The Literature Review A Literature Review is An
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The Literature Review
A Literature Review is: An up-to-date analysis and synthesis of the scholarly conversation on a given topic. It should tell the reader what arguments scholars have made / are making, how they are making them (method) if necessary, and how the conversation has changed over time. The Lit. Review should demonstrate that you can see the outlines of the larger scholarly conversation on your given topic.
The steps for writing a Lit. Review • Research Question – of course… • Find your Sources • Organize and Synthesize your Sources • Write the Review
How NOT to write a Lit. Review All summary, No synthesis
One way of thinking about a Lit. Review A large thought bubble with multiple sections or themes
Another Way of thinking about a Lit. Review A series of buckets into which you groups different takes on a field or topic
How TO write a Lit. Review
Remember the Burkean Parlor Metaphor “Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress. ” -Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form, 110 -111.
