While in Project 2 you practiced deep reading, detailed note-taking, and synthesizing information visually, Project 3 asks you to write a literature review that discusses what you’ve learned from your sources and then develop a research proposal that addresses and builds upon the research question(s) you developed in Project 2.
When people conduct research in disciplinary and professional contexts, they do so in order to answer questions related to a specific need or problem. Literature reviews, as a research genre, collect, organize and synthesize the relevant secondary research in a systematic way that provides highly condensed and heavily documented information related to your particular question or problem. The primary purpose of the review is to provide your audience and/or collaborators with an overview of what experts have said about the problem or research question under investigation. In other words, a literature review provides a summary and analysis of existing research and arguments related to a particular research question or problem.
Assignment Prompt
This assignment requires you to move through the messy and recursive stages of researching, analyzing, organizing, and writing in order to draft a formal literature review. Throughout our work on this project, you will draw upon the research and your synthesis of that research in Project Two for this Project. This will also require exercising your critical and creative thinking capabilities to draw parallels, connections, and solutions between the problem/context of your question and information from the sources you find. The conclusion of your literature review will propose a solution to the research problem that you present within your literature review and/or presents an argument that addresses your research questions.
The Genre of Literature Reviews: Literature reviews synthesize information, compare and contrast ideas, and clearly describe relationships between well-cited texts so that readers get a sense of a broader conversation and its importance to a particular discourse community. Literature reviews are organized topically with frequent citations and dense prose that is frequently signposted to help readers navigate both conceptual and structural complexity (we will unpack all this – don’t worry). Generally, you should show readers how experts have approached the problem or question, what has already been said about it, where contradictions or discrepancies occur, and what still needs be to learned about a topic. A good way to think about this part of the project is transforming your Synthesis Tree/Matrix from Project 2 into an essay organized around the different sections of your Tree.
The Genre of Research Proposals: Research proposals are just that—proposals for how someone might use research to answer a research question or address a problem within a discipline/community. In this project, you will conclude your literature review with a proposal that critically reflects upon how your research problem/question might be answered. You will begin by revisiting and revising your research questions you created and researched in Project Two.
Project 3 Process:
Use the analysis and synthesis of research conducted in Project Two to identify a “research gap”—a problem or question related to your research that has not yet been addressed or an answer to that problem or question that has not been adequately explored.
Come up with a proposal or plan to fill this research gap. This plan might include proposing a yet-unexplored solution to a problem, making an argument by challenging or building upon existing research and arguments, or conducting primary research that utilizes specific research methods (surveys, interviews, focus groups, user-testing, ethnography, etc.).
Draft your Literature Review in a way that builds towards your research proposal/argument by explaining what existing research has already been done. Your literature review should include brief explanations of why new or different solutions or arguments are necessary.
Draft a formal research proposal that references the sources in your literature review to propose a plan for new research or a new argument. Clearly explain what this new research will add to the existing research. Research proposals present a solution and justification for resolving the research question/problem. The proposed research must be at least “semi–realistic.”
Learning Objectives
Read:
Draw upon research conducted, coded and synthesized in Project Two.
Write:
Deploy a flexible process for planning, drafting, and revising that responds to the rhetorical contexts of different writing situations in academic and professional discourse communities
Emulate genre conventions of Literature Reviews such as synthesizing multiple sources, situating diverse perspectives, and reproducing the stylistic, formatting, and citation practices of specific academic/professional discourse communities
Produce a proposal solution to your research question/problem appropriate for you field of study and audience.
Research:
Deploy a formal process for defining and revising a specific topic of inquiry (question or problem), research goals (outcomes and artifacts) as well as various ways of addressing those inquiries (methods and solutions).
Identify and emulate diverse research genres such as research journals, literature reviews, and research proposals
Reflect:
Plan and evaluate appropriate procedures for writing about a clear and focused research topic of inquiry for professional/academic audiences
Identify and implement needed adjustments to research and writing processes and products
Describe, with predicted examples, how skills, procedures, and knowledge acquired in this unit might apply to future contexts
Minimum Requirements
Each step in the process will include scaffolded assignments in order to help guide you through the process safely and securely.
Introduction
Introduces the reader to the context of the problem, issue, or question to be explored in the paper
Briefly previews the types of sources that will be used in the paper, and incorporates information from a few key sources as examples of what the reader can expect
Provides a “roadmap” for the reader that outlines what the author will do or explore in each section of the literature review and the research proposal.
Introduces research questions
2 pages in length (double spaced)
Literature Review:
Features correct in-text and bibliographic citation of 8 scholarly sources
Uses section headings to organize and sign-post content for readers, and organizes information based on topics or themes across sources, rather than providing a summary and analysis of each source separately
Disciplinary/Professional formatting
5+ pages in length (double spaced)
Proposal:
Suggests a solution to research question
Draws upon research presented within literature as justification for the proposal
Discusses the limitations to and the scope of the proposal
Provides a brief conclusion that reiterates the importance of this proposal
Uses section headings to organize and sign-post content for readers
2+ pages (double-spaced)
For this paper, I am focusing on how research in forensic psychology works and why not many people go into that field.
