Your Literature review will have four key components to it. Below is each component and what it should entail. You will be graded by how well you organize and substantiate your topic.
Papers with clear headings, a clear understanding of the relationship between your variables, thoughtful understanding of the literature, and thoughtful analysis of the literature in total will get the highest grades.
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. Identify your key variables and why you think this is an interesting relationship. Use your newspaper sources to give some real-life applicability to your topic.
c. What is your research question?
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. After you sort your articles, it is important to give your sorted groups a descriptive name. Which articles are associated with which variables, and which articles discuss variables related to your topic. So if you are looking at the relationship between happiness and family, you may want to have “The impact of Family” and then discuss how the articles discuss what impacts being in a family has on people. Then again with happiness. Depending on which is you independent and dependent variable, you are beginning to discuss causality here and using your literature review to build a case. 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.
Use the data to give an example if possible by producing a crosstab from the WVS.
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.
Use the data to give an example if possible by producing a crosstab from the WVS.
d. This will be a paragraph that describes differences among the articles. Are there any disagreements over how these variables influence your topic? How does your topic relate to this and how can you help rectify this controversy with your own study?
3. Summary
This is the last paragraph of your literature review. In this paragraph, 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 a consistent style when completing this list.
