Literature Review

The Literature Review is a compilation of documented scholarly sources (anonymously peer reviewed and appearing in a disciplinary publication) about your chosen topic with associated commentary and synthesis. Literature reviews serve the researcher's goals of becoming familiar with an academic conversation taking place in their field. In professional spaces, multiple audiences often need effective summaries of complex topics from experts, so your ability to assess, summarize, and synthesize material clearly and concisely is crucial.

Your Literature Review will help you explore your subject and better understand the conversation around it. It is a productive way to identify and engage sources that you may (but are not obligated to) incorporate into your Research Paper. This assignment also will give you experience using a citation manager, which is an important part of a science writer's process. Your Literature Review will consist of two sections:

1. A list of five documented scholarly sources from within the last ten years with annotations. The structure for each entry is as follows:
   1. Full citation
   2. One sentence that states the work's thesis (the answer to its research question)
   3. Two or three sentences of summary that identify the work's main points (its abstract will be helpful here)
   4. One paragraph that identifies gaps or unknowns about the topic that the source leaves unaddressed
      
      
2. A few pages that synthesize the sources into a coherent whole. This should provide an integrated analysis of the works’ positions on your topic, identifying where they agree, where they disagree, and where particular works forward unique perspectives that the others do not. Your goal here is to provide an overview of the research literature on the subject so that you can later identify a knowledge gap that your research will address. Your work should align with Montouri's Download Montouri's (2005) assertion that literature reviews are spaces for generative inquiry.  Through curation of and conversation with your sources' ideas, you can gain a rich understanding of your own position. The synthesis thus must go beyond simply summarizing each article in succession; it must discuss the subject as a whole, referring to the articles' consensus and distinctions where informative.

The Literature Review will be submitted as a file. The document should be double spaced and sources should be in alphabetical order. The first line of each citation should be flush with the left margin; any subsequent citation lines should be indented 1/2 inch. All lines of annotations should be indented 1 inch. Please indicate the citation manager and citation format (current AMA Links to an external site., APA Links to an external site., Chicago Links to an external site., MLA Links to an external site., or other) you are using in the title of your Annotated Bibliography. The example and template below may be helpful.

• Example 1 Download Example 1

[your name]

ENG 575

Fall 2025

Dr. Tirrell

[citation manager and citation format] Literature Review: [topic]

[first source's citation first line]

     [any subsequent lines of citation]

          [annotation lines]

[second source's citation first line]

     [any subsequent lines of citation]

          [annotation lines]

[follow this pattern for entries three, four, and five]

[pages synthesizing sources]