Literature Review Best Practices

Things to consider as you finalize your Literature Review:

• First, and most importantly – the literature review should be a great experience for you and teach you to seek out and find quality literature on a topic of importance. Learning to do this well can help you succeed as a graduate student and as a professional in your field for decades to come – so approach it with confidence and seriousness!! Have fun!!!

• The review is an ‘excavation’ of the literature so do not write in first-person and think of the project as a ‘display’ of the literature you have uncovered in mainly journal articles on your topic. You will allow the sources you found to play a key part of organizing your sections of the review.

• When organizing the project most students use one of two main approaches: historical and niche topic focus. For a historical review – you will demonstrate the development of the topic in the literature over a period of time (think of the rings on a tree trunk – you will emphasize a phase of development in the topic). For a niche topic focus review – you will narrow your emphasis on an aspect of the topic application or execution (example: halo effect in primary education; ethical treatment of participants in pharmaceutical trials, etc.).

• The scholarly sources MUST come from largely journal articles that are full- length and peer-reviewed (example: Harvard Business Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Journal, etc.). You can use a book or website as a source, but these usually will not count toward to the 12 sources – so really take time to examine mainly journals.

• Best practices on finding sources and organizing your Literature Review: there are at least two great approaches here, 1) find a ‘key center’ source and work through its citations; 2) use careful key word searches and author and/or journal searches. Let me explain these:

1. A key source approach would happen when you find the journal article that precisely addresses your topic as you have been exploring to find (hypothetical example: topic, Halo effect in adolescents – and Smith & Jones 2019 have written a great article; then, you begin to search each of the sources/articles that they cite in their reference section of the article as you desire to develop a broader understanding of the literature. From Smith and Jones you found 18 additional articles of interest (we will call this the first strata of articles); from these findings four articles stand out and you want to include them in your review. Now, just as the process used with Smith & Jones – you begin to explore the citations of the four articles chosen; this yields 37 more articles of interest (strata two); you select 15 for your paper and now have begun to collect the ‘puzzle pieces’ for the review. Now, organize the sources so the literature review reveals summary and synthesis of sources around the topic (either historically/developmentally; or, as a niche focus).

2. A key term, or author, or journal approach is similar to the key source approach but you are working from specific ‘searches’ in a database (like EBSCO). From above example, if Smith and Jones are key authors in your topic area – see if they have written any other articles. You find that they have each written 8 articles – after reading these a total of 4 fit your review; now you realize that they both cite another author ‘Williams’ multiple times; after finding Williams articles (and a few books) you have your next piece of the ‘puzzle’. A key word or journal search is similar. You must use a Boolean search approach where key words are in “quotes” and if searching a Journal name use JN (example: JN “Harvard Business Review”). Once in a particular journal you can scan the table of contents of editions or search for key words within the journal itself. Either of these approaches can be helpful.

Amberton University RGS 6035 – Research Methods

Literature Review Project Instructions

This will be a research based written project (approximately 10-12 pages total) that will encompass scholarly literature on an approved topic. The project will take the student through the literature review process from beginning to end and allow the student to explore the variety of scholarly writings. The project must include a minimum of 12 scholarly sources from peer-reviewed journals. The project needs to include a title page, body (at least 8 pages) and a reference section listing all sources used. The project should strictly follow APA guidelines and exhibit graduate level critical thinking and writing skills. The following rubric will be used to grade the project:

Literature Review Grading Rubric

Criteria Points Possible

Points Earned Instructor’s Comments

Structure and Length: • • Introduction, body, and

conclusions/recommendations • • At least 8 pages of content • • Utilizes at least 12 scholarly

references

25

Content: • • Topic selected is relevant to

course • • Clearly discusses subject area

with well organized patterns • • Combines both summary and

synthesis • • Graduate level writing

50

APA Congruent including: • • Title page and abstract • • Citations • • References page • • Use of 3 current APA

headings

25

Total 100