(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, the sample essays, and the two websites, please respond to the following questions pulling on at least one of the samples to evidence what you are saying:
What is the purpose of a lit review? (be specific!)
What is the purpose of an inquiry-based research essay?
How do the two differ?
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 is the purpose of your inquiry-based essay?
How will you make the two differ?
Be as specific and detailed as possible. Remember to engage with one another.
**You will NOT be able to respond to this blog without having read through the examples and the two websites. And this is NOT the time to *breeze your way through the blog hoping to get some amount of credit.
Due: Monday, April 29, 2013 by class time.
In class on Wednesday, I was having trouble understanding not only the importance of a lit review, but also what makes it different from my essay. After reading through the first sample lit review, I had a much better idea of what the purpose of a lit review is. At the end of the introduction on the first sample, the writer says “The research included presents the following themes extracted from my topic,” and continues on to present three different themes. In my opinion, this is a great example of what you are doing when writing your lit review. Instead of relating themes back to the main topic, you are talking about the themes in relation to the sources and the information given in them. The purpose of an inquiry based essay, on the other hand, is different from a lit review. In an inquiry based essay, you have a question that you are trying to answer. You do this by conducting different types of research and relating all of your themes back to the main topic. The question you are asking in your essay is much more in depth than a yes or no question and needs the support of multiple sources in order to provide a good analysis and help to answer that question. The difference between the two is that a lit review is about how the sources support or talk about the themes, and in an inquiry based essay, the themes are presented in order to relate back to the main topic of the paper. The most important reason for writing a lit review before your essay is so you will know what sources can be used to help support your themes. That way, when you do begin writing your paper, you will know what sources to use as you talk about the themes in relation to the main topic. Learning how to write a lit review will also help you in different aspects of research. Lit reviews ask you to make the connection between your themes and sources; this requires you to analyze a source more instead of maybe just using it as a support.
ReplyDeleteIn my own research on facebook and college students, the purpose of my lit review will be to connect my sources with my themes. The themes I am looking at using in my lit review are privacy and employment. I am not trying to answer my question of the effect of facebook has on college students, but I am going to be analyzing the sources I have collected and talk about the different aspects of each that apply to my different themes. However my inquiry based essay will be trying to talk about some of the different effects of facebook has on college students. In the essay my themes will be used as different aspect of my overall “answer” to my question. The sources I have will then be used to support and relate my themes back to my main topic. The difference between the two is that I don’t plan on talking much about my research topic in my review, only the themes and the sources that relate to them.
I really liked you blog post! I thought it was well organized and really easy to understand. Nice job!
DeleteA lit review synthesizes the arguments and ideas which others have already contributed toward a body of knowledge. Its purpose is to recap and reshuffle the existing important information which applies to our chosen topic, and to provide the context for our research. For example, the second sample says “The context of the research within this literature review stems from the realm of pop culture... to define what exactly the ideal body image is, and who, meaning which female celebrities, best evoke this perception.” This sets up the audience with exactly what sort of information will be presented.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of an inquiry-based research essay is to expand upon this existing work and to provide new arguments/insights.
*The basic difference:
Lit Review = summary, synthesis (application to the themes)
Essay = analysis (application to the inquiry)
It’s extremely important to do a lit review before writing an essay because without understanding what sorts of research has already been done, we can’t know where to go with our own. It provides the jumping-off point for our research. Without learning how to do this, our work would likely be redundant and unorganized.
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My question: How have lasting imagistic media trends from the Colonial period shaped American perceptions of Middle Eastern culture today?
For my lit review, my purpose is to bring together sources which discuss three main themes:
Colonialism and the origins of Orientalism
The power of imagistic media
Present day Orientalism in the U.S.
This lit review will synthesize my sources to discuss the themes relevant to my research topic. This will set me up with a sturdy framework so that my essay can dial the information into the specific context of my question.
Once I’ve done this, the purpose of my inquiry-based essay will be to draw connections between these themes and their impacts on the perceptions of Middle Easterners in America. Ultimately, I will provide analysis as to why this topic is important (notably in terms of modern media and politics). I will use this to shatter the common misconception that Orientalism is a thing of the past; it’s alive and well in America! This differs from my lit review in that it takes the sources and applies them to my inquiry question, not just to themes. It will also contain my own original research and analysis, and come full circle to draw conclusions and to suggest ideas for further research.
I like how you made a simple distinction between a lit review and a research paper:
Delete*The basic difference:
Lit Review = summary, synthesis (application to the themes)
Essay = analysis (application to the inquiry)
Sometimes thorough and lengthy explanations only murky the waters. Your explanation of the difference is short and sweet...and effective!
