Literature Review Focused on Higher Education and Social Inequality
social sciences
Description
Writing Assignment #3
Synthesis Essay (sometimes called a Literature Review)
Writing Assignment #3 will be a synthesis essay, a format that is sometimes referred to as a
literature review.
The Literature Review Rough Draft is due in the Assignments folder on Thursday,
February 9 th . It is worth 10% of your final grade.
The Final Literature Review is due in the Assignments folder on Wednesday, February
22 nd . It is worth 25% of your final grade.
Please click here for a video that briefly describes and outlines this writing assignment. Web
address: http://polaris.umuc.edu/ewc/web/lit_review.html
Organization:
Your synthesis essay should be organized in the following manner:
•Introduction: Write one or two paragraphs in which you introduce the reader to your topic.
•Body-the categories into which you are dividing the literature: Divide your sources into a
few categories. A suggestion is that you divide them into three to five categories.
•Conclusion: Summarize what the literature says on your topic.
Approach:
This semester, you have constructed a table of research findings of four articles that discussed
research studies.
You have also critically evaluated several articles in the annotated bibliography. In this
assignment you will synthesize the ideas of several authors in a synthesis essay, or literature
review. For your annotated bibliography, you selected a topic based on your interests and,
possibly, your major. You constructed a list of 12 references and summarized and critically
analyzed them in 150-200 words each.
Through this process, you may have seen patterns in the scholarly literature in the topic on which
you conducted research. For example, consider the following examples:
•You may have researched studies in criminal justice and found that there are varying opinions
on how to respond to criminal behavior among youth.
