background, the chosen journal, disciplinary differences, and
other nuances.
Part B: Background Content
You should summarize the content and organization of the literature review as written. Describe how they
approached the topic and their main points. You are not merely retelling everything they did. I want you to
discuss how they arranged it, the order, how much space they spent justifying their researcher question, how
they approached the prior literature, how they tied in theory.
As you describe it, you should also evaluate. Could it have been arranged differently? Did the researchers need
a conceptual definition if they did not include one? If they mentioned a “gap� or a “hole� in the research
literature and say they plan to fill it, did it make sense to you what they meant? Did they provide enough
background into prior studies?
Essentially, you are telling me what they did and what you, as a consumer of research, think about their
approach. This does not require you to be critical—a good literature review is what researchers strive to write. If
you think it’s great, explain why it is great. What did they do to make it flow well?
There is no exact formula here—your approach could be as varied as the approach of the researchers.
Part C: Hypothesis Body
For this part of the submission, you will focus on the logic behind the hypothesis or hypotheses for the study.
If there are multiple hypotheses, pick two of them for this section. The logic might be similar for each.
Look in Topic 5 where I discuss how hypotheses are generated. You should see elements of that in any
literature review. After paraphrasing the hypothesis, discuss how the researchers progressed to it. You are likely
going to include several things mentioned in Part B, so it will be easy to refer back to them without going into
as much detail.
The two most common means of supporting hypotheses are prior studies and theory. As noted in TOPIC X,
researchers will utilize the findings of studies in published research articles to develop hypothesis. Sometimes
researchers test two theories and will have two competing hypotheses such that if Theory 1 is correct, then this
is the pattern we would see, but if Theory 2 is correct we would expect this other pattern. When it comes to
prior research, there are some common patterns. Examples could include things like:
ï‚· A researcher is attempting to determine if a finding commonly observed in adult prisons would also be
found in juvenile facilities. Unless the researcher has a reason to believe that juvenile facilities are
different, they might hypothesize that the pattern will be the same.
ï‚· A researcher looks at several studies on the same general topic. The studies demonstrate somewhat
contradictory findings. The literature review might discuss those findings and present some observation
of how the studies seem to differ. For example, they might find that studies that demonstrate one pattern
have a larger proportion of men than those that fail to demonstrate that finding. This might lead them to
hypothesize that gender is a moderator of an effect.
 Several studies have found a link between Variable X and Variable Y. The problem is that it’s expensive
to measure Variable X. The researchers have what they think is a cheaper means of measuring Variable
X. Assuming they are right, the hypothesis would be that the cheaper measure would link with Variable
Y.
ï‚· Several studies demonstrate that inmates who write letters apologizing for their crimes are less likely to
recidivate than those who do not. However, none of these studies have examined white collar criminals.
Other studies looking at characteristics of white collar criminals find that they are more inclined to write
in prison (journaling, letters, court filings, etc.). Another study found that writings of white collar
criminals contain more lies than writings by other offenders. Thus, the researcher hypothesizes that there
will be no link between recidivism and letter apologies among white collar criminals.
ï‚· While no one has investigated the link between X and Y, there are several studies that have examined
similar variables to X and similar variables to Y. Due to their similarity, the researcher hypothesizes that
the link between X and Y would be like the studies with the similar variables.
You are going to report how they came to their hypotheses then evaluate their logic. Is it clear? Does it follow?
Does it seem intuitive? Did they provide enough background information? If they presented contradictory
findings, did they acknowledge that when reporting hypotheses? You do not have to answer all of these
questions—they are just considerations. What I care about is that you go beyond merely paraphrasing what they
are thinking.
Part D: Literature Review as a Model
Imagine that I had you write your own literature review—yeah, this required word count isn’t all that bad now,
is it?
Start this section with the type of research you might want to look for when writing a literature review for your
research question. What are some keywords you would use? Are you looking for research on specific
populations? How would you organize your notes? Give me a bit of your process.
Focus on how the literature review you read would help you to organize and write the literature review. You
might think this literature review is good but that it isn’t the best model for your question because these
researchers are, for example, just wanting to test a new way to measure a given concept. You are testing a relationship. You might write about how you wouldn’t as much detail in the background of “measurement.�
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