P.S. your topic really interests me and I hope we spend a day in class presenting our findings to each other!
DeleteThanks! I'm hoping we get to spend a day sharing our findings too. People picked a ton of cool topics that I never would've considered.
DeleteEmily- I agree with Hannah, making the "basic difference" was clever and helpful. Often the definitions and differences of terms can get lost when people become "wordy." You did a good job of keeping a focus and making your ideas clear and concise. After reading your post, I believe I have an even better idea of how to use and write and a lit review. I too really enjoy your topic. I am curious as to what peaked your interest in that specific area. Your themes for your lit review are well established. I believe that they will allow you to illustrate the correlation between your sources well. Good luck with your lit review, unless you've already finished it...? That would be impressive. Nice work!
DeleteLit reviews serve the purpose of confusing and frustrating first year college students. Just kidding. Lit reviews actually serve a very important role in presenting a body of research in an organized structure. An academic researcher, whether it is a student, professor, or a random Joe, will gather huge amounts of already-produced information from a variety of different sources on their particular research topic. Unfortunately, all this information does not come in a neat little package: themes crisscross and imbed themselves between sources. It is therefore the goal of the writer to examine all the information and restructure it into a convenient document known as a lit review. A lit review synthesizes a body of information and “provides [the reader] with a handy guide to a particular topic” (UNC Writing Center).
ReplyDeleteAn inquiry-based research essay serves a different purpose than a lit review. While a lit review summarizes and synthesizes pre-existing information, a research essay draws on pre-existing information to present a new argument and explore new frontiers of knowledge. Research papers provide an analysis of the sources and relate the sources to the overarching inquiry.
Although not necessary, writing a lit review prior to writing a research paper helps both the writer and the reader. Through the process of constructing a lit review the writer becomes aware of the themes and concepts existing within their seemingly endless amounts of information. The lit review forces the writer to take a cautionary step back from their research paper in order to effectively synthesize their findings before jumping head first into the paper itself. (Notice the steps listed on the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s webpage). Lit reviews also allow time-constrained readers to grasp the main concepts of a research paper without having to read the actual paper. I would assume these are the reasons why we, clumsy freshman college students, must learn to write a lit review. On a side note: according to “A Theory of Prior Knowledge and Its Role in College Composers’ Transfer of Knowledge and Practice,” the way we use prior information from high school to write a lit review will either be through assemblage, remix, or a critical incident.
The purpose of my lit review is to summarize the impact of abortion in the United States by consulting a variety of different sources. I developed themes to organize my research: mental, physical, cultural, and legislative impacts. I will use these themes to synthesize the information I found and then present it in the form of a lit review. The purpose of my research paper is to examine the impacts of abortion in regards to the mental wellbeing of women. The two differ because my lit review lays the foundation in terms of the scope of abortion’s impacts, but my research paper focuses specifically on how abortion affects women mentally. My research paper will present facts but will also analyze how the facts answer my fundamental inquiry.
I really like your blog post. You define both papers really well and it's easy to understand. I think its interesting that you say, "Although not necessary, writing a lit review...". I'm really not sure if formal lit reviews are considered common practice as a step before a research paper, but I bet it could be argued that they are definitely necessary for a GOOD research paper. It would be interesting to find out if most established researchers actually do formal lit reviews before writing their research papers.
DeleteInteresting. I'd agree that they aren't necessarily essential, but I bet they're more common for formal research papers. I think it just depends on the individual though. When I write big papers for other classes, I do basically a really informal lit review; I write down my main topics on a piece (or a few pieces) of paper, then put all the info from my sources under the corresponding themes. I think it's pretty natural to do anyways, but before now, we just haven't been forced to do it so formally.
DeleteCorrect. The reason I say a lit review is not necessary for writing a paper is because I know people (such as myself!) who have written research papers without writing a lit review. I would bet that most formal research papers do have a lit review with which it corresponds.
DeleteI definitely agree with that a Lit Review isn't necessary for writing but don't you guys think that it's very helpful? It helps you organize the body of research you have, understand your sources more, give you an overview of your research and gets you going. Research can be quite scary sometimes.
DeleteMy understanding of a lit review is to step back and take a look at each source and the themes they each bring to the table. This isn’t specifically supposed to be each theme that every source introduces but more a connection each source has with the other. The example I found that supported my understanding was from Sample Lit Review #1 where the writer labeled and numbered all of her themes and connected them with multiple different sources each. Under one heading, the writer included quotes, references and research supporting her theme.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of an inquiry-based research essay is to answer a specific question within a broad topic by utilizing both popular and scholarly sources as evidence. The person who wrote the first sample essay (same as the first sample lit review); utilized pictures, a movie and other sources of research to answer her question “If teenage girls are the intended market for these movies, what messages about body image are they getting” (Sample Essay #1).
