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\fancyfoot[LO,RE]{\footnotesize Lawrence, “Writing a Literature
  Review,”
  %\textbf{DRAFT}
  \today}
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\title{Writing a Literature Review in the Social Sciences % (DRAFT)
} \author{Dr. Christopher N.\ Lawrence
  <\email{christopher.lawrence@mga.edu}> \\
  Professor of Political Science, Middle Georgia State
  University\thanks{I appreciate the helpful suggestions received on
    previous drafts of this document by Chris Chiego (California State
    University Maritime Academy).  All errors and omissions, alas,
    remain my own.}  }

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\raggedright

Writing a literature review is one of the more mysterious parts of
writing in the social sciences.  This brief guide is designed to help
explain the process of writing a literature review—and explain what a
literature review is, and what it isn't.

\section*{What is a Literature Review?}

A literature review is designed to demonstrate your familiarity with
past research on the topic you are studying and closely-related
topics.  It also helps show how your research improves our
understanding of the topic you are studying, and thus can indicate the
importance of your topic—by showing that other scholars have had an
interest in researching the question you are studying, that helps show
others that your topic is worthwhile.

A literature review should not be confused with an \emph{annotated
  bibliography}.  Annotated bibliographies are typically organized by
presenting a single paragraph per “chunk” of knowledge\footnote{Each
  “chunk” is typically an article, a book chapter, a whole book, or a
  research paper—in other words, a single work by an author or set of
  authors that presents an argument.} that is being reviewed in the
bibliography, and each paragraph is treated as a single distinct unit
from the next.  A literature review, on the other hand, is written in
a more continuous style, with proper transitions between ideas and
paragraphs.

\section*{How Should I Organize It?}

A literature review is typically either organized \emph{thematically}
or \emph{chronologically}.  If you are reviewing the literature on a
single topic, you will find that current knowledge is a culmination of
past knowledge, and thus a chronological approach will tend to make
the most sense.

On the other hand, if you are dealing with multiple topics or streams
of research, a thematic discussion is probably best.  Within each
theme, however, you will often find that using a chronological
approach makes the most sense.

It may at times make sense to revisit previously-discussed “chunks”
when talking about new ones; e.g., one might write the following to
introduce a discussion of another work, several paragraphs after first
discussing \emph{The American Voter}:
\begin{quotation}
  In contrast to Campbell et al.'s (1960) finding of widespread
  political apathy among citizens, Verba, Nie and Petrocik (1979)
  argue that voters have become increasingly interested in politics
  since the 1950s.
\end{quotation}

As discussed above, the literature review should \emph{flow} with
transitions between the discussion of each “chunk” of knowledge that
is being reviewed, and there should also be transitions between each
distinct topic.

\section*{What Should I Include?}

A common issue students have is that they cannot find very many
“chunks” that do exactly what they are doing in their papers.
Overcoming this problem requires a bit of creativity: you should also
locate “chunks” that employ similar techniques to analyze related
questions.

For example, if you are researching why women are more likely than men
to vote for Democrats, you could include articles and books in your
literature review that look at other differences in voting, attitudes,
and opinions between men and women; you could also include books and
articles that look at other reasons why some people prefer the
Democrats to the Republicans (and vice versa).  Similarly, you are
unlikely to find much existing research on why students drop out of
school in Macon, but if you broaden your search you'll find ample
research on factors that lead to dropping out of school in other
settings.

\subsection*{Finding Good Sources}

Many social science journals publish issues focused on a particular
theme on a semi-regular basis; these issues of the journal will have
multiple articles on related topics, often with contributions from the
leading experts on those topics.

In addition, many books in the social sciences are known as “edited
volumes” (you can usually identify these because they will be listed
in the library database, or in the book, as having “editors” rather
than authors).  These are similar to theme issues of journals, but
typically are larger and have more chapters.  Textbooks called
“readers” can often be used as well, although you will usually find
that the chapters in the reader have been abridged (edited) to cut
content; you may want to find the original source (usually listed at
the beginning) instead.

