“Engaging a Scholarly Conversation in My Field”
For this assignment, you will select a contemporary issue in your field that you want to be able to talk about with some competence upon graduating or interviewing. For most, you will begin by presenting a brief introduction of the major historical developments contributing to this topic in your field, and then spend the rest of the Literature Review mapping out the contemporary work being done on the topic. Alternative approaches are certainly valid, but should be decided in consultation with your instructor.
By the time you begin working on drafting your literature review, you will have already done most of the significant work required for this project. You will have identified and revised research questions, identified launch texts and created a research path, created a working bibliography, and crafted Cornell notes to help you synthesize sources and identify gaps, questions, problems, or tensions in the scholarly conversation.
To develop a revised, literature review essay, we will continue to move through several smaller, yet still formal scaffolding steps:
developing a detailed outline draft for teacher feedback (week 9)
submitting a draft for peer review (week 11), and
using that peer and teacher feedback to work through paragraph- and sentence-level revision and to craft the literature review for a specific audience and purpose.
In your literature review essay, you will follow the standard genre conventions uncovered during our early analyses. At minimum, your review should include a discussion of the central topic you are investigating and at least two sub-topics that help you focus your research.
As implied above, we will review examples of drafted literature reviews to analyze how writers organize discussions of a major topic and then help readers navigate through a set of related sub-topics. We will also discuss how to frame sources such that readers understand the “broader conversation” about these topics and sub-topics, and how to establish a “scholarly niche” for yourself–a corner of the conversation you would be interested in entering as a professional.
Regardless of your organizational scheme, you should follow the suggested outline below:
Introduction (1-2 pages)
In the introduction of your literature review, you will spend at least 1 paragraph giving your readers the necessary background and contextual information about the topic you are reading about (why is this an important or interesting topic, in this field, now?), as well as establishing your work’s primary focus and purpose.
At least two additional paragraphs:
one in which you establish the importance of the topic to the field’s present work, and
one in which you describe why this topic is significant or important for you, specifically, to examine. Look at your developing work in P1 and P2 for help with drafting this section.
Body (8+ pages)
The body of your paper will begin with a short “signposting” paragraph describing the focus and organization of your review of the literature.
From there, you will develop topic paragraphs–focused with well crafted topic sentences–in which you synthesize the scholarship you have been reading, including citations throughout these paragraphs.
You will need to think carefully about organization in this section of the paper.
Structurally, you will use subheadings and transition sentences to further “signpost” shifts in sub-topics for your reader.
Logically, you will need to order your paragraphs in such a way that you move from broader definitions and discussions of the topic toward demonstrating the pattern, history, problem, or niche you emphasized in the introduction.
You will also demonstrate sentence-level moves that are integral to showing relationships between source material, including topic sentences, signal phrases, transition words and phrases, and conjunctions.
Conclusion (1-2 pages)
In your conclusion, you will summarize the major themes presented in the literature review and reiterate the implications of the pattern, history, problem, or niche you have showcased through your review.
Then, you will offer a final assertive paragraph that explain why more research in this area is needed, and your next steps as a scholar
This is a persuasive moment–remember the audience you identified in P2, and think about how you want to present your scholarly and professional self to that audience.
Reflection
To accompany the project, compose a 1-page single spaced reflective memo that narrates:
your project’s major revisions based on peer and instructor feedback,
your attention to the genre features of the literature review (especially as you demonstrate discursive and organizational patterns evidenced in your disciplinary examples),
and what, specifically, this project has prepared you TO DO next, in your research/professional trajectory, having completed this project.
Minimum Requirements:
A 10-15 page, double-spaced review of literature (not including works cited/references) that covers the basic sections described above.
A complete and correctly formatted bibliography of sources
Integration of headings and subheadings to mark sections.
Use of a minimum of 8 scholarly sources.
Consistent citation and design formatting throughout (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.).
1-page, single-spaced reflective memo
Learning Outcomes:
Read: Analyze genres from the student’s discipline or profession, including their associated discourse community, audience(s), rhetorical situations, purposes, and strategies. Write: Use a flexible writing process and varied technologies to produce texts that address the expectations of the student’s disciplinary or professional discourse community in terms of claims, evidence, organization, format, style, rhetorical situation, strategies, and effects by drawing on an explicit understanding of the genre(s) being composed. Research: Write research genres, use research methods, and conduct primary and secondary research to produce an extended research project relevant to the student’s discipline or profession.
Reflect: Use reflective writing to describe developing knowledge about writing (especially writing in one’s discipline or profession) and about oneself as a writer (including one’s ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate one’s writing process and texts).
Suggested Project Timeline:
End of Week 9: Submit a minimum 3-page draft of your literature review for instructor feedback. Include your research question at the top of the first page. Make sure your outline is evident. Develop several passages, integrate citations, craft topic sentences, and provide rough notes for any incomplete paragraphs. Include your working bibliography at the end. Your teacher will primarily provide feedback on organization.
End of Week 11: Submit a complete draft of your literature review (at least 8 pages + works cited) for peer feedback.
End of Week 12: Complete assigned peer feedback and review the feedback you receive to make revision plans.
End of Week 13: Revised project due for evaluation.
Evaluation:
Instructors may tailor this section to their individual grading policies.
What’s working well?
Expectations
What needs work?
1-2 page introduction, including significance of topic for the field, needed contextual information, and personal professional purpose for researching the topic.
Sample Solution
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