Literature Review
Body of the Review (Chapter 2)
1. The body of the review is the heart of the literature review.
2. This is where you will discuss the research in each of the three areas related to your research problem.
3. At the beginning of each section, write a brief description about the research topic.
4. Provide a synthesis for each of the individual research study.
a) You will be required to research a minimum of 5 primary source articles with studies that support each research question that have been peer reviewed.
b) For each of the studies that you review and synthesize you must also include a minimum of three secondary sources that provide additional support to the primary source being reviewed and synthesized.
c) This means that if you have three research questions, you will have included in your literature review 15 primary source research study articles that have been peer reviewed and a minimum of nine secondary sources.
5. Although each article will be synthesized separately, it is important to connect the research articles within each area as well as establish connection between the three areas.
How to Write Chapter Two: Literature Review
The second chapter of your thesis is your Review of the Literature and is a critical component of your manuscript.
The purpose of writing chapter 2 is to provide the reader with an overview of the significant research related to your research problem.
In doing so you are providing the contextual background information for your research problem as well as justification and rationalefor your research design.
Selection of Review Articles
When you begin to select your research articles you must consider the following and remember that you must synthesize 5 primary articles for each research question and have additional supportive secondary sources in each section (as indicated in item 4 of the body of paper section above):
1. Select articles that are most relevant to your research problem.
2. You have to show how your research fits with prior research studies.
3. Lit review is not a summary or description of research articles around a particular topic.
4. Although you need to write a summary of the selected research studies, your main task is to evaluate and critically analyze the research that has been conducted and connect it to your research study. You need to get the most recently published articles in the field.
5. It is not recommended to use an article that is more than 5 years old unless it is a seminal article.
6. A Seminal Article is one that was significant to your topic, or created a change in the field.
Synthesizing Research Articles
The synthesis of an empirical research article is part summary, part analysis, and part critique.
The summary of the research article contributes to the body of information about your research problem.
Critical analysis of the research article strengthens the justification and rationale for your research study.
You need to do both, summary and critical analysis, in order to synthesize the literature and relate it to your research problem.
Bui (2009) identified 10 basic components that should be included in the research synthesis. These components are:
1. Introduction
2. Purpose
3. Setting/Sample
4. Intervention/Issue
5. Procedures
6. Variables/Measurement Instruments
7. Data Analysis
8. Results
9. Conclusions/Implications
10. Limitations/Weaknesses
Summarizing your articles
After you have synthesized your research articles in each area, it is necessary to write a summary paragraph. The purpose of this paragraph is to summarizeand connect the main points of the five primary studies supporting each of your research questions. The summary section should also highlight the main limitations of the research articles.
In this section summarize the key points from the three areas of research as well as the limitations.
The summary provides a picture of the most pertinent research in the literature related to your research problem as well as the rationalefor how your study contributes to the literature.
You should conclude the summary with a brief statement of how the literature supportswhat you are addressing in your study.
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You need to leave a lasting impression on the reader that your study is absolutely essential.
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