Your literature review should update an academic audience about the research that has already been done on that topic and what remains to be done to better understand it. The review should be 9-10 pages (double spaced, one-inch margin). You may use any citation method you want as long as you stick to it throughout this assignment. This means if you choose to write your Annotated bibliography using APA then your literature review needs to follow APA citation and formatting.
A literature review synthesizes existing research on a topic that has previously been studied with the aim of evaluating it in order to understand what work still remains to be done in an area of study. So, although the purpose of a literature review is to inform readers of the significant knowledge and ideas that have been established on a topic, it also goes beyond a summary in the way that it ties different sources together. Its purpose is to compare, contrast and/or connect findings that were identified when reviewing researchers’ work, as well as articulate recurring oversights or question existing research trends.
The purpose of this assignment is to facilitate your abilities to research a topic of study so you can learn to (1) identify and formulate an inquiry question that defines what you’d like to learn, (2) apply your knowledge on reading research that you’ve learned in class, (3) analyze information found in educational journal articles, and (4) synthesize new knowledge into a literature review.
One of the skills you need as an environmental studies student is the ability to synthesize sources. Synthesis, which brings disparate ideas into relation, is useful for the interdisciplinary challenges like those faced by people working in environmental fields. Similarly important is the ability to share or translate that synthesis with others. That is, it’s already an achievement if you yourself can understand the complexities of academic research methods and ways of knowing, but that understanding only gets you so far if you can’t share it.
The typical structure to a review in any discipline has four parts:
1) An Introduction: the introduction is used to establish the context of your review to the reader and includes the following:
- Define the topic of your study and provide any background information that helps your reader to understand the topic.
- Explains your reason (perspective) for reviewing the literature on this topic.
- State your inquiry question for this review;
2) A body: This has paragraphs that summarizes but also relates and evaluates the topic under discussion.
3) A conclusion: This summarizes the main findings from the articles that you reviewed and points out information that you found particularly important to know that answered the inquiry question that you established in the first paragraph of your review. Try to conclude your paper by connecting your inquiry question back to the context of the general topic of study.
4) References: the last page of your review will include a list of all references that you mentioned in your paper. I do not care for which citation method you use as long as you pick one and stick to it. The page count does not include the reference page.
Source Requirements:I am not requiring a certain number of sources, because it’s not about the number. Your goal should be 7 – 10 sources, but it might be possible to write something compelling with 5-6 if the focus is narrow enough or the relationships among the articles are complex enough. Going beyond 6 sources will give you a more impressive take on the field so long as you actually are capable of reading all of them.
Organisation of the body
The body of literature reviews tends to be organized chronologically, thematically, or methodologically—which of these you choose will depend on what kinds of research are available to you in your search. If everything is from roughly the same time, chronology isn’t useful. But if you want to trace the development or progress of an idea, it might be. By contrast, if there seems to be a lot of disagreement or research on your topic is new enough that the sources come from different disciplines, a methodological organization might help you get to the future questions more easily and transparently than chronology. Transitions and subheadings tend to be critical ways of announcing your organization and keeping your readers aware of where they are amid your various sources.
Here is my already dont literature review annotated biblography