UND Department of English English 130, Spring 2021
Assignment 1: Literature Review
Process Writing (40 points):
I. First Draft Due: Friday, February 12th, 2021
(Posted to Blackboard by 11pm CST)
II. Peer Reviews Due: Tuesday, February 16th, 2021
(Posted to Blackboard by 11pm CST)
III. Conferences: Tuesday (2/16) through Saturday (2/20)
Final Draft (175 points):
IV. Final Draft Due (175 points): Sunday, February 21st, 2021
(Posted to Blackboard by 11pm CST)
Style Guide: American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines for documenting and
formatting references
Assignment Overview
Often as a student and as a professional, you will be asked to explain complex issues to
others who might make decisions based on your understanding and reasoning. Writing a
literature review provides you with an opportunity to refine your understanding of a body
of research and define key questions in on-going public conversations. A well-written
literature review provides your audience with a knowledge base and understanding of your
topic without their having to research and read all your sources themselves.
Variations of a literature review assignment are common in many disciplines, but they also
show up in many professional contexts. Any time a superior, colleague, or team needs to be
brought up to speed about the current state of research on a particular topic, they will need
someone to conduct and write a literature review to save them the time of doing all the
research and analysis individually.
The annotated bibliography was designed to get you up to speed on some of the research on
your topic and help you identify questions and issues for further research. This assignment
asks you to focus on a specific question or issue that arose from your annotated
bibliography, conduct additional research on it, and prepare a document that will give
others (who have not read your sources) a clear sense of the current conversation,
important points, and areas of disagreement about your specific question or issue.
You will need to include at least 10 relevant and credible sources; you may include two or
three sources from your annotated bibliography if they are relevant to your more focused
question/issue for this assignment.
UND Department of English English 130, Spring 2021
To capture the conversation among your sources, you will need to analyze and synthesize
what is said, how/why it is said, to whom it is said, who agrees and disagrees with whom,
who offers a different perspective from the others, the different contexts and rhetorical
situations of the pieces, and so on.
Through this analysis and synthesis, you should give your audience a clear understanding
of the importance of this issue and articulate its implications for the larger public. A
successful literature review is typically 8-10 double-spaced pages, not including the works
cited page.
The Rhetorical Situation
Genre: Literature Review.
Literature reviews require writers to coordinate a conversation among multiple sources, to
explain their positions fairly and accurately, and to analyze the ways in which the sources
agree or disagree with one another:
In the literature review, you explain what “they say” in more detail, summarizing,
paraphrasing, or quoting viewpoints to which you are responding. You need to
balance what they are saying with your own focus. You need to characterize
someone else’s work fairly and accurately but set up the points you yourself want to
make by selecting the details that are relevant to your own perspectives and
observations. (Graff & Birkenstein, They Say / I Say, 229)
Organizationally, the best literature reviews move topically or thematically first, and only
by source second. An engaging and readable literature review should not be structured or
read like an extended annotated bibliography. It should read as an analytical essay.
[Note: Specific fields or majors may have their own, more narrow expectations for writing
literature reviews. As you move into your major, be sure to ask about expectations for how
to write a successful literature review following the field’s standards.]
Audience: Your audience for this first assignment is your instructor and your classmates.
You should also consider your peers not just as students, but as people with a vested
interest in the topic you are discussing. Although your readers may be familiar with some
of the texts you’ve chosen, they will not have read all of them. Therefore, you must
thoroughly represent main ideas and key points and provide specific references to your
texts in your literature review.
Purpose: A successful literature review will serve as a useful resource for yourself and
your classmates as our discussion of our course topic moves to identifying problems or
needs for Assignment 2: Proposal.
UND Department of English English 130, Spring 2021
Grading Criteria Possible
Points
Articulates how and why this topic is important for the larger public in
the introductory matter; includes a methodology section.
25
Analyzes sources by explaining how they relate to one another and
contribute to the current understanding or thinking on the topic or
question
30
Identifies lingering issues and open questions remaining in the
conversation
25
Summarizes sources fairly and accurately, to present a thorough view of
the issue
30
Literature review is organized to provide readers with a coherent and
complex understanding of the topic
20
Writer represents him- or herself as fair, credible, and knowledgeable on
the topic, including the choice of credible and relevant sources
15
Demonstrates careful attention to language through correct spelling,
grammar, citation, and formatting
15
Documents sources ethically using the APA style guide 15
Total 175

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