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Assignment #1
What is a Review of Literature Page
Dropbox for Review of Literature Assignment (2.2)
Assignment #2
Dropbox for Sample Journal Assignment (2.2)
Please drop a single sample of your journaling here. I’m looking for the level of reflection that you are including in your journaling. Reflection is the name of the game in journaling your volunteer experience. Please refer to the information on journaling for a more complete idea of the expectation. Thanks. DR. S
Mini-Lecture for week 11
Mini-Lecture for this Week Welcome We are coming to the end of the semester rather quickly. We have some interesting opportunities in the weeks ahead. I am sure you will find the Review of Literature a challenging experience. This week the focus will be on getting the Review of Literature started while tweaking the two components (Introduction, Statement of the Problem) to make sure they flow nicely from one to the other in a consistent and meaningful way that presents your argument convincingly. You make this happen by continual re-reading and re-writing to make the Introduction, Statement of the Problem, and the Review of Literature add consistency, clarity, and substance to your paper. I will get you feedback on your week 10 assignments so you can make your rewriting efforts effective.In addition, you need to be well into your volunteer work, keeping your reflective journal, and thinking about putting together the Power Point Presentation about your volunteer experience. This week I would like to see a sample of your journaling–not your entire journal-so I can comment on your reflections. There will be no additional writing assignments this week so you can focus on getting these pieces of the Integrative Paper put together along with continuing your volunteer work with its related activities. Best wishes.
What is a Review of Literature
What is a Review of Literature?
AND
some thoughts about the Integrative Paper as well
And
Citing Your Sources
http://library.semo.edu/learn/citing.shtml
Here is a bit of information that may help clarify what a Review of Literature for a scholarly paper might look like. I apologize if I have made this too elementary for some, however, having everyone on the same page is important here. As you begin to think about the Integrative Paper and making a strong, convincing argument about your social issue, please look carefully at the outline below.
To understand a review of literature we must first understand a little about a scholarly paper. A scholarly/technical paper is written following time honored and established guidelines for reporting scholarly work (research). Generally, but not always, a scholarly paper is connected to some kind of original research related to a question that the researcher is addressing. Sometimes the paper itself can be a review of relevant literature (what other scholars are saying about the question) and theory relevant to the question. There are also other approaches not relevant for discussion here. So, your Integrative Paper is designed to be a scholarly paper focusing on your volunteer experience. Specifically it is written about a question/problem/social issue/concern (or related issue) that arises from the mission or activities of your volunteer site–or what your agency is attempting to effect. Later in your paper it is important that you to address how you are helping the agency accomplish their goals and objectives.
Again, here is an example: Large numbers of children come home from school to a house that has their parents missing. They are at work, generally. This is a significant social issue because school age children need supervision by adults or adult type caregivers. We have to be careful, however, because the topic of latchkey children has many facets–it is large and complex. To try to explore all of the facets would result in a great deal of work and produce a paper of immense proportions. Not our task here. So we narrow the focus and find a question that we really want to address like:
The effects of parental absence on children.
Or, if we were doing specific, scientific research something like
The effects of lack of after school supervision on children’s perception of their being loved and valued.
Or
The effects of absent parents on the perception of males by adolescent females.
Hopefully,You get the picture of how we go about narrowing our focus so we can gather specific information and not get bogged down in the vastness of the issue. So how do you go about writing a scholarly paper about your chosen question? You conceptualize your paper (the Conceptualization Assignment) then outline what your paper will contain (the Outline Assignment) and then fill in the outline.
The following is the general outline and accepted way of organizing your paper. More headings can be added but there are certain elements that may not be omitted. Ihave called this outline the Mandatory Outline and you have already seen it.
The Review of Literature (ROL) is one of the headings. It is a separate assignment because it is probably the largest and most scholarly part of your paper.
Here is the outline again. It contains some templates that you can use and just fill in your social issue/topic to get started.
1. Introduction–what is the social issue/topic that the paper is addressing? How will you organize your paper and the information?
