Goal:
The objective of this assignment is for students to organize their research and to hone their essay research question in light of the material. By this point in your research you should have a long list of scholarly articles, book, sources from the web, news reports and course readings that relate to your topic. If you are having trouble finding adequate scholarly sources, you may need to refine your search terms, change databases, or ask the reference librarian for assistance. If you have found too much, then you may need to narrow the topic to a particular time period or place. The review of this material is an exercise in assessing the value of your research in supporting your arguments in the paper. You are organizing the literature in relation to your key arguments.
The broad goal of the final paper, as you know, is to assess a human rights issue in light of the course themes and materials – assessing the possibilities and limitations of human rights law and discourse in that particular case or issue.
Research Question:
The Literature Review should begin with a few paragraphs where you state your topic and what your research question is. This is not an easy task. You may not have settled on a perfect research question at this point due to gaps in your material or questions that remain about how your arguments will unfold. Nonetheless, give me a tentative research question. Without it, the review essay will not make sense.
Material:
You are expected to use a minimum of 3 (with a preference for 5) course materials in your essay. Please include these in your literature review although they may not figure as prominently as other articles you have found. You should have at least 8 outside scholarly sources (articles in refereed journals or books or edited collections) which is a very conservative number. I would expect that you will use more than that.
Literature Review:
In the review essay, you are answering the following questions:
• What are the main themes in the literature on your topic?
• How do different groups of scholars approach the topic and on what basis?
Full Bibliography:
You should also include a full bibliography of all the material you found in your searches. This allows me to see what you have looked at but discarded and helps me suggest other relevant material.
The full assignment should be about 5 pages. The full bibliography is additional.
