{"id":868,"date":"2021-10-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/?p=868"},"modified":"2022-03-18T19:58:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T19:58:24","slug":"weaving-without-numbers-the-literature-review-scientific-writing-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/cshb\/2021\/10\/12\/weaving-without-numbers-the-literature-review-scientific-writing-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Weaving Without Numbers: The Literature Review: Scientific Writing \u2013 Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my previous blogs in this series on scientific writing, I have covered what scientific writing is<\/a>, the characteristics good writers develop<\/a>, and the basic structure\/purpose of different sections of a scientific paper<\/a>. This is all well and good (well, at least I think it is\u2026.and you\u2019re still here, so I\u2019m hoping you do too), but I\u2019ll venture that at least one of you is thinking, \u201cbut how does this apply to the paper I have to write this semester?\u201d (I\u2019m looking at you, Psy 328 students.) In this blog and the next, I want to focus on a specific kind of science writing, the kind that most of you will encounter as your run of the mill \u201cresearch paper\/literature review assignment.\u201d Today, I will focus on conceptualizing a literature review;<\/em> in the next post I will pull back the curtain on a recent literature review I wrote and walk you through my process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Literature Review<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A literature review is a summary and synthesis of what other researchers have studied and found about a specific topic. This differs in important ways from the introduction-methods-results-discussion <\/em>format I discussed previously<\/a>. Literature reviews bring together different programs of research or theories or they synthesize research in a way that suggests new ideas or theories. The goals of a literature review will vary as a function of the intended audience; effective writers (of all stripes, not just science writers) know who their audience is, and they communicate directly to them, <\/em>an issue I take up in my next post. Literature reviews are a key staple of any body of research (or, thinking in the metaphor from my last blog<\/a>, a section of tapestry) because they provide an overview<\/em> of that part of the tapestry.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literature reviews do not have all the sections of the APA style paper but share the end goal of describing how bits of the tapestry (our knowledge, as informed by emerging and ongoing research and analysis) fit together. Literature reviews are a type of research papers without original data<\/em> and are thus, at their core, conceptual. To write an effective literature review it is vital to know what you want to say and bring in appropriate evidence (other people\u2019s research) to build your case. A literature review isn\u2019t driven by or organized around a specific set of data but rather the idea(s) of the writer. When writing a literature review, a very common type of paper assignment in college, you need to be able to clearly answer the questions: <\/p>\n\n\n\n