What is a Literature Review and why do we write it?

Bring your 3 scholarly sources, and topic. We will take the first 5 minutes to peer review your sources: Are they 1. peer reviewed (looked at by experts in that field). 2. and/or is your source published by a university press publisher?

You can use your time in the lab to start summarizing your sources, writing your intro, body paragraphs, etc. I will be moving around so please ask me any questions you may have about the assignment, or anything.

Choosing an Essay Topic

1. What do you like to write about? S elect a topic you truly want to know more about. Try choosing a topic that you enjoy writing about. We are often most interested in topics related to our majors. Think about the top three issues you want to study and turn them into questions. Sometimes we know the broad topic we want to write about, but need help getting an angle or determining the research questions we want to assess. Conduct brainstorming or free-writing exercises. Write as much as you can for ten to fifteen minutes on a topic. Include all questions and comments you can think of. Can any be turned into workable research questions? Similarly, you may think about your top three issues and search for intersections between two or all three of those issues.

If you have a general subject area in mind, brainstorm ideas. Make a list of possible topics. Think about the parts of that particular class that have been most interesting to you. Are there areas of the subject you'd like to know more about? Can you link some aspect of the course to your other areas of interest? Another way to proceed is to think about problems that you (or your family or community) face. Could you write about the problem or evaluate solutions? You can also find a topic by looking at current events, gleaning ideas from news sources such as online news sites or magazines.

2. What do you already know?

Writing about a topic for which you already possess some background knowledge can make writing easier and more enjoyable. Perhaps you remember quite a bit of information from that American government class you took last semester, since it is fresh in your mind. Going back to the ethics topic previously mentioned, maybe you remember topics such as prisoners of war, preemptive strikes, whistleblowing, etc. By choosing a topic you are familiar with, you can use resources you may already have- books, class handouts, notes, or newspaper articles- to get you started. You can see how closely related "what we already know" is to "what we like to write about".

3. What is the purpose of your paper? Is your paper a claim of policy, value, etc?