The difference between the two media is subtle but existent. The first component to address is that an inquiry essay answers a question whereas a literary review introduces an issue and answers the question; So What and presents the research. Another key difference between the two research based writings is that an essay includes personal research more than a literary review. This is because an essay is more personalized and theory based whereas a review is strictly fact based.
A lit review is important and done in this class specifically to weigh the information in each source and to observe a connection throughout the different sources. This can be used to strengthen any argument and relate the key ideas. Lit reviews can also reveal holes in research that is necessary to show where future research needs to go.
The purpose of my lit review is to essentially explain the so what of my topic (ADHD) and show how it is over diagnosed/ over prescribed. The purpose of my inquiry essay is to answer the question is ADHD over diagnosed and over prescribed in American youth. I will make the two differ by answering the question in my essay instead of describing specifically the issue in my literary review.
First off, I think you did a great job with your blog post. I really like how how distinguished the difference between the inquiry based research essay and the lit review. As you say, the essay is more personalized while the lit review is fact based. Another important point you make is that the lit review shows where you still need to go with your research. Nice blog post
DeleteThe difference between a research essay and lit review:
ReplyDeleteResearch Essay > Lit Review.
Boom, done. Ever since our infamous rhetorical situation debate in class, I feel like this kind of definition can be applied to everything. Seriously though. If you look at the purpose of a lit review, I think most sites will tell you its purpose is to summarize and then synthesize the research. According to the writingcenter.unc.edu site, a “synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling of that information”. It is supposed to examine already published information in order to draw connections between the data. A research paper’s focus is to possibly develop a new argument or present a new idea based on research you have conducted. The lit review is the step before a research paper because it looks at already published research without presenting any new ideas. A research paper uses that synthesis in order to answer a research question. Therefore analysis from a lit review can be found within a research paper but answers to a question in a research paper should not be found in a lit review. In simpler terms, Research essay>Lit review. The hardest thing I was having with a lit review is how to write about the connections between sources for a single theme without creating an unorganized paragraph that bounces around too much. You don’t want to just list your sources but you also don’t want to skip around too much. In the first sample lit review on blackboard, I think the author had a good balance between the two. She would present the findings of one source and then use transitions such as “They, much like Dr. Seitz…” or “similarly Nicole Baute examined…” to start talking about a new source. I think this allows you to organize your thoughts but show the connections between sources at the same time. These transitions are not found once this lit review is turned into the author’s research paper, though. You can clearly see starting on the third page of the sample one research paper that there is one main source per paragraph to support an answer for the research question.
My research question is “what are the psychological effects of running?” For my lit review, my purpose is to draw connections between my sources for the three themes that I will be discussing. The first theme I will be looking at is “running as a drug”. Even though it contradicts my first theme, the second theme is “running as a drug prevention method”. The reader will be able to see that these two themes won’t actually contradict each other because the meaning and connotations to the word “drug” change. The last theme is “running makes people happier”. Once I move to my inquiry-based essay, I will take use the information in my sources as answers to my question. It will also contain my original research because this is the paper where new research is supposed to be brought out. I feel like I have a much better understanding now of the difference between these two papers as well as how to transfer from one to the other.
Witty way of defining the situation occurring between the lit review and the essay. Straight and too the point. I'm really interested in your topic and would love to read your findings once it's all said and done. I run quite often and love the feeling you get after pushing past the hurt to get to a "runner's high". Great post.
DeleteOne would think that after reading and going through the two websites explicitly explaining what a lit review is; it’s still confusing me. But I the conclusion I came up was that a lit review is summarizing and “synthesizing” a set of sources that someone gathered in order to create an inquiry-based research. Although a lit review has no common organizational aspects with the research essay, it could provide the writer and the reader with a guideline to the research topic itself. A lit review analyzes the sources at hand and finds common themes between them, therefore, helping the writer understand the research further. According to The University of Minnesota Duluth’s article on lit review, a lit review “focuses on a specific topic of interest to you and includes a critical analysis of the relationship among different works, and relating this research to your work.” Therefore, a lit review not only helps the writer understand what he’s talking about but also provides a summarized guideline for an interested reader of the topic.
