1. Academic Reading & Literature Reviews
David MacKinnon, Assistant Director
UNF Writing Program & Center
Fall 2017

2. Itinerary Whats, hows, and whys Summary and notetaking
From summary to synthesis

3. Functional Questions
What-questions: definitional information; readers can generally agree upon this information: authorship, publication, etc. (i.e., description)
How-questions: patterns; readers can often disagree with these kinds of observations; depends on what-questions’ answers (vary by topic, genre) (i.e., analysis)
Why-questions: evaluations; depends on what- and how-questions’ answers (vary by topic, genre) (i.e., evaluation)

4. Notetaking Approaches
Leisure v. Instrumental Reading
How do you read for entertainment?
Word for word, top to bottom, chronologically, forward,
eyes only, often quickly and to fully understand and
digest the content/plot.
How do you read for class?
Maybe word for word, circularly, with breaks, looking up
unknown words, actively engaging text with highlighting,
marginal notes, across multiple read-throughs

5. #1 Rhetorical Reading Notes
Reflection
How many of these questions do you already ask?
Which questions position you to analyze the text?
Which questions position you to synthesize from the text?
Figure 1. RRN for Nutrition

6. #2 Box Annotations Reflection
How many of these questions do you already ask?
Which questions position you to analyze the text?
Which questions position you to synthesize from the text?
Exercise
Choose Approach 1 or 2 and record
notes for the provided text.
Or, if you have your own article(s)
record notes for that text.

7. Synthetic observation
Towards Synthesis
Literature reviews combine summary and synthesis
Synthetic observation
Tet 3 claim
Text 1
claim
Text 2 claim
Synthesis: in academic writing, placing texts into conversation to build a new observation
Compare with analysis: taking apart
one text to examine its parts

8. Common Synthesis Patterns
Addition
Agreement
Consequence
Contradictions
Examples
Limitations
Opposition
Sequential
As well as, in addition, moreover
Corresponding, likewise, similarly
Consequently, for that reason, therefore
On one hand/on the other hand
For instance, in this case, that is to say
Although, even though, notwithstanding
Despite, in the contrary, whereas
In the meantime, since, up to the present
See for more examples

9. Example Synthesis
Excerpted from Morgan, L., Hampton, S., Gibbs, M., & Arendt, J. (2003). Circadian aspects of
postprandial metabolism. Chronobiology international, 20(5),

10. Questions?