Identify an area of interest, search the online library databases, and carefully acquire and read 10-13 different peer-reviewed articles relating to this topic. Select 10 or more peer-reviewed articles related to your topic to create article notes. Most of the articles should be relatively recent (last 10 years). You will create one or more notes for each citation.

Notes must include a citation and a few sentences to a paragraph for each article. Be careful to only cite sources of original research, and do not reference information that is presented in an author’s literature review. (If you read information in a literature review that you would like to include, look up the citation and find the original research.) Your notes on an article can be as brief as a single sentence. Treat each sentence as its own “citable unit” that you can use as a building block for paragraphs in the Literature Review Draft Assignment.

DO:

Write originally authored sentences as if those sentences were in some future paragraph.

Organize those sentences (what I call citable units) topically as you create them.

Add a reference citation for every unique source after you have written the sentence.

If a potential lit review outline begins to emerge in your mind, feel free to organize your article notes by the main headings.

Include a full reference section at the end of the document.

DON’T:

Do not write direct quotes. All citable units should be in your original words. This will ensure that you always are writing original work.

Do not cite the literature review of an article. Only cite results and discussion sections of an article. Go to the original sources if you find an assertion in the lit review of an article that is interesting.

Do not use an annotated bibliography approach. This assignment is like converting an annotated bibliography into a literature review outline with the citable units from pertinent sources underneath each heading. It’s a first step to writing a full literature review chapter.