Assignment 2 description: Literature Review and Introduction based on your own research question.
Dare to be curious and seek out topics that interest you. A researcher will usually find that a particular research question that is interesting to them by studying interesting ideas from books or articles and will identify a blind spot–a question that remains unanswered. Start your writing exercise by reading, keeping your eyes peeled and by following your curiosity and your instincts. Observe your world attentively and think about developments in society. It will offer many puzzles that you will want to investigate further.
Often readers (and, indeed, professors that grade you) can already gauge the quality of the entire essay from the quality of a research question. If the research question is too broad and too general (e.g., “How to promote world peace?”, “How to generate profits?”, “What is the role of the Media?”, “How can we strengthen the law?”) then the essay and the arguments themselves will be too broad and the author will not be able to answer the question satisfactorily with strong analysis. If the question is too narrow or too self-evident (i.e., the question can be easily answered in 1-2 sentences) then the paper or essay is too simplistic. Make sure your research question is answerable within 1,500 – 5,000 words (5,000 words being the maximum for research papers in the 3rd year of studies), is precise (i.e., define the key concepts) and related to wider significant phenomena or issues (remember to extrapolate). Read widely around the topic you are interested in to gauge the level of research (and hence research questions) that have already been generated. What do academic practitioners think of what you are writing about? A good literature review on your topic of choice should help here.
Introduction (200 words)
With your introduction you aim to create interest in your topic. Make sure that you provide enough information for your reader to understand your main arguments (without spoiling what the results of those arguments will be). You can best catch the attention of your reader if you include a hook at the beginning of the introduction. A hook is a beginning sentence that makes readers want to know more about your topic. It can be a controversial statement on your topic or something that is currently highly debated. Make sure that your information is well researched; you cannot just state something because it is controversial. You always have to indicate where the information comes from. In your introduction you:
* Implement context-problem-response;
* Explain the choice of your topic and why it is academically relevant;
* End your introduction with a clear and concise research question / statement;
* Outline the structure of the paper and your main argument;
The reader should understand why he or she should read your paper after having read a well-written introduction. You should demonstrate that your paper contributes to the academic debate and how. After you have researched an interesting topic, you might be able to fill in blind spots or you provide relevant information to the current debate. Explain the relevance of your topic clearly. How does your topic contribute to the debate? What is the importance of your topic? How can you embed your topic in the academic debate? This means that you will briefly state what has been said about your topic and how and why your paper contributes to the debate (only briefly – the main part of this aspect is the Literature Review – a separate section). You provide factual background on your topic and about the most important aspects of your topic.
The first part of your introduction should lead to your research puzzle. This is the blind spot, the gap in research you aim to fill or the particular puzzling question you might have. From your research puzzle you state a clear and concise research question/statement. Make sure that your research question is detailed, but also relevant to wider debates. We will practice separately the art of writing and designing meaningful research questions.
In the last part of your introduction, you will explain how you will proceed in your paper. In this section you will also outline your main argument, but not the results of that investigation.
Literature Review (800 words)
In your literature review, you summarize the existing state of knowledge about your chosen topic.
In this first literature review, you will summarize the existing state of knowledge about a given topic.
The literature review is a wonderful opportunity to become an expert on a topic you choose yourself. You start to research what has already been said about a given topic, thereby becoming conversant in that topic. What does the academic community have to say about the topic? This has the advantage that you know and show what has already been researched on your topic so that you do not waste time ‘reinventing the wheel’. While reading and exploring the current debate you are able to gain new ideas and perspectives on your topic. It helps you to understand to tackle blind spots, to see the flaws in the existing debate. How do you achieve this? You need to read, take notes, and critically engage in the debate.
In a nutshell, a literature review has three main purposes:
To summarize and synthesize findings emerging from previous literature and studies;
To show how accurate and complete the state of the debate;
To point towards core gaps in the literature.
In order to identify arguments and conceptual debates you need to show that you understand the main academic debates about the topic. How do you do that? Be a detective!
First, you need to gain an overview of what has been said about your chosen topic. Start with the most salient debates, the most famous or frequently cited articles. There you will find further citations and links to other debates. Often scholars cite not only their peers, but often refer to contradicting views. Always conduct your research with your specific Research Question in mind! Be selective with the literature; only include literature that has a direct bearing on the central focus of your research should be examined.
Before you are able to synthesize your findings, you will need to:
Make sure that you can summarize the main claim of each article/book chapter. You should be able to describe in a sentence or two the general argument of each item you read;
Instead of summarizing the articles as a whole, only focus on the aspects that are relevant to your research question.
After you have collected all of the important information that you will need to contrast, compare and synthesize your findings. This means that you will need to critically engage in the debate. What are the conflicting ideas and how does your research relate to this? Read your summaries critically, try to first understand what the scholar tried to achieve with their research and if their conclusions contribute to your research topic. Compare multiple findings, relate them to your research topic and formulate your own arguments from the stated facts.
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the literature and show the blind spots in the debate. Engage in the literature critically and try to find out which questions remained unanswered. This is exactly what you will be doing in two years’ time for your thesis, so getting good at it now will reap dividends!
Some papers state information that is outdated or flawed. You should always be critical and read your articles skeptically. We know that this is not an easy task. Bear in mind that even famous scholars can be wrong. Engage with publications in peer-reviewed, high-impact journals, but do not discount open access fora. Remember, there are always different perspectives, learn to perceive information from different angles. One blind spot can be that the authors might only have applied one theory to the phenomenon and you would like to research the topic from another perspective or simply update the facts.
In order to compare you need to understand the different schools, arguments, and debates:
Do not simply summarize item by item e.g., do not use this structure: Author A says this while Author B says that; I quite dislike reading ‘he said’, ‘she said’ style arguments. It is repetitive.
Instead: Group the studies or authors into camps or schools of thought;
You can group theorists according to the theories they defend, or different methodological approaches or different policies they favour;
Chances are high that other scholars have classified the studies before. Seek out these authoritative, review works and try to sound like them;
Get into the habit of associating individual authors and major camps or points of view with each other.
Be sure to include at least 5 academic sources and to correctly and consistently use the APA citation method.
Words limit: 1,000 words (ex-biblio and +/- 10%)
Deadline: Friday 17th of May, 5:30pm.
