L4: The First Draft

Submission

eCampus

Type

Individual Submission. Each student in the course must write their own narrative and should treat this as an individual submission.

Description

While the construction of a literature review is a fluid process without well-defined criteria, there are some elements that can be outlined and will serve those individuals who enjoy having a list or checklist of items the best. With that in mind, begin to construct your first literature review draft.

Structure

This submission must be constructed using the following general components and should be uploaded to eCampus following the formatting guidelines given in the main tasks page

Building on the feedback you reviewed on our narrative from L1 and your matrix of your 25 articles, you will construct a first draft of your literature review. To practice the formatting of APA 7th papers, please submit your outline using the following components:

  1. A cover page
  2. 750-1250 words for the narrative
  3. A references page following APA 7 guidelines


Extra Help?

If you are a procedure oriented type of person, consider using the process below.

  1. Build a hub

    a. Briefly characterize your area of research and what particular problem or question at issue you will address.

    b. Choose at least 3 central studies that you can create clear and distinct connections - aka a hub. Note these may not be the central studies you end up with but they should serve as a good starting point.

    c. Summarize and synthesize the studies

  2. Now do at least one of the following, though you will likely do both:

  • Build authorities. Repeat steps a-c with another set of seemingly independent studies to create another cluster of sources - aka an authority. Then attempt to find a logical connection between them. If none exists, keep that cluster elsewhere for possible use later.

  • Build a citation network. Begin adding studies that appear to identify with at least one of your central studies and build out your narrative.