After reading through the 2 sample lit reviews, please take a look at these 2 websites:
(1) http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-reviews/
(2) http://www.duluth.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/researching/litreview.html
Taken together--the sample lit reviews and the two websites--please respond to the following questions pulling on at least one of the websites to evidence what you are saying:
What is the purpose of a lit review? (be specific!)
Why might it be extremely important to do a lit review before writing your essay?
Why do we learn how to write a lit review?
Next move to your research, and respond to the following questions:
What is the purpose of your lit review?
What are some themes that you might pull out from your research that you've already conducted?
How might these themes connect back to your research question?
Be as specific and detailed as possible.
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ReplyDeleteWhat is the purpose of a lit review? (be specific!)
ReplyDeleteA lit review is “handy guide” to a given topic based on relevant sources. It is an unbiased summarization and synthesis of the sources on your given topic.
Why might it be extremely important to do a lit review before writing your essay?
It is important to organize ideas before the writing of the actual research paper, and it acts as a starting point to base your argument on.
Why do we learn how to write a lit review?
Learning to write a lit review is a part of the research process, it helps with organization of your ideas, and it could be helpful for future writing.
Next move to your research, and respond to the following questions:
What is the purpose of your lit review?
Emma: My lit review will be synthesizing both the facts of women in modern America, i.e. the stats about their economic standing, education rates etc. with the opinions around women and women in pop culture. I have articles that show the stats of women in the past few years as well as articles that show opinions about women that are currently relevant in the media.
Tresdon: My lit review will seek to organize patterns in my sources, and to weed out any unnecessary or irrelevant information. This will be extremely helpful to me because I often have trouble with using only good information, because I often like to use all of the information and explain how it contributes to my question. This is definitely a personal obstacle, but the lit review will help me avoid/overcome it.
Katie: The purpose of my lit review will be to critically analyze the relationship between my various sources, and will provide me with a very good background of information. I will be researching the specifics about sustainability of coral reefs-- specifically due to climate changes.
What are some themes that you might pull out from your research that you've already conducted?
Emma: The standing of women in modern America, the negative reactions towards women’s overt sexuality, the positive correlation between women and innocence
Tresdon: I've noticed the themes of screen size, touch capability, and on-the-go computing to be key factors in studying my topic. These are the main ones that I've discovered so far but I also have noticed that some of the nuance themes are like "Taskbar-less GUIs" and "gps interactions"
Katie: Some themes I will pull from my already conducted research will be various information concerning coral reefs. A main theme will be the sustainability currently in place in regard to coral reefs in marine ecosystems.
How might these themes connect back to your research question?
Emma: These look at the factual standing of women in America as well as the opinions and my research question is nvestigating the relationship between these two.
Tresdon: These themes connect back to my research in a pretty direct way considering that my topic is directly related to software design, and more specifically how a user experiences software differently across platforms. I can use all of these themes that I've discovered to talk to my question. (This is mostly because I have been very discretionary in my sources at this point so there is nothing extraneous really)
Katie: These themes will connect back to my research question directly because they will help me answer my overarching question through synthesizing the various resources I have found. The theme of climate changes will relate to my research question through allowing me to speak about coral bleaching which is a main point in my argument.
The purpose of a lit review according to what we read is to relate sources to each other, summarizing without adding additional information. It will be important to write this before writing an essay because one can gain a better feel for how evidence fits into the picture and how the paper will best flow with the chosen sources. We learn how to write a lit review because it is part of our class and part of the "writing process" in academic papers.
ReplyDeleteJules: In my research, the purpose of the lit review will be to relate the sources that I have to each other and to gain an idea of how I might organize my paper when I go to write it. From what I've read so far, there's definitely some themes as far as the struggles of developing artificial intelligence. I am specifically aiming my research at the problems associated with understanding complex syntax, like sentences that draw on previous sentences to find an antecedent (ex. The cow is in the field. It eats grass). Teaching computers how to identify antecedents is still a work in progress. Other issues deal in words that can have multiple meanings and how they fit into the meaning of a sentence (or a paper as a whole). One that I haven't encountered yet in my research but that I find extremely important is how to teach a computer to recognize sarcasm. It's a slippery subject and I'm going to try to find articles on this to see the work that's being done. Overall, it will relate back to my ever-evolving research question, which currently is to focus on the developments and problems with semantic analysis through computation.
Jenna: The purpose of my lit review is to combine my secondary research and find out how it will fit in with my thesis and the whole research paper. I have found multiple themes in my research, the most common being: Young adulthood (18-29 years), dream analysis, dream content, lucid dreaming, and cognitive process. These themes are the core of my research question: What are DU students dreaming about, what do those dreams mean, and are they lucid dreaming? The theme of young adulthood relates to my subject, the DU students. Dream analysis and content connect in the dream meaning. Lucid dreaming and cognitive process are perfect themes with lucid dreaming and what the dreams mean.
