literaturereview

How do I put it all together?

At this point you have searched for and read numerous documents related to your research question. You have taken notes, including details about the research and the complete citations. You have looked at other literature reviews to see what they look like.

Literature reviews will have sections, probably aligned with the various combinations of search terms you used. For example, suppose the subject of your thesis is the effectiveness of Open Court as a method teaching reading to English Language Learners. You probably searched for reading, English Language Learners and Open Court in various combinations. Your literature review is likely to have these topics as sections - Reading Instruction, English Language Learners, The Effectiveness of Open Court.

A good way to start is to organize the articles (or the notes to you have been taking) into logical groups. You have read a lot of research, and there should be some themes or statements that are common to several documents. For example, if you are researching the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction, you have probably found quite a few articles supporting that idea. You will be able to start a section of your literature review with a statement such as "Computers have been found to be an effective way to teach in many subject areas." This would be followed by a citation like (Smith, 2003) or by several paragraphs describing types of research that support the statement. Each of those paragraphs will contain one or more citations.

Sometimes you will have a statement that you want to make that didn't appear in the documents you read. In a thesis, you must back up any statement that might be controversial (that is, one that not everyone would find obvious) with one or more citations. For example, as a middle school teacher, you may have observed that young teens are very conscious of their appearance. Even though many would agree with you, you should find an article or other document to back up such a statement.

As you are writing, try to avoid exact quotes. It is better to describe the research and/or paraphrase the findings than to include exact quotes. For example, if you want to emphasize the idea that after-school programs can increase test scores, there is no need to write "After-school programs have been shown to be effective in increasing test scores (Jones, 2005, p. 54)." You can simply write "Jones (2005) reports that after-school programs are effective in increasing test scores." Remember that if you find it necessary to use a quote, you must include the page number in the citation. And...to avoid plagiarism, cite any sources you use.

After you have created a draft, let someone else read it. Remember that you are too close to the topic to know whether you have included enough information.

A sample of a short literature review (one that might be used for a paper or proposal) is available in Word format at http://www.csudh.edu/fisher/samplelitrev.doc. A literature review for a thesis is much longer and contains more detail.

Here are some links that will give you more hints about writing a literature review:

Check for Understanding (short quiz).

This page was created by F. Fisher for students in the College of Education at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Last update 8/06. Button created at http://www.buttongenerator.com/