Template: (Your topic inserted here. Latchkey children is used as an example) is a significant social issue in the US. Numerous families are faced with the problem of lack of after school activities and supervision for their children while parents are still at work. This paper will address the extent, consequences, causes and some solutions to (your topic inserted here). That is all you need to write for the Introduction. Get the reader’s attention and do not give inappropriate amounts of information. It comes later.
Statement of the problem–This problem is something that you are concerned or passionate about–found in connection to your volunteer work. So first you need to establish that there is a problem or concern. Your Statement of the Problem presents the problem in a little more detail to the reader. It gives the idea of what the problem actually is and how prevalent it is. This statement may duplicate some of your introductory statement and that is ok as you gave a brief, concise, and pointed overview of the problem or social issue. Here you present a snapshot of focused information from existing research to support your problem statement. So a couple of stats to back up your argument.
The reason to stay focused is to keep your topic narrow enough to be able to research it successfully. For example, the whole issue of domestic violence is too large to write about in this paper, so what you must do is to focus more narrowly on an area of our specific interest–like the children, the victims–or another related issue. In this paper, we focus even more more narrowly, addressing some particular concern we have about the children–like emotional adjustment, etc. We do not have to deal with all the problems that children might experience. A sampling of the literature helps you see just how scholars focus on specific “questions” (or problems/concerns) which become the basis for their research.
So here is a sample template for your Statement of the Problem: Ten million children return home after school and are without parental supervision for at least 2 hours every day (citation required). Without adult supervision and guidance, they are vulnerable and at significant risk for dangerous and possibly even anti-social behaviors that could be a threat to their lives, criminal behavior, sexual exploitation or threats in other areas of inappropriate behavior as well.
Review of Literature. This is to be written in your words (it is not a collection of articles or abstracts from literature supporting your social issue), using supportive ideas from the literature that gives your social issue validity. The review of literature is the heart of your paper. It is where you really argue the relevance of your social issue. So begin by maintaining the focus on the problem from the Introduction and Problem Statement above and strongly develop your argument about the relevance of the problem. Hit the reader with a well designed and meaningful exploration of the problem in 4 meaningful sections: 1. Nature and extent of the problem; 2. Some possible consequences of the problem; 3. Some possible causes of the problem; 4. Some possible solutions.
In your review of literature you are looking at what has been written about your “question or concern” to use as support for your view of the social issue. So you are trying to find author(s) who is/are concerned about the same topic (problem) as you are. Most generally, you can find other authors. So you propose that your concern is a problem and then go forward to work on a specific focus related to it and find supporting research articles that have been written by scholars.
With this paper, you are not required to do any original research but add your “anecdotal” data, which is what you have observed in your volunteering that relates to your topic or concern.. Look for strong research articles that you can reference to support your argument. This is the way you validate your question or concern as a serious social issue or problem. So gather information in support of your topic or concern. Please refer to the information above regarding a review of literature.
Here is a sample template to consider in beginning your writing of your Lit Review: Children coming home to a house without adult supervision and support, has been identified as a major social issue by many writers. Stokes, Polack, Parker, and Paquin (2009) found that 1 out of 7 school age children fall into this category. It is estimated that as many as 10 percent of families across the US have children who are unsupervised after school for at least 2 hours and may go as high as 4 hours. This research is supported by Heatherington, (2010) who found similar conditions in her landmark research.
Ok, you would want to add additional information and literature support to the above and then continue on to treat consequences, causes, and solutions in much the same way. Remember to stay focused and keep your information in related “chunks” (extent; one chunk, consequences; one chunk, etc.) It makes your argument stronger if you writing and ideas flow from one relevant point to another. So t his is how the Review of Literature fits into the scheme of your paper. Here is where you really get into it and discuss your concern.
Findings(for this paper, a summary of your literature search and anecdotal (what you observed in your volunteer work) data is included in the findings. In a research project, it would be the results and analysis of your surveys, etc., and some comparison with the findings of your literature review.
