Compose a three to four-page (double-spaced) summary of what you have read.
1. Reading: Review the academic articles and books available on your topic of interest. This should include all recent (within the last 15 years) scholarly journal articles and books on your topic as well as any classics (published more than 15 years ago) you come upon while reviewing the recent published material. 2. Summary: Compose a three to four-page (double-spaced) summary of what you have read. The first sentence should state your research question or specific hypothesis (e.g., My hypothesis is that). The rest of the summary should include discussion of key issues, debates, and topics of scholarly research on your topic. You can use any of the many sources that are available in the library which were discussed in class. Remember, no news magazines or web pages. Also, be sure to use APA citation format. All discussion of others work must be accompanied by an in-text citation. Do not discuss each article/book separately. Instead, organize your summary of the literature whatever way makes the most sense given the nature of debate/discussion on the topic (see sample Literature Review as an example). 3. Annotated Bibliography: From the dozens and dozens of articles and books you read, select eight scholarly sources used in your summary (see #2) that you believe are most relevant to your research project. For each one, give a summary of the article/book. At a minimum, you should include (1) a brief overview of the research, (2) an assessment of the data and methods utilized in the research, (3) a discussion of how this fits into the broad overview you presented and the research literature more generally, and (4) your evaluation of the articles/books reliability and weaknesses. These should be about one-half to one page long. Be sure to include at least one characteristic of the article/book that you found problematic. Did you find the article’s conclusion supported adequately by the research? Is it convincing? If not, why? 4. In the end, therefore, you should have an introduction that summarizes the literature in your area of interest (#2 above) and an annotated bibliography that includes at least eight sources (#3 above). Each source should be followed by a brief analytical description (i.e., an annotated bibliography). You should also have a works cited page that includes citations (APA style) for all the dozens and dozens of articles in your summary (which should, of course, also include the works in your Annotated Bibliography). This is important: The summary of the literature should include many, many more citations than the eight in your Annotated Bibliography, and the works in your Annotated Bibliography should be included in the summary of the literature.
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