4.2 Assignment. Literature Review Draft Getting Started Writing a literature review isn’t just a way to gather information about a topic; a literatu
4.2 Assignment. Literature Review Draft
Getting Started
Writing a literature review isn’t just a way to gather information about a topic; a literature review also has several other excellent purposes. Here are a few:
• It helps improve your writing skills.
• It helps improve your critical-thinking skills.
• It helps improve your ability to organize and collate a lot of information.
• It showcases your talents of interpretation, synthetization, analysis, and developing an argument.
• It not only helps you learn the history of a topic but also provides you with ideas about gaps in a topic (that you might want to use for your capstone project, for example).
• Sometimes, it even leads to an idea for a new/revised theory or hypothesis.
Thus, while conducting all those library searches and reading many articles might seem overwhelming and tedious at times, keep in mind that you are making some history!
Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:
• Draft a section of a literature review.
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Background Information
For this assignment, you will build on the introduction to the literature review that you submitted in Workshop Two. Keep in mind that you will be using this literature review for your capstone project. So, for example, if you are planning a capstone project topic on gratitude (it is related to positive psychology and there is a lot of research on the topic) and you want to write a series of gratitude letters to others to test the research in this area and use it as a possible intervention in your work with others as a Relationship Coach (which is one of the 12 categories), then your literature review should focus on gratitude, gratitude visits, gratitude as an intervention in life coaching.
Another example would be if you are focusing on Executive Coaching and you want to put together a series of lectures or lessons for leaders, then your literature review could focus on positive interventions for leaders or motivation or just executive coaching.
Always make sure that your focus is on life coaching and positive psychology. This assignment is a draft, so your instructor will provide suggestions that you can use as you work on your final literature review assignment that you will submit in Workshop Six. You would be wise to continue working on your literature review throughout the coming weeks so that you have a polished final product to submit in Workshop Six.
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Instructions
1. In this assignment, you will add to the literature review/Assignment 2.3 introduction you submitted in Workshop Two. For this draft:
a. Ensure that your focus is on life coaching and positive psychology and relates to your capstone project. Refer to the examples provided in the Background section above for suggestions on your literature review and capstone project topic.
b. Incorporate suggestions provided by your instructor from previous submissions.
c. Locate at least three additional peer-reviewed scholarly articles (different from those used for PSY-535) related to your topic and focus.
d. Add these elements:
i. Theme A (the general category/theme of the articles included in this section of the literature review)
ii. Overview of characteristics of the theme (commonalities, differences, nuances)
iii. Sub-theme (narrow but grouped findings related to the theme)
1. Study 1 (Research question(s), Methods/Participants, Related Findings)
2. Study 2 (Research question(s), Methods/Participants, Related Findings)
3. Study 3 (Research question(s), Methods/Participants, Related Findings)
2. Your draft should be a minimum of three pages, APA formatted. Note that this is a rough draft. Your instructor will help you to strengthen it.
3. Your final literature review will need a minimum of 10 scholarly articles and corresponding references.