Literature Review: Gladwells David and Goliath

Literature review: About a claim made by Gladwell in his book David and Goliath

A “literature review” is a “review” of the “literature” (i.e., the articles, books, and other texts) about a research interest. It’s a comprehensive overview of everything important that’s been written about the subject of study. It also sets the parameters for the research, frames it, and creates a space for the researcher’s new work. A good literature review should be inclusive, which means that it covers everything that has been written that’s important to know as context for the new research.
For our fourth paper, you’ll start with an idea of a specific research question, look for and summarize research that responds to that question, integrate that research into a 6 page essay in APA Style. Though we won’t be able to find everything ever written about a given question, you’ll want to make your review as comprehensive as possible, which means you’ll want a very narrow question!
Ideally, you should choose to research a claim made by Gladwell to see if he’s right. As you read the book, look for a claim that Gladwell makes or that he quotes someone making that you question. That might become your research question. If, on the other hand, you have an idea of a very specific research question related to a topic within your major, then we can talk about that question.
Key objectives for integrating evidence in the Literature Review:
• Develop an annotated bibliography
• Write a clear, brief summary of an article
• Plan how to use the annotated bibliography for research
• Integrate sources within paragraphs for summaries, paraphrases, and quotations
• Classify sources into an organization of the whole
• Choose the most appropriate sources to respond to the research question
• Integrate sources into organized sections
• Use APA Style citations and references
• Develop transitions and topic sentences
• Use the literature review to develop a revised research question