MODEL FOR WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW

A literature review is a concise analysis of a number of research articles that all deal with the same topic.  The goal of the assignment is to allow you to apply a number of readings about how to do a critical analysis of research articles to produce a simple literature review.  Research findings can only be applied to professional practice when you look over many research studies and draw from them those pieces of the truth that appear to be reliable and valid and that provide practical benefits to your professional practice.

CRITICAL REVIEW OF AN ARTICLE

Before you can embark on a literature review you need to know how to read and critique a paper.  This is not as simple as it sounds, and it takes quite a little practice.  This we will give you in this course.  Learning to critique other’s papers objectively and in depth is essential in learning to write and critique your own.  Some of you will already have had some experience, but the more you get the better scientist you will become.  The following will help you get started. 

First a definition.  We will access peer reviewed journals for the most part.  The term “peer review” is very important in science.  It is the method by which we evaluate each other’s scientific contributions, and it is fundamental to the way papers are selected for inclusion in a journal and it the method by which NIH selects grants for funding.  Essentially the paper or grant is sent to three or four people in the same field, who read it carefully and critically, and send in their assessment and their comments.  The final decision is made by looking at several reviews.  All the journals you will find on PubMed are ‘peer reviewed’, and we refer to this as the ‘peer reviewed’ literature.  This is where you want your scientific publications to be.

Book chapters are usually not peer reviewed.  For this reason they are often not as tightly written, and contain more opinions, some of which may not be supported by data.  Book chapters are always at least four years out of date, because that is the time it takes the editors to get all the chapters together and send them to the printers, edit the book etc. etc.  Book chapters are useful but do not use them by themselves.

Nowadays there is a lot of information on line.  Here you need to be very critical indeed.  What is the site?  Is it a credible site, such as a CDC or NCI site, in which case you can put some trust in the information?  Or is it a site developed by a few fringe thinkers with a tub to thump who want you to believe something a little way out, but who may be clever enough to dress it up as something credible?  Do not be deceived.  You need to be very critical in reviewing this kind of material, but on the other hand an enormous amount of excellent information is available to you.  The questions you must ask yourself are “Do I believe this?  Have the authors the evidence to support what they say?”

ASSIGNMENT, Module 1:  Review a paper for this assignment and i) present it orally in class (10 minutes max)  and ii) post a one page or so review of the same paper on the web.  You will be graded on both of these.