Shawn: The purpose of my lit review, specifically, is to understand the research that others have done on the manipulation of media. Their viewpoints have heavily shaped mine, and I want to represent their ideas in the purest form, without any personal opinions being added to it. Some themes I would pull out of this are: 1. The influence of the corporate world – money is one of the largest motivators when it comes to WHY media is manipulated. 2. How media is influenced – Personally, I am unaware of many methods (apart from blatant misrepresentation) used to manipulate facts in the media. Other articles by those in the industry are much more aware of how media can be spun. These themes connect back to my research very directly – it attacks the why, the how, and the who of media manipulation. My paper will build upon this research and I will draw upon primary research to come up with specific examples.
What is the purpose of a lit review?
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of a lit review is to give the writer a handy guide to a particular topic. A lit review is a critical analysis of the relationship between different works, focusing on a specific topic. It can help to understand a topic more thoroughly, but can also help when writing a research paper because all the material appears in one place. Lit reviews provide a solid background for investigation, in addition to illuminating the differences and similarities between different authors to demonstrate disagreement in the field, and juxtaposition of opinion from author to author.
Why might it be important to do a lit review?
It makes sure one has read the sources thoroughly, it provides a framework for your essay, and it helps to avoid a “messy” essay by keeping the author organized and on track.
Why do we learn how to write a lit review?
It makes the author a better researcher, helps the researcher focus in on what they're writing, by forcing us to only look at important points.
-Della:
The purpose of my lit review is to have a better understanding of AIDS and HIV in general, as well as composting. A general knowledge of these two topics will comprise the majority of my lit review. I don't completely understand these two topics at their most basic levels, so the lit review will help me understand and will provide a framework for learning about these topics.
Themes that I plan on pulling out are public health and examining how composting affects the “green” movement, while also considering the effect of bacteria on public health and safety. This relates to my research question by trying to see how organic matter will affect compost and whether or not it will become an epidemic.
-Alex:
The purpose of my lit review is to identify violence in Tarantino films. In my lit review I will be discussing the symbolism of violence in Tarantino’s films. I’m still unsure about exactly what my lit review will contain, but I know that as I continue to review my secondary sources the organization of my lit review will become more clear to me.
-Helen
The purpose of my lit review will be to gather salient information from all my source
The purpose of my lit review is to identify instances of violence in Pulp Fiction and identify critical response and examination to these instances of violence. This lit review will help me to organize the content of my paper, and assist me in recognizing what trends my research shows. In addition my lit review will give me a much stronger knowledge of my topic in general, and will allow to better identify the purpose of violence in Pulp Fiction, knowledge that I will need coming into my paper.
DeleteThere are two prominent recurring themes in my research. The first is that from stylistic perspective, many view Tarantino's use of violence in Pulp Fiction, as being used to demonstrate the commonality and strangeness of violence, as opposed to the classically glamorized Hollywood version of it. The second view, is the exact opposite claiming that Tarantino himself glamorizes violence, and numbing the viewer to its shock value through repetition. These are excellent trends as they show two opposing views to examine regarding Pulp Fiction, and further research will further help to develop these perspectives in my paper.
A lit review focuses on a specific topic broken down into multiple themes that can be connected with each other. Amongst the different themes there are numerous sources that can be compared with each other. It shows progression
ReplyDeleteIt can help make it easier to write the research paper because you can combine it into your paper. You can also pull ideas from the lit review and implement them into the paper.
It will help us get a better understanding of analyzing our research and makes us more familiar with the information about our topic.
Dimitrius – to provide a better understanding of my topic and to show how all of my sources are connected.
Jason – to help me get a better understanding of specific information about my topic. Also, to compare the different information from my sources.
Themes might be: Computer Vision Syndrome, Symptoms, Preventive Measures.
These themes all relate to how using computers can affect people.
The purpose of my lit review is to relate information from a variety of sources to have a better understanding of music’s effects on mental health.
Some themes I am looking to pull out are specific negative or positive effects, rather than overall well being.
These themes will connect back to my research question because they are basically answering the question itself. I wanted to know the effects, so I can see the positive and the negative.
Dimitrius: To provide a better understanding of my topic and to show how all of my sources and connected
Dimitrius: Some themes that I might pull out of my already conducted research are: previous relationships, cause and affect of a relationship, and future relationships
Dimitrius: These themes will connect back to my research because they will also be the leading topics that are discussed throughout my research paper.
The purpose of my lit review is to relate information from a variety of sources to have a better understanding of music’s effects on mental health.
DeleteSome themes I am looking to pull out are specific negative or positive effects, rather than overall well being.
These themes will connect back to my research question because they are basically answering the question itself. I wanted to know the effects, so I can see the positive and the negative.