ReplyDeleteA research paper or essay is different than a lit review in many aspects, according to UNC Writing Center, “In a research paper, you use the literature as a foundation and as support for a new insight that you contribute.” In a lit review, we don’t add any new information to the table while in research essay, we rely on the information we have to extend the understanding of the information we have or provide new information. Therefore, a research essay has a different purpose than the lit review. As an example, we take the first sample with the topic “teenage body image perceptions,” in that person’s lit review, he stated his purpose clearly when he said “The intention of this literature review is to direct the research towards connecting the body image perceptions of teenage girls, with the relationships adolescent girls form with female celebrities,” where clearly, he just connected different themes while connecting different information from numerous sources with each other. On the other hand, in his research essay, he analyzes his sources deeply relying on his main source, the movie “Mean Girls,” as the evidence and the new argument for his research of body image perceptions across the teenage girl community.
I would not say that doing a lit review is “extremely” important before I do my research. On the other hand, it certainly helps with giving me an overview of the whole research and helps me learn more about my sources more than just a surface-level understanding.
Since I’m just a freshman college student, I tend to write with a confusing structure sometimes. I was studying a very basic English-language curriculum until college so I lack many skills in English, especially writing. Therefore, I think that we’re learning how to do a lit review to create a more organized and clear research essay where it would be easier for the writer to write it and easier for the reader to interpret and perceive it.
The Purpose of my lit review is to synthesize with the themes I created from my sources while connecting the sources together in every theme. In order to do that, I’m going to basically mention what every source says in relation to the specific theme in a way that connects two or more sources together without adding further data or information.
My essay is going to explain my inquiry-based research, where I ask, “How real are ghosts,” delivering a brief explanation of what the essay intends to do. Furthermore, I’ll analyze my sources in a deep manner that will help deliver different perceptions of this supernatural phenomenon.
The two will differ in that I’ll add new information in my research essay with observations, surveys and interviews and the information I’ll present will revolve around my inquiry. On the other hand, in my lit review, I’ll just be connecting different themes and the information presented will revolve around those themes only and it’s not related to my inquiry.
The purpose of the lit review is to synthesize your academic and popular resources and categorizing them under the themes that the sources fit under. The point is to take one’s resources and figure out how all the resources fit together and what connections they share. The research paper will be answering the question posed using textual analysis along with surveys and interviews to see how they each respond to the question at hand and then incorporating all the evidence collected as a means to draw conclusions and results whether or not they answer the question stated in the beginning. The paper will draw conclusions and results based off analysis of the text, surveys, and interviews. The lit review focuses solely on establishing and synthesizing themes and ideas from all the textual resources. It is extremely important to do a lit review before a paper because analyzing all of ones textual resources will make it easier to incorporate the surveys and interviews in the themes already present in the text. Taking this textual analysis of themes, one can then begin to make conclusions on all the research and suggest areas for possible future research. Writing a lit review requires the ability to academically analyze and synthesis information from large groups of text. Taking this information and categorizing it all can be difficult, but in the long run it helps in seeing early connections.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of my lit review will be to examine all the textual evidence I have thus far gathered on the topic of video gaming in college. Using this evidence I will synthesize the text and begin to establish connections on the different resources and how they fit together. No other conclusions will be made on this evidence, just synthesizing and categorizing. The paper will be taking this synthesized information and then attaching it to my current question to see how well the evidence answers or speaks on the matter and then drawing conclusions on my question. The difference will be that in the lit review I must speak nothing on my question, and simply speak on only the things that the research talks on. Taking this research and analyzing it will be what the lit review does, drawing this analyzed data together with other data and drawing conclusions will be what the paper is about.
A lit review, like stated in the guidelines from the University of Minnesota-Duluth website, goes deeper than just a summary of the sources used for a research paper. The purpose is to analyze the sources, and use them in conjunction with your overall main topic. Another purpose it serves is that it provides you, as the writer, a better direction for your research and writing heading into the inquiry-based essay. It takes information you’ve gathered, and organizes it based on themes you’ve picked up instead of going from source to source in a mundane fashion.
ReplyDeleteThe difference with an inquiry-based essay is that it is answering a question. The lit review takes information and structures it around themes but the essay is trying to tell a reader something. The way this works is through the analysis of all findings in research and presenting it in a fashion that is both interesting and informative.
My topic is Greek life on the DU campus. The question I’m looking to answer is how much weight does the Greek community presence have in the student body and whether it’s a positive or negative impact. The themes I’ll be looking at are: student growth in differences of non-Greek and Greek students (particularly in academics and social growth), the routine of activities that Greek students have that may be exclusive to that environment, and a general consensus of opinions about the system.
My lit review will focus mostly on fitting information into these themes in the right place to help my direction and my essay will take these themes and show how they answer my question in a more in-depth way.
