LITERATURE REVIEW ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
An important part of your study is to base research on scholarship past and present. For the Christian statesman, the added requirement is that the research incorporate the demands of Scripture. To both survey the relevant scholarship and the Scripture that informs it, researchers conduct reviews of scholarly materials to inform their research and to identify where their research fits within the framework of scholarship. Toward that end, the student will write a series of literature review papers that pertain to federalism and their chosen area of public policy.
INSTRUCTIONS
You will write a literature review papers pertaining to Has Federalism in the USA evolved from Dual to Cooperative? (Your research question) in Turabian Author-Date style: two short papers and one final literature review paper. The two short assignments will provide feedback on writing the final literature review paper. All papers will include a title page, body of paper, appendix, and list of references; the last literature review assignment will include an abstract.
• Literature Review: Theoretical Framework Assignment–Write 5-7 pages of text for the body of the paper which includes a synthesis of the important concepts, theories, and models that inform your research question.
Provide at least 10 sources from peer-reviewed articles and at least one Scripture reference.
GUIDELINES
Keep these areas of focus in sight when writing the Literature Review Assignments
• Focus on the research question—The centerpiece of this course is the Literature Review Assignments, and the centerpiece of the assignments is the research question, how existing scholarship informs that question, and where your research question fits in the body of scholarship, past and present.
• Focus on peer-reviewed research—The focus of these assignments is on peer-reviewed sources found primarily in academic journals. You need to find out where your research fits in the framework of existing scholarship.
• Focus on the endgame—Provide a discussion of the literature that demonstrates the gap in existing research pertaining to your research question and how your research can fill that gap.
• Focus on synthesis, not just analysis—With analysis, you will review each article and look at the different parts (research question, hypotheses, variables, findings, etc.); with synthesis, you will use those parts and organize them to discuss how the literature informs your research question.
• Focus on organizing around concepts, not studies—Your organization for preparation for the literature review assignments is to review one article and then the next article. However, do not write the literature review that way. Rather, organize the major headings around the most important concepts related to your question, not around articles. As you organize your concepts, use the language of relationship and comparison/contrast to show the connections within the concepts and between the concepts.