Google has a separate index of scholarly sources, called \emph{Google
  Scholar}, at \url{https://scholar.google.com/}, including full-text
indexing of most recent social science journals of note, as well as
direct links to the articles in JSTOR and other databases that
the university subscribes to.

In political science, you may also find the \emph{Annual Review of
  Political Science} to be a great help in locating good sources; the
same publisher also produces annual reviews in anthropology,
economics, law and social science, and sociology that may be helpful
for papers touching on those subjects.

\textsc{Note:} When citing chapters from an edited volume or articles
from theme issue of a journal, make sure you cite the authors of the
chapters/articles, not the editors of the book or journal, and make
sure each article or chapter you cite is listed separately in your
list of works cited.

Another resource that can be extremely helpful is a \emph{reference
  librarian}.  MGA's current reference librarian for political science
topics is Jessica Williams, \email{jessica.williams4@mga.edu}. There
is a political science subject guide online at
\url{https://guides.mga.edu/politicalscience}.

\section*{How Should I Cite Things?}

The most widely accepted style manual in political science is the
\emph{Style Manual for Political Science} published by the American
Political Science Association (2018). You can view the APSA Style
Manual online at \url{https://connect.apsanet.org/stylemanual/}; from
that website, you can also download a PDF copy or purchase a printed
copy of the manual. There is also a “cheat sheet” for the APSA style
available on the MGA library's website at
\url{https://guides.mga.edu/citations/apsa}.

The APSA style, which is used by all of the APSA's journals and many
of the other leading journals in the discipline, is similar to other
“author-date” formats you may have encountered before, such as the
American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language
Association (MLA) styles. A few political science journals use
“non-APSA” styles, typically reflecting the practice of the
publisher.

In my classes, as long as you \emph{consistently} use a single style,
any commonly-used style manual is fine. Other faculty, however, may
insist that you use a particular style.

\section*{Where Can I Find Examples of a Literature Review?}

The short answer to this question is that virtually all good research
includes a literature review as part of the book or article.  It may
not necessarily be labeled as a “literature review,” but by
convention the literature review is usually at the beginning of the
piece, immediately after any introduction.  In a book or dissertation,
the literature review may be an entire chapter (or more!); in an
edited volume, you'll typically find a literature review in each
chapter.

Books on writing in the social sciences, such as \emph{Writing a
  Research Paper in Political Science} (Baglione 2012) and \emph{The
  Political Science Student Writer's Manual} (Scott and Garrison
2008), will often include a sample literature review as well.

\section*{Works Cited}

\begin{compactitem}

\item American Political Science Association. 2018. \emph{Style Manual
    for Political Science,} Revised 2018 edition. Washington: American
  Political Science Association.

\item Baglione, Lisa A.  2012.  \emph{Writing a Research Paper in
    Political Science,} 2nd edition.  Washington: CQ Press.

\item Campbell, Angus, Philip E.\ Converse, Warren E.\ Miller, and
  Donald E.\ Stokes.  1960.  \emph{The American Voter.}  New York:
  Wiley.

\item Nie, Norman H., Sidney Verba, and John R.\ Petrocik.  1979.
  \emph{The Changing American Voter,} enlarged edition.  Cambridge,
  Mass.: Harvard University Press.

\item Scott, Gregory M.\ and Steve M.\ Garrison.  2008.  \emph{The
    Political Science Writer's Manual,} 6th edition.  New~York: Longman.
\end{compactitem}

\section*{Copyright and License}

\small{This document is Copyright © 2010–24 Christopher
  N. Lawrence.  You may modify, reuse, and redistribute this document
  under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
  License, version 4.0 or later.  The text of this license is
  available at the Creative Commons website,
  \url{https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/}, or by mail
  from Creative Commons, 171 2nd Street, Suite 300, San Francisco,
  California, 94105, USA. If you do distribute a modified version of
  this document, you should replace or supplement the authorship
  information at the beginning the document with your own and include
  this copyright notice (including the original author's name) in the
  modified document.}

\end{document}
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