To prepare for this assignment, please read at least one literature review chapter from one dissertation.
This assignment will help you further articulate, clarify, and refine your topic for the dissertation. Reading and summarizing 30-40 peer reviewed publications related to your chosen topic (See topic below and attached) will help you to expand your thinking and evolve your topic. By peer reviewed, we mean articles, monographs, and other materials that have been reviewed, critiqued, and edited prior to publication by researchers working independently of the authors. Completing a Literature Review Grid (Grid attached in excel document) is an important and, for many literature reviewers, essential way to keep track of what you are reading, its relevance for your dissertation research, the relationships between the publications you are reviewing, and possible arguments you can make. Each grid must include the following:
- Each reference must include citation information aligned with APA guidelines;
- In no more than one paragraph, the main points in the reference that connect to the main topic (these can be bullet points or short sentences) must be identified;
- At least 80% of the references must be from peer-reviewed publications; and
- At least two columns must identify the ways the literature can interact with each other, focusing on thematic categories or “buckets” for the publications and how the core ideas from the publication connect to the topic and emerging argument of the review
To facilitate this process, we advise consulting and possibly using the Literature Review Grid template on Canvas.
The Preliminary Visualization portion of this assignment will further help you begin identifying how to organize the themes and findings in the literature you review. Occurring very early in the review process, preliminary visualizations offer an opportunity to name the major topics and subtopics that will need to be discussed to help the readers fully understand your literature review’s argument about the current state of knowledge on your topic. Through visual arrangements of these topics, you can also begin identifying potential relationships between the different topics and references. While these are frequently used templates for mapping concepts for a literature review, the preliminary visualization can take any approach that helps you begin to articulate: the core topic of your literature review, the subtopics that must be discussed for the reader to understand this topic, and the relationship you have observed between the subtopics and the main topic of your literature review. Because the topics selected and relationships you have identified with the subtopics will likely shift as you continue to engage with the literature and develop your argument, it is important to remember that any visualization of the different relationships between your topics at this stage is preliminary, reflecting your understanding at this moment in time, and will likely shift as you continue the literature review process.
Deliverables:
- Complete the Literature Review Grid with 30-40 references from peer reviewed publications
- Preliminary Topic Visualization
