Guide to Writing a Review Paper
Part I: Preparing for and Writing the Review Paper
I.Choose a topic from a list provided by your instructor or consult with your professor to gain approval for a paper topic that is relevant to social development but not on the list. Some examples of review topics are given at the end of this document.
A.DON’T: Pick a broad topic (e.g., emotional development in early childhood) and review only one or two articles on different aspects of the topic (e.g., one article about emotional expression, one about emotion regulation, one about individual differences), because your coverage of each area will be too superficial.
B.DO: Choose a narrower topic (e.g., the development of emotional display rules in children ages 7-10 years) and explore in-depth recent work done in this specific area
II.Conduct a literature search
A.Number of sources to use: Your instructor will provide you with some guidelines about the number of sources you should use. But, in general, a review paper should have a minimum of 10-15 sources
B.Primary sources: The most important sources for your review are referred to as primary sources and are scholarly journals that have empirical articles
1.Empirical article - An article that presents an original study (i.e., has to have introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections)
2.Primary sources are available from your school library either in print or online
3.Primary sources that contain information about social development include the following journals
a)Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Social Development, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Journal of Family Psychology, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Journal of Adolescent Research, Journal of Early Adolescence, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Infancy, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Attachment and Development, Applied Developmental Science, Parenting, International Journal of Behavioral Development
C.Secondary sources(include books, edited books, and book chapters)
1.These sources will be topic based reviews of research in the area
2.These sources are available from your school library (not available online)
3.Examples of books, edited books and book chapters from edited books in the area of social development include the following
Amato, P. R. (2006). Marital discord, divorce, and children’s wellbeing. In A. Clarke-Stewart & J. Dunn (Eds.), Families count(pp. 179 – 202). New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Anderson, C. A.,Gentile, D. A.,Buckley, K. E. (2007).Violent video game effects on children and adolescents: Theory,research, and public policy. New York: Oxford Press.
Asher, S. R., Rose, A. J. & Gabriel, S. W. (2001). Peer rejection in everyday life. In M. Leary (Ed.), Interpersonal rejection(pp. 105 – 142). New York: Oxford Press.
Berlin, L. J., Cassidy, J., & Appleyard, K. (2008). The influenceof early attachments on other relationships. In J. Cassidy &P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research,and clinical applications (2nd ed., pp. 333 – 347). New York:Guilford Press.
Bjorklund, D. F., & Pellegrini, A. D. (2010). Evolutionaryperspectives on social development. In P. K. Smith & C.H. Hart (Eds.) Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood socialdevelopment (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Bornstein, M. H. (Ed.) (2002). Handbook of parenting: Vol. 5: Practical issues in parenting (2nd ed.).Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Brownell, C. A., & Kopp, C. B. (Eds.) (2007). Socioemotional development in the toddler years: Transitions and transformations. New York, NY: Guilford. Carpendale, J., & Lewis, C. (2006). How children develop socialunderstanding. Malden, MA: Blackwell .
Cassidy, J. (2008). The nature of the child’s ties. In J. Cassidy &P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research,and clinical applications (2nd ed., pp. 3 – 22). New York:Guilford Press.
Chen, X., French, D. C., & Schneider, B. H. (Eds.) (2006). Peer relationships in cultural context. Cambridge studies in social and emotional development. New York, NY: CambridgeUniversity Press.
De Haan,M., & Gunnar,M.R.(Eds.) (2009).Handbook of developmental social neuroscience. New York: Guilford
Eisenberg, N., Damon, W., & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3, Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed.).Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Killen, M., & Smetana, J. G. (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of moral development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
Lerner, R. M., & Steinberg, L. (Eds.) (2009). Handbook of adolescent psychology, Vol 2: Contextual influences on adolescent development (3rd ed.).Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W. M., & Laursen, B. (Eds.) (2009). Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups.Social, emotional, and personality development in context. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Smith,P. K & Hart,C.H. (Eds.) (2010).Wiley-Blackwell handbook of childhood socialdevelopment (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
D.Inadequate sources: Note that electronic abstracts are insufficient sources for your review paper. You will need to read and use the full article, chapter or book. You should also use websites and other informal sources minimally.
E.Finding sources using databases and search engines
1.The best databases or search engines to use are those that are available through your school library. You can usually ask the library staff to help you use the databases or search engines if you are unfamiliar with how to use them. These are examples of databases typically available through your library
a)psycINFO, ProQuest Psychology Journals
2.Additional search engines include
a)ERIC Google Scholar
3.Inter-library loan - Sometimes you will find that your school library does not have the journal or book you are interested in using once you have completed your search. Most schools offer an inter-library loan service through which you can access articles or borrow books from other nearby libraries. However, this often takes some time (days to weeks). Therefore, you want to begin any literature search well before your paper is due.
III.Preparing to Write Your Review Paper
A.Once you have collected your sources you should follow the following steps:
1.Read your sources
a)You should take notes on your sources as you read. Make sure to take notes in your own words (i.e., paraphrase). When it is time to write your paper, you should only refer back to your notes to avoid plagiarizing or the temptation to use direct quotes.If you do use a brief quote from an original source, put the quote in italics and provide the author, the page number on which the material appeared and date of the source (i.e., Gauvain, 2002,p.213)
b)Your notes should focus on the main findings of each study as well as pertinent details such as type of sample, type of method, age of participants, main findings and conclusions. You should also make note of the strengths and weaknesses of the study.
