Getting the Literature Review Right

Session Submission Type: Course

Description

The format of a journal article’s literature review is a major source of confusion for graduate students and early career scholars. Why? Because writing course papers, comprehensive exams, and even a dissertation doesn’t prepare anyone for how to write a literature review for a peer reviewed journal article. Instead of being a culmination of all of the reading you’ve done or a “review of the literature,” a literature review for a journal article should be an argument about the prior literature that justifies your study. In this professional development course, all participants will draft a literature review through a series of hands-on activities and group feedback exercises that will take their literature review from TMI (too much information) to a clear argument that sets up the contribution of their study.

Learning Objectives:

After participating in the course, participants will:

• Be able to articulate what a good literature review should and should not do,
• Be able to identify room for improvement in their draft literature reviews,
• Have a draft of their journal article’s literature review, and
• Have a plan for any further revisions their literature review needs.

Sub Unit

• Courses

Presenter

• Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, University at Albany, SUNY

Session Organizer

• Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, University at Albany, SUNY