So what about this area? Generally, this is what a scholar doing research is getting to–reporting the results of their research. Gosh, did they have to go through all that other stuff in the Introduction and Statement of the Problem? Yep, they had to establish that they are really working on an identified social concern. So in this area you report the results of your scientifically designed surveys, interviews, etc., that produce data. Do you have any of this stuff? Probably not. You have what is called anecdotal evidence–information that comes from your observations and reflections on the problem that you are attempting to impact through volunteering at your agency or program. Anecdotal evidence has minimal credibility in the scholarly world–because it has not been produced by a rigorous research design–only observation–therefore, it could be biased and not “scientifically valid.” It is your observations and ideas but not tested. Our observations could be wrong, right? We are guided by our feelings, our preconceived way of looking at things and that is not very scientific. Make sense?
ConclusionsSo what do you concludefrom your “research” process (mostly observations and reflections) and your review of literature related to your “question?” Here is where you report this information. You can be pretty creative here but must keep it close to the established literature or else it will be seen as not valid. You can also generalize to causes and solutions to similar social problems, if you wish.
You can include the integration of theory and the concepts from the Course Perspectives here, if you wish, or under a separate heading.
Recommendationsfor further research or study. Ok, here is where you put your own ideas about what is needed to further enlighten us about the “question” or problem. Other lines of study and investigation.
For our purposes only, you need to include a heading for the discussion of the existence of the course concepts or integrate them in your paper someplace following the Review of Literature.
So here we are. The Review of Literature has been placed in the context of the whole paper. You can work on it individually but ultimately, it must be integrated into the paper.
Here is the Review of Literature assignment! You are reading this information because you are required to write your review of literature following the guidelines above and using the sample papers, and their literature reviews, as general guidelines. So go ahead and get started.
Remember that a good review of literature is more than reporting a few significant published articles that support or illuminate your “question”–although that is a good start. Simply reviewing articles is not a review of literature.By the same token, a Review of Literature is not an Annotated Bibliography, which is what you have if you summarize articles.
The review of literature is your own ideas (but not ever written in first person. Write in third person) integrated into a consistent flow of thought and discussion about the specifics of the issue you are concerned about, coupled with the thoughts and writings of published authors to support your perspective.
In order to organize your writing more strongly, may I suggest that you organize the lit review around 4 sections. First: state the problem issue and discuss the nature and extent of the problem; second: consequences; third: causes; finally: solutions. Stay focused and stay scholarly.
Tip: Often you can find some very interesting thoughts and ideas about your problem from the writing of others. It is okay to use those thoughts and ideas as well, however, you must always give the writers credit by a reference to their work. (APA writing style is required for your Introduction, Statement of the Problem, and Review of Literature)
So, to summarize, a meaningful Review of Literature follows the problem focus established in your Introduction (see above) that has briefly described the problem and what your paper will address. The Statement of the Problem follows (this answers the question of why you are looking at this question in the first place). Then in your ROL, you convince the reader that your concern is important and significant. Overall, in the first three headings, you pinpoint the reason that your question is a valid concern–it really is a social issue–and then proceed to support it using scholarly research articles in your Review of Literature to make your point.
Use the above outline as a guide for your paper. The outline is mandatory. If you decide to use some other headings as well, include them anyplace after the first three headings.
Some additional (repetitive) notes about effective paper writing:
1. Begin with the problem focus and stay with the problem focus throughout the Review of Literature. Anything other than
this distracts the reader and makes your focus unclear. What you want to do is to lead the reader specifically along the path
of your argument and not let them stray. Readers become confused and unfocused easily by side trips.
2. Put related chunks of information together (areas 1-4 above). Resist the temptation to offer explanations along with your
thoughts and ideas about the problem focus, and
3. Finish one idea before you move to another. This relates to 2 above. Make your argument for the problem before you
begin to look at solutions or what your agency is going to help or describing the history of the agency or the nature of your
volunteer efforts. Move the reader logically from one point to another.
4. Make your conclusions strong and related to the findings in the literature and your observations from your volunteer work.
Ok, that is it for now. Best Wishes. Please e-mail Dr. Stokes and let him know you have read this information. Thanks.