ReplyDeleteThe main purpose of a lit review is to summarize and synthesize the data that you have collected. While a summary includes an overview of the main points in the article, synthesizing is the “reshuffling” of the information in order to find connections between the pieces. A lit review allows the researcher to develop new interpretations of the data, and also perceive the information through different lenses and perspectives.
An inquiry-based research essay starts with the development of a research question and provides the guidelines in order to follow up with research. In this type of essay, the rhetor is investigating the question and adding their own insight to the information that they find.
These two differ because one involves adding one’s own opinions while the other merely states what has been found. In a lit review the rhetor does not add in any of his/her own “insight.” Rather the lit review summarizes and synthesizes the ideas and analysis that have already been done by others and does not contribute any new ideas. The research essay involves taking the information that has been found and analyzing it in a new way based on the researcher’s perceptions.
It would be extremely helpful to do a lit review before an essay because it will provide a “background for the investigation.” A lit review will provide an overview of the information and format it in a way that allows the researcher to understand the different information that is currently available in that field. We learn how to write a lit review so that we can become better at connecting different ideas. If we are able to draw out certain themes we will be better able to make our own interpretations when we delve into our investigation for our research essay.
The purpose of my lit review will be to synthesize and summarize the information from my sources to revolve around four themes: sleeps affect on academic success, sleeps affects on reflexes and attentiveness, sleeps affect on physiological health, and sleeps affect on psychological health.
The purpose of my inquiry based research essay will be to draw a connection between sleep habits in college students and how that impacts their lifestyle. In the essay I will describe how sleep patterns have has several negative effects on multiple aspects in students lives and use my several sources of research to back up my point.
I will make the lit review and my essay differ because my lit review will only include information from my research. Although I will summarize and synthesize it, I will not be adding my own interpretation. However, during my essay, I will contribute my own ideas based upon the results I receive from the surveys and interviews I conduct. From those new sources of information, that I specifically created, I can develop my own perspective and interpretation of the question.
In class I was struggling to understand the difference between a lit review and an inquiry based essay, but I think I understand the differences now. The purpose of a lit review beyond just summarizing your sources which was similar to the research report we had to do, but instead a lit review is to find themes connecting your sources to one another through critical analysis. The themes, which you pick, are found within multiple sources. The purpose of an inquiry based essay is to uncover an answer to the question posed at the beginning of the essay. This is done through analysis of the sources, information, statistics, interviews etc. leading to a conclusion about the question. It is extremely important to have done a lit review before beginning the inquiry based essay because the lit review shows you what has already been done with research and where you need to go from there. It serves as a sort of “beginning point” for the essay because the themes picked for the lit review are essential to a well written essay. Learning about lit reviews help to make our essay stronger because we understand the research process better, or at least this is true for me.
ReplyDeleteMy topic is on the effectiveness on gun control in the United States, so the purpose of my lit review will be to synthesize the information from my multiple sources into overarching themes that are seen throughout my sources. My lit review will also help me determine what research I still need to conduct moving forwards to the actual essay. The purpose of my inquiry based research essay will be to discover an answer to whether gun control laws would be effective in the United States based on the research and statistics I find. I will be using my sources as support for this essay. My lit review and inquiry based research essay will differ because my lit review does not have my interpretation in it. My lit review is only based on the research that has already been done, this comes from books, articles etc. However my inquiry based research essay includes both my own interpretation of the research as well as the results from my survey, observation and interview. These two ideas (lit review and inquiry based research essay) are completely different.
The main purpose of a lit review is to summarize and synthesize the research that has already been found. The lit review does not include any research done by the rhetor- it is all based off of research that has been previously conducted. The lit review is organized into different themes in order to find connections between the different resources. It is important to make sure that the sources are not the main focus- the themes are.
ReplyDeleteA inquiry based essay is different from a lit review because it starts out with a question and the following paper seeks to answer that question. It also includes research done by the rhetor such as surveys, interviews, and observations. This differs from a lit review because it does not just state what is already out there. Also, lit reviews do not need to come to any conclusions. It could happen that the research you have done is controversial and does not lead to any answers!
The first website that was listed I think explained it very well when they said ,"In a research paper, you use the literature as a foundation and as support for a new insight that you contribute." This shows that the inquiry based essay is an extension of the research that you have already done.
I am glad that we are doing a lit review before the inquiry based essay because it helps me to gather my research and come up with themes and connections between them. It also forces me to start working and not procrastinate. However, more importantly it the lit review will show me what else I need to find research on.
For my lit review, I plan on explaining the three themes: scholarships, three pronged system, and number of programs. I will explain the research that I have already found and how they relate to these themes.
For my inquiry based essay, I will answer the question, Does Title IX promote gender equality? I will most likely use my same themes but I will include research that I have done including observations and interviews.