The Literature Review Assignment: Writing GuidelinesFowler/Smith/Pierce Fall 2008

This document contains the guidelines for what you will put in writing and turn in for a grade regarding your literature review on December 1, 2008. This complements the first document we posted which contains the guidelines to get you started finding articles, and also the lit review guidelines we discussed round-robin on campus.

Recall from the guidelines for getting your review started that you are required to use 8-10 relevant research articles to your topic of study in your written review. Generally, these research articles need to have been published within the last 10 years. While some of your research articles can be from ERIC, they do need to be from research journals (online journals can be fine, though).

The purpose of a Literature Review is to summarize what you have learned from an immersion in the research literature related to your Problem Statement or issue in mathematics teaching. The written Literature Review is an organized narrative that conveys to the readers of your action research project the relevance of published research to your Problem Statement or issue of teaching.

In addition, through the process of locating and reading the research articles related to your Problem Statement and paying attention to other researchers’ research questions and methods of data collection and analysis, you will get new ideas for your own research questions and kinds of data you will want to collect and analyze for your own study. We want you to be reading the articles for your Literature Review with an open mind for what the particulars of your own study might become. As you read others’ research, keep notes on the side about ideas you are having for your own project regarding a research question and data collection and analysis. You will make use of these ideas later.

Refer to the Action Research book by Mills, pp. 39-44. The ideas on these pages forms the basis for what we want you to turn in to us regarding a review of the literature. You will turn two main documents. The first is a Literature Matrix (see pg. 43). The second is a written Thematic Review of the Literature.

The Literature MatrixThere are examples and a description of what a Literature Review Matrix is in the Mills book. This is an excellent way for you to organize and keep track of what you are reading in a matrix form. The matrix will help you see patterns in past research and help you to see where your own study fits with others’ research. You will list the authors and years of publication of the 8-10 articles you find along the Y-axis and along the X-axis you will list the kinds of Research Themes/topics addressed by the studies. The Literature Matrix provides you with a mental map of what you are reading and begins to help you see what studies share in common and where studies differ. Your Literature Matrix will help you see categories of research based on the Themes considered.

Thematic and Chronological Review of the LiteratureUsing your Literature Matrix, you will also write a Thematic and Chronological Review of the Literature. Here you will construct a comparison and contrast of the authors you have included in your Literature Matrix. Look for patterns and themes in your matrix (try rearranging the authors in different ways to find patterns) and then use the patterns and themes as a way to organize your written review. Make categories of literature and write about how authors compare and contrast within those categories. And within categories, look chronologically from most dated to most recent research and see if you notice any changing trends. Every author listed in your Literature Matrix should appear in your written review. You need to organize your literature review around your themes, and not simply report on each author one at a time. If you have identified more than 5 themes, then consolidate/prioritize the themes so that you limit yourself to 3-5 themes in your Thematic Review of the Literature. More than 5 themes tends to lead to a lack of focus in your paper, and too much work for you.

Begin your literature review with a one paragraph introduction. Mention again your topic for action research, then briefly discuss the themes you found in the literature. Then, each theme should get its own section (with a heading), and finally a conclusion after you report all your themes (see below for more on your conclusion).

Recall that the first time you mention an article, give a two-sentence summary. For instance: “Smith and Hartman studied 35 middle school teachers participating in an ambitious professional development program for two years by conducting classroom observations and multiple interviews of teachers and students. Smith and Hartman found that teachers included more group work and class discussions the longer they were in the program.” You are justifying to the reader why the people you are citing/quoting are worth listening to.

Conclude this written review with a Concluding Statement. This is where you state in a final paragraph what your own study is going to be, reflect on the importance of your study in light of the literature you have reviewed, and describe the potential you see your work has to contribute to the existing body of published research. In this section, you need to explicitly identify where your research fits in the body of published literature. You will want to make statements like, “While Smith (2007) also studied homework, her study focused on fifth grade science and my focus is on seventh grade mathematics.” Or “This study will look at journal writing in math class the same way that Smith (2003) did.” You need to compare your study to those you read about and be explicit in identifying the similarities and differences.

You may have noticed by now that there is no specific page length given for this assignment. You need to discuss each of the themes you found in the literature, and describe how your project fits with the literature. You need to mention each of your articles at least once. If you do all of this, it will be long enough. If you hit 20 pages, you have probably written too much. If you are writing about 3-5 Themes, that should help control the length.

At the end of your written review you will include a List of References. You will list the references (or citations) of all of the articles that appear in your Matrix and written review according to APA style. This reference style is described through examples in the Mills book. A summary of APA is in Course Documents. A good online source for using APA style is (you have to scroll down to get to the references section):http://www.psywww.com/resource/APA%20Research%20Style%20Crib%20Sheet.htm