THE LITERATURE REVIEW PART 2

EFFECTIVE WRITING CENTER

Now, let´s talk about the ways that you can be organizing all those many sources that you´re
going to be taking snapshots of and expressing the relationships among those snapshots, how
to best organize your literature review? Well, the answer is the best way that presents itself
after you´ve done all your reviews, but, there are some common organizational patterns that
will probably be of use to you.

The first of those is the CHRONOLOGICAL, you can divide things in two decades or half
decades, you can say “well, in the 1950s they thought autism was caused by cold mothering
and bad parenting, and in the 1960s they thought autism is a psychological illness of unknown
origin, and then, in the 1990s and today, in the 2000s, we say oh autism is caused by a genetic
susceptibility triggered by an environmental toxin” and so, we have put in chronology the
major studies and major authors and researchers long the way chronology.

Another way is through ADVANCEMENTS, you can say “well, here we have the beginning of
nanotechnology, here are the researchers, here are the scientists that gave the first
breakthroughs in nanotechnology and then came this next set of studies, this neck next set of
researchers who gave us the next breakthrough and nanotechnology, and then this one, and
now here we are today” and that´s where your paper begins.

You have also got GEOGRAPHICAL, let´s say you were doing the modern-day slave trade in a
research paper, you could say “well, in the near East, here are research studies and reports
about the modern-day slave trade in the near East, here are the research studies and the
reports and that, and this is what the past people have said about the modern-day slave trade
in Europe, and then Asia, and then Euro Asia” in other words you´re taking a geographical
approach to everything that´s been studied and said about that narrow topic of modern-day
slave trade.

Up there, individual ones like QUESTIONS, for example, this is something that is often
presented to yourself, what are the major questions in relationship to this topic that have been
addressed by researches through the years, you figure out what those major questions are by
doing your reviews and then you simply put them in order. For example, here´s an example of
a student who did this now:
Here is her paper, here is her introduction to the literature review, and, what´s the first thing
that you see right there? You see her statement of the four questions (blue rectangle) that
have been addressed over the years by past researcher, researchers in relationship to this
issue, this topic, and then sure enough down, at the bottom of the page she´s going, she
begins addressing the first question (red rectangle). You flip a couple of pages all later and up
at the top pf the page you see the second question.

Flip another couple of pages, the third question, flip another couple of pages, the fourth
question and in between those questions she has put in order her summaries of the sources
that addressed each of those questions, and that´s a literature review.

WRITING PROCESS:

 COLLECT
 ANALYZE
 ARRANGE
 SUMMARIZE
Now, the last thing we want to talk about when it comes to the literature review is how you´re
actually going to write the darn thing, the writing process that you will use. Well, you have
probably figured out it´s going to be pretty close to the same process that you use for writing
any research project.

First thing you´re going to do is to COLLECT YOUR SOURCES, but now, because this is an
academic research review, these sources that you collect are going to be academic peer-
reviewed sources for the most part, so that means you´re going to be going to the databases in
places like the UMUC library, you´re going to be going to the private web where the
subscription journals are as opposed to the open web, where a lot of consumer news Il type
information is. So, the first thing you´re going to do is go to the places collect your sources, if
you requirement is to review 20 sources you´re going to have to collect 30 or 40 because you
´re going to be narrowing them out in this next step.

The next step is ANALYZE THEM, notice I did not say read them because you don´t begin by
simply reading every source, you first start out at this twenty four thousand foot view of you
collection that you´ve gotten and you gradually narrow in on them by Skinit, Skimming, and
Scanning, reading the titles, the chapter titles, the subhead, the other sources, the abstract of
them, and by doing that you are calling out, you´re saying no, these are not going to be any of
use to me, yes, these I am going to keep they are, they do fit, they are going to be of use and
then, as you get closer, then you will extend your reading to word-for-word analytical reading,
and then, once you have really found stuff, that is truly relevant to you topic, that´s when you
start taking notes, that´s when you start writing out citations, that´s when you have found the
material that you´re actually going to be using in your research study. But notice that you
zoomed in skimming and scanning and then only gradually do you get down to word for word
reading, but keep that in mid about your research analysis of your sources.

The next thing you´re going to do is of course ARRANGE them, and we talked about some ways
that you could arrange them, and the reason I´m repeating this step is that now, that you´ve
analyzed them, now that you have taken snapshots of each one, that is relevant, I bet you you
´re going to start seeing patterns, whether is the question pattern, the chronology pattern, the
breakthrough pattern, whatever pattern you´ve got to find one and you make an outline and
underneath each major point of that outline, you list the sources that go in each major point,
whether its decade or breakthrough or a geographical region, you list the major sources that
go there and then, you´ve got your last step, and you simply work your way through your
outline SUMMARIZING your sources and providing transitional connections between each
source as you move through your outline, so, there you go, there´s he big picture of how to
write your literature review. Once you get it done, once you have establish this firm bases on
which you can stand you´ve got a clearer understanding of the past, so that you can move
forward with your ideas into the present and the future.

That´s the literature review, good luck with it and don´t hesitate to get in contact with them if
we can help you with anything, anything related to dissolution, okay GOOD LUCK!