Small-Scale Literature Review Assignment A literature review is a descriptive summary of research on a topic that has previously been studied. The purpose of a literature review is to inform readers

Small-Scale Literature Review Assignment 

A literature review is a descriptive summary of research on a topic that has previously been studied. The purpose of a literature review is to inform readers of the significant knowledge and ideas that have been established on a topic. Its purpose is to compare, contrast and/or connect findings that were identified when reviewing researchers' work. Oftentimes, literature reviews are written to ground a study in a particular context of what is known about a subject in order to establish a foundation for the topic (or question) being researched.

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 written small-scale literature review.

Assignment Description:

For this assignment you are asked to complete a small-scale literature review on an educational topic of your choice. You are asked to locate at least 6 educational journal articles on your topic and write a 1500 words literature review on the articles you've selected. 

Steps to complete your small-scale literature review:

1.      Choose an business topic that you are interested in studying.

2.      Formulate an inquiry question that specifically describes what would like to know about your business topic.

3.      Go to the library to search for and locate journals that include your topic's information.

4.      Find articles, read the abstracts and skim the articles to determine if they correspond well to your topic AND inquiry question. 

5.      Select at least 6 journal articles and photocopy them for your project.

6.      Read your articles and begin to sort and classify them according to their findings.

7.      Organize your articles by sorting and classifying their findings in a meaningful way, always considering your original topic and inquiry question.

8.      Write an outline for your small-scale literature review. Hand this in during class.

9.      Write your review.

Outline for writing your small-scale literature review (please write and hand in):

1.      Introduction

The introduction is used to establish the context of your review to the reader. To establish the context, it is important to do the following in this opening paragraph:

a.       Define the topic of your study and provide any background information that helps your reader to understand the topic. 

b.      Explain your reason (perspective) for reviewing the literature on this topic. 

c.       State your inquiry question for this review. 

2.      Body 

This section of your paper begins with an explanation of how you have organized your small-scale literature review and describes findings from articles that provide answers to your inquiry question. Before you begin this section, be sure that you have sorted your articles into different themes based on the articles' findings (sometimes called results). After you sort your articles, it is important to give your sorted groups a descriptive name. The names of the sorted articles will become your headings for each of the paragraphs that you write in the body of your review. To write the body of your small-scale literature review, it is important to include the following:

a.       Write an introduction paragraph for the body of your review. This paragraph tells the reader specific information on how many articles you reviewed and how you sorted the articles into common themes based on the findings (results). 

b.      This will be a paragraph that describes the first theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the articles you've selected.

c.       This will be a paragraph that describes the second theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the articles you've selected.

d.      This will be a paragraph that describes the third theme that you identified and compare, contrast and/or connect the articles you've selected. 

3.      Summary 

This is the last paragraph of your small-scale literature review. In this paragraph, it is important to summarize the main findings from the articles that you reviewed and to point out the 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

This is the last page of your review. It serves as a listing of all references that you mentioned in your paper. Please use APA style when completing this list.