Practitioners are required to be familiar with current literature in their chosen field of practice to ensure service delivery is based on the best available evidence. At times, this will involve searching for literature and compiling this in the form of a literature review. In order to develop your skills in conducting a review, this assessment requires you to write a literature review by: Choosing a specific topic area of relevance to your field of study/practice Establishing the importance of this research topic to the field Conducting a search for relevant scholarly literature published on this topic within the past 5 – 10 years, and any earlier seminal works. Although your review will focus on the current state of research, it is important to check earlier works to see if important aspects of your topic were resolved decades ago Critically analysing the literature and writing a review which synthesises the major themes in the literature Identifying areas of controversy and gaps in literature and formulating questions that need further research In order to develop an understanding of any topic you need to do a good deal of reading. You will need to locate and peruse anywhere from 20 articles, and then cite AT LEAST 15 scholarly sources of literature in your review. Scholarly sources of literature include peer reviewed journal articles, edited conference paper collections, articles written by well regarded authors in edited books, and books written by well regarded authors. However, while it is acceptable to draw from a range of scholarly sources, it is expected that the majority of your sources will be peer reviewed journal articles. A literature review is not to be confused with an annotated bibliography. It is not a description of randomly selected articles, it is best thought of as a summary or synthesis of the current state of knowledge and research about a particular topic. It is not expected to be a systematic review. However, it is important to search for literature in a systematic way using scholarly library databases such as Proquest, Cinahl, Web of Science, Social Services Abstracts, Science Direct and so on. Ensure your review is written in a clear and scholarly manner, including spelling, grammar, structure, tone, and accurate referencing in accordance with the latest APA guidelines (APA 6th). The following sections are suggested to assist you to structure your review: Background: A brief discussion about your topic and a rationale for its choice (so for example, you might give a rationale for narrowing your topic to a particular intervention, such as groupwork or counselling). Search methods: Scope and method of literature search Findings: Results of your review of the literature – a summary of what is and is not known ie. identification of the themes in the literature Discussion: Areas of controversy or debate in the literature, as well as areas that are not addressed in the literature and therefore need further research Students are also encouraged to refer to the marking rubric on Learning@Griffith for detailed information on how the review will be assessed. It will also be extremely beneficial
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