UNIT 4-5 SEMINAR (NO SEMINAR FOR UNIT 5, SEPTEMBER 4, 2011) LS504: Applied Research in Legal Studies

What Is a Peer-Reviewed Journal? A peer-reviewed journal: Is published regularly by a scholarly organization, such as, for instance, the American Medical Association Has a review board of professionals (“peers,” or “equals”) who decide what research will be published in the journal. These experts in the field thus exert control over the spread of knowledge in the field.

Unit 8 Assignment Your literature review should include a minimum of 10 sources on your specific topic and should include a range of sources from different credible databases and resources. A literature review is not an annotated bibliography; it is a synthesis of information around ideas and concepts related to a single topic (in this case, the problem statement for your applied research project). Cite sources within the body of your paper as well as at the end.

Unit 8 Assignment, Literature Review Your Literature Review should be a minimum of 5 pages, not including the References or the summary of your topic and Problem Statement. Include an introduction to the topic as well as your Problem Statement. Explain what literature you reviewed, and point out the trends you see in the literature. Group your sources together based on similarities in method, conclusions, or chronology--whichever will best support your Problem Statement.

Unit 8 Assignment Address each of your sources individually as well as in comparison to the rest of the literature. Draft a conclusion in which you  Synthesize your results into a summary of what is known and what is not  Identify areas of controversy in the literature  Formulate questions that need further research Cite your sources in the body of the Literature Review as well as in a separate References section at the end. Be sure to use appropriate APA citation style (or Bluebook for cases and statutes).

Literature Review Tips Make use of the Purdue Online Writing Lab, or OWL. The site features an APA style guide. You can use general online sources to get basic information for your own knowledge, but you should be using scholarly articles in your research.

Literature Review Tips Make use of Lexis if your topic is law-related. Make use of the KU online library. Search for electronic books on your topic. You can request that traditional books be sent to you! (You will pay shipping costs to return the book.) Search for electronic articles using the databases available online, including Academic Search Premier. (ERIC for Education topics.)

Research Study Example Let’s review the research study “When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?,” by Sheena S. Iyengar and Mark R. Lepper.

Research Study Example OR, if we knew only the author and the topic, we could search for Iyengar—Author Search Option Choice—Title Search Option

Research Study Example Take a moment to review the structure of the article. What do you notice about what’s included?  About how the article is put together?  About how the sources are cited?  How is the literature review structured?  Identify the five steps of an applied research project: Problem identification Literature Review Data Collection Data Analysis Summary of Findings, proposal to solve problem, if appropriate to project

Research Study Example Ask yourself: Who is Iyengar's audience? Who benefits from this kind of information? Who is willing to pay for it?