Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126
Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127
If you’re unfamiliar (or uncomfortable) writing lit reviews – here is a way to think about how to go about writing one:
What is a lit review? A lit review identifies themes or developments among a number of works.
Assignment: Write a lit review of 5-7 pages (~1400-2000 words). In total, you must review five works we have read in the class, or that you have used for other assignments.
Overview: This assignment has three major goals:
- To discern, explain, and assess the arguments of individual works on the history of gender and technology.
- To identify themes or developments among those works.
- To make an argument about the state of the literature.
Make sure you include all of the following components in your lit review (though not necessarily in this order):
Relation to topic: All of the works under review must relate to one topic. They might represent different approaches to that topic, different aspects of the history of that topic, or examples of other scholars’ approaches to similar topics. You must make clear how each work relates to the overall topic.
Thesis: A lit review is organized around a thesis. The bulk of your paper will be devoted to proving this thesis. This thesis can take several forms. Possible forms include the identification of a theme in the literature, the identification of a development in the literature over time or the identification of common approaches to a particular topic.
- Theme: Since X book was published in [YEAR], the scholarship on [TOPIC] has been organized around [CONCEPT]
- Development: In the past Y years, scholarship on [TOPIC] has changed in the following ways…
- Approaches: Books [X], [Y] and [Z] each approach [TOPIC] from different perspectives, but are united by…
Analysis of individual works: Your lit review must include brief analyses (a few sentences) of the works under review. In these analyses, it is imperative that you identify the author’s approach, argument, and relationship to a broader literature.
Compare/Contrast: In order to illustrate how each work relates to the broader literature, you must explicitly compare and contrast the approaches, arguments and evidentiary uses of the works under review. In doing so, you will discuss points of convergence among these works as well as points that are in dispute.
