10 Sep Writing the literature review:

Writing the literature review: The literature review provides a theoretical framework for your research topic and problem statement. Ideally, you will use information from your three previous research briefs and additional scholarly, peer-reviewed sources to create a coherent review of the literature for your topic. 

Fraenkel and Wallen (2000) have the following to say about literature reviews:

Literature reviews differ in format, but typically they consist of the following five parts.  – The introduction briefly describes the nature of the research problem and states the research question. You also explain what led you to investigate the questions and why it is important to investigate. – The body of the review briefly reports what others have found or thought about the research problem. Related studies are usually discussed together, grouped under subheads (to make the review easier to read). Major studies are described in more detail, while less important work can be referred to in just a line or two. Often this is done by referring to several studies that reported similar results in a single sentence. – The summary of the review ties together the main threads revealed in the literature reviewed and presents a composite picture of what is known or thought to date. Findings may be tabulated to give readers some idea of how many other researchers have reported identical or similar findings or have similar recommendations. – Any conclusions the researcher feels are justified based on the state of knowledge revealed in the literature should be included. What does the literature suggest are appropriate courses of action to take to try to solve the problem? – A references page with full citation data for all sources mentioned in the review is essential. There are many formats that can be used to list references, but the format used by the American Psychological (APA) is required in this class. Also use proper in text citations and APA formatting.  Fraenkel, J. R. and Wallen, N. E. (2000). How to design & evaluate research in education. 4th edition. Page 97.  Post your assignment 4 here. Use double space, Times New Roman 12 pt font. It should not be less than 9 pages excluding cover page, references, figures, graphs, and other images.  See three examples of writing literature reviews in Assignment Four folder.

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2) watch this video clip to help in understanding the literature reveiw. The video clip from Youtube “Literature Reviews: An overiew for graduate students” located at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2d7y_r65HU . Length 9:39 minutes.