Posted: April 11th, 2015

Annotated Bibliography & Literature Review

Write an annotated bibliography & literature review that reflects the depth of your knowledge on Effective Youth Employment Policies that demonstrates your critical acumen in analyzing relevant research literature.

The Annotated Bibliography section of the paper will indicate what and how much you’ve read and reviewed. It consists of an alphabetic listing (in APA format) and annotation for all the research articles critically read and analyzed on the topic. It does not include every article you’ve skimmed or read the abstract for provided in a database or on the web. The Literature Review section of the paper will demonstrate your ability to select and integrate a body of relevant literature that provides the foundation for further research. The Literature Review section begins with an introduction which describes the nature of the topic/problem/issue you are reading about, a description of the criteria you used to select the articles included in the literature review (inclusion criteria), an integrated critical analysis of the most pertinent articles you’ve reviewed and a reference list in APA format that includes every article or information resource mentioned in the literature review section of your paper.

Annotated Bibliography

The annotated bibliography portion of the paper is essentially your notes on all the articles you read on your topic of interest during this seven week time frame. Think of this as a record of what you’ve read. For each article read provide the following information:
 Correct APA reference citation (can be used to create reference list for literature review)
 Problem/issue addressed in the study
 Purpose of the study
 Questions or Hypotheses
 Study methodology (kind of research design/methodology used)
 Participants/sampling procedure used.
 Variables and their measurement/reliability and validity of measures
 Findings/Results
 Conclusions drawn by the researcher(s). Are the conclusions valid?
 Strengths & Weaknesses of Study
 Notations of any quotes or other material you might use in description of the problem, need for the research you are thinking about conducting, or in literature review itself.
 Questions you had after reading the study.

Literature Review

The Literature Review section is as comprehensive an examination and integration of relevant research as is possible during the seven week time frame of the class. (It’s a first step on the path to a more complete literature search and review). Draw on whatever peer-reviewed, empirical research appears relevant to the problem/issue you’ve identified. Remember you are analyzing, critiquing organizing, and integrating the literature you’ve read, not just describing a host of studies as you’ve done in the annotated bibliography. Include in your literature review:

1. An introduction that sets the stage for the material the reader is about to encounter. The introduction must include:
 A brief description of the problem/issue/topic,
 A description of the search strategy and inclusion criteria used to find and select the reviewed literature. In this section describe your search process, indicating what search engines, databases and keywords you used to locate the material presented in the literature review. In describing your inclusion criteria indicate how you set the “boundaries” of your literature review. How did you decided what to include/exclude from the literature?
 A paragraph describing how the literature review is organized.

2. An organized reporting, analysis, and critique of literature that supports the explication of major aspects of problem/issue you’ve identified. The literature review may be organized around the important concepts/variables that you feel need to be considered in thinking about your topic. You may want to include some literature that further informs your thinking about possible measures for concepts you are interested in studying and/or possible research method(s) you might employ in your own research. Make sure your in-text citation of this literature and any quoted material is cited in correct APA format.

Be sure to take full advantage of headings and sub-headings to ensure the material flows well for the reader.

3. A conclusion that includes:
 A summary of what you’ve learned from the literature review.
 Conclusions that can be drawn from literature reviewed.
 The next steps you plan to take in your search for further relevant literature, and
 Three research questions that flow from the literature you’ve reviewed so far and that might serve as questions you’ll seek answers for in your dissertation research. Make one a question that might be explored through qualitative research methods, one a question that could be answered through quantitative research methods, and one a question that could best be addressed through some kind of mixed methodology.

4 A reference list in APA format that includes all literature cited in your literature review.