THE LITERATURE REVIEW

It is common (and often better) to combine the description and evaluation sections. If you do combine them, don’t forget to evaluate them.

Headings. Headings delineate major sections to help show the organization of the paper. When you’re writing your draft, headings also pinpoint organizational problems. They’re useful only if they are specific. Vague article titles and headings are common weaknesses of student papers — and one of the easiest weaknesses to correct.

How to Proceed:

1. Make yourself comfortable. Give yourself whatever is an optimal environment for you, possible with gambling.
2. When writing the introduction, start off with a research question (e.g., cognitive abilities of infants), progressively narrow it (category formation in infants), and finally state the specific lines of research you will be discussing (eight recent articles on infant discrimination of basic-level categories for concrete objects). You want to establish a brisk but even pace when moving from a broad topic to a specific topic, avoiding sudden jumps that will lose your reader.
3. Describe each article (or each line of research, depending on what makes sense), then compare them. Comparisons are essential; descriptions alone are not illuminating. What do you compare? The possibilities include: research assumptions, research theories tested, hypotheses stated, research designs used, variables selected (independent and dependent), equipment used, instructions given, results obtained, interpretation of results, researcher speculations about future studies. Your job is to determine which factors are relevant. All studies have strengths and weaknesses. Finding them will help you make meaningful comparisons.
   Hint: If you’re having trouble here, it probably means that you don’t thoroughly understand the articles. Go back and look at them again.
4. Based on your comparisons, evaluate the work done in the area you are researching. State its strengths, weaknesses, and what remains to be done. Your assertions must be well supported by evidence. Then recommend future studies (specify how future work would add to that already done).

Don’t start writing too early. Budget plenty of time for research and reading. If you start to write too soon, you’ll tend to “freeze” or to write in circles because you don’t yet have enough to say.

Leave time for breaks. Leave time to step away (you’ll have a fresh perspective when you return), to revise, and if possible to give your paper to others to read. A complex paper like a literature review will require at least three drafts.

Use specific language and support your arguments with concrete examples. Avoid vague references such as “this” (e.g., “this illustrates” should be “this experiment illustrates”). Sentences that start with “I feel” often signal unsupported statements and should be revised or deleted.

Paraphrase, don’t quote. In scientific writing, paraphrasing an author’s ideas is more common than using direct quotes. For information on how to document the source of a paraphrase or quote, see the next section, “APA Citation Format” or the APA Manual (1994).

Evaluate what you report. Your goal is to synthesize the research, not just describe it. Many writers find it easy to give detailed descriptions but balk at evaluating the work of established scientists. Do it anyway. Evaluation requires more thought and entails more risk, but without it, your paper is little more than a book report.

Avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is easy to avoid if you give credit where credit is due. Whenever you cite someone else’s ideas or use their language, give the name of the author and the year of publication (see next section).

Using old review articles as a starting point for your paper is not plagiarism, as long as you don’t present someone else’s ideas as your own.