Length: 4-6 pages or 1000-1500 words.
A lit review is a discussion of the secondary scholarly books/articles written on a subject. Here are a couple of helpful online resources explaining what a lit review entails: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/ (Links to an external site.) , https://guides.library.ucsc.edu/write-a-literature-review (Links to an external site.)
The pedagogical purpose of this exercise is for you to learn how to find and recognize legitimate scholarly secondary sources and how to read and respond to those sources. In other words, you are learning about and engaging in academic discourse.
Choose a narrow topic related to our class reading and discussions since mid-term. For example, the topic of witches or witchcraft is too broad. Narrow it down to King James and witchcraft or witches in Scotland, Reginald Scot and skepticism of witchcraft, etc. Other ideas would-be midwives, wetnurses, menopause, lactation (all in 17th century Britain/Europe, not in life in the world in general). If you are a Shakespeare geek you can focus on a specific character or theme in Macbeth or The Tempest.
Find three articles related to your topic. They must be peer reviewed journal articles written during the period 2000-2019. They may not be book reviews. They may not be encyclopedia articles. They may not be websites. To find peer reviewed journal articles, go to https://library.guilford.edu/databases (Links to an external site.) and use the following search engines: JSTOR, Academic Search Elite, Google Scholar, and for articles about Shakespeare plays use MLA International Bibliography.
Print out and carefully read and annotate your three articles. Make sure that you identify the thesis. Try to discern the authors critical perspective. What critics or theories is the author responding to? What kind of evidence does the author use to support their argument?
Compose an introductory paragraph with a thesis that makes a claim about the pattern of research on your topic or a claim about a specific problem or question raised by the research.
Organize your body paragraphs chronologically or thematically. Use quotations and paraphrases from the articles as the evidence or meat in your hamburger style body paragraphs.
Compose a conclusion that returns to and reinforces your thesis but also opens outwards and suggests areas/questions for future study on the subject.
Use Chicago Style notes and bibliography. That means you need footnotes and a bibliography. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01/
