Guidelines for the Second Assignment in 485 --
The Literature Review

1) Choosing works:
Your literature review must include enough works to provide evidence of both the breadth and the depth of the research on your topic. The number of works necessary to do this will depend on your topic. For most topics, fewer than TEN works is not sufficient.

2) Categorizing the Literature:
As you consider the literature on your topic, you should divide the works into categories that clearly demonstrate your understanding of the evolution of the research on that topic.
You might decide to divide the literature into groups
1) by discipline
2) by methodology
3) by thematic focus
4) by race, ethnicity, and/or gender of author
5) by chronological grouping
6) by political ideology.
This is not an exhaustive list. You might also decide to subdivide categories based on other criteria.

3) Developing Your Thesis
Your thesis should describe how the research has evolved, discuss why it has evolved that way, and provide some evaluation of the research.

4) The Basic Components:
Your review should include
1) a brief discussion of the issue
2) your thesis about the literature
3) a clear argument, using the works on topic as evidence.

5) Arguing your thesis
Within each group, you should explain each author’s thesis, supporting arguments, and evidence, and your assessment of each. Be sure to relate each category of works and each work within that category to your thesis.
When discussing a particular work, you should refer to it by the author’s last name, title, and year of publication.

Example:

The field of slavery studies has recently been transformed by Ben Johnson’s The New Slave (2001).
or
Whitford’s article, “Rethinking Domestic Slaves” (2002), offers an innovative approach to slavery studies.

Within each category, be sure to discuss works in chronological order.

Across categories, your paper should provide a discussion of how groups’ interpretations are similar or different and why within the context of your thesis.

Often, the most effective organization begins with the weakest category of works and ends with the category that you are arguing does the best quality work.

6) The conclusion
Your conclusion should not only reiterate your argument, but also discuss questions that remain unanswered by the literature.

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