2.Organize your sources by category or subtopic (i.e., group the sources that conceptually go together rather than arbitrarily grouping them by date of publication)
3.Develop an outline of your paper with headings and subheadings and a list of the studies, chapters, or books to include in each section
IV.Writing Your Review Paper
A.Introductory section
1.In this section you will introduce your topic. Explain what your topic is and what the social development issue is. Explain why the topic is important. In other words, state the thesis that will guide your review.
a)The thesis statement outlines your topic and provides a focused direction for your paper.
B.Main body of the review
1.You should summarize each of your sources under subheadings that address a particular subtopic of your overall review topic.
a)More about using APA style for subheadings will be presented in Part II of this guide.
2.When summarizing empirical articles, note the study objectives (i.e., questions of interest, hypotheses), sample details (e.g., age of participants, demographic breakdown), methodological approach (i.e., how they collected the data), study design (e.g., longitudinal, cross-sectional), and main findings and conclusions.
3.Each study should be evaluated critically. In addition to summarizing the article, you should also indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the study. The more you are able to critically evaluate the work you summarize, the stronger your review paper will be.
a)When writing a literature review you will often come across areas of conflict or controversy within the field. In this case, you should present the two sides of the controversy in separate subsections in a fair, accurate, and neutral manner.It is fine to draw conclusions about which side, in your assessment, is bettersupported by the evidence but this is an evidence based conclusion not merely your opinion or personal preference.
4.Remind the reader about how the articles, books, and chapters you review in each section relate back to the thesis you stated in your introductory section.
5.Note about citations: Be sure to include appropriate citations for all of your sources. Per APA guidelines, all sources must be cited.
a)You should only cite sources you actually read. You cannot take a reference out of an article you read and include it as a reference in your paper unless you went back to the original source and actually read the reference yourself. If you see a citation in another paper that you think you may want to include, you should acquire that source and read it yourself. Then you can cite the source directly.
b)Every idea that comes from a source (i.e., unless you are coming up with a completely novel idea or opinion) needs to be cited.
c)You should avoid using direct quotes as much as possible. It is difficult for the reader to follow a paper that uses too many quotes. Your paper will be much stronger if you instead paraphrase your sources. Please see pages 170-174 in the APA Publication Manual (6th ed.) on paraphrasing.
d)More information about citing referenceswill be provided in Part II of this guide.
C.Conclusions
1.Provide a brief summary of the main points of your review paper.
2.State the conclusions that can be drawn from your review of the topic and relate your conclusions back to your thesis statement.
3.Your conclusions should accurately reflect what has been reviewed and should not be overstated (e.g., go too far beyond what can be concluded based on the research findings you have reviewed).
4.If relevant to your paper topic, indicate the applied implications of your review for policy decisions or for intervention or prevention programs for children and families
D.Directions for future research
1.Briefly outline unresolved issues that need more attention in future research (e.g., suggest new samples that may be studied, other designs that might be used in new work or new questions that could be explored).
E.Reference the sources that were used in your review
1.Every source in the text of your paper should be included in your References page (at the end of the paper), allowing readers to look up the source of the citation.
2.More about your reference page will be presented in Part II of this guide.
Guide to Writing a Review Paper
Part II: APA Formatting Hints
These formatting hints are based on Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition. Psychology majors should plan on purchasing the APA publication manual. Alternatively, most school libraries have a copy of the most recent edition in the references section (not available for check out, but for use in the library). For more information, visit the APA's web site: The Basics of APA style section on this website for a useful introduction.
I.Title Page
II.Paper body
A.Basic formatting
1.The entire paper should be double spaced
2.Use 1 inch margins and 12 point font
B.Headings
1.The header for your introductory section should be the title of your paper. Since it is a level 1 heading, it should be centered, in boldface and using upper and lower case letters.
2.All other levels of headings are presented in the table below recreated from the APA publication manual (6th ed.) for the appropriate format of different levels of headings. Please see pp. 62-63 of the APA publication manual for more details about headings.
Level of Heading / Format1 / Centered, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Headinga
2 / Flush left, Bold, Upper and Lowercase Heading
3 / Indented, bold, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.b
4 / Indented, bold, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.
5 / Indented, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.
aThis type of capitalization is also referred to as title case. bIn a lowercase paragraph heading, the first letter of the first word is uppercase and the remaining words are lowercase.
C.Citations
1.Never include the title of the article or book you are citing within the body of your paper.
2.Within the body of the paper, a pointer containing the authors’ last names and year of publication indicates the cited text. For example: (Erickson, Smith, & Jones, 2000).
3.Another way to cite a reference is to open the sentence with the authors’ names. Here is an example of how that would look: In a study conducted by Erickson, Smith, and Jones (2000)….
a)Note that if the citation is part of the sentence and there are multiple authors, you place the word “and” before the last author.
b)If the citation is in a pointer after the sentence, then you use a “&” before the last author.
4.Here are some specific rules about which authors to include in a citation:
a)The first time a reference is cited within the text, all authors need to be included in the citation with last names separated by commas.
b)On subsequent citations, if the reference has three or more authors, then you can simply cite the last name of the first author followed by “et al.” and the year (Erickson et al., 2000).
c)The only exception to this is if a source has six or more authors. In this case you can cite only the surname of the first author followed by et al. even when citing the source for the first time.
d)If a source only has 2 authors, then you need to include both surnames every time the source is cited (see Chapter 6 of the APA publication manual on crediting sources).
III.Reference page
A.Start the reference list on a new page
B.The word References should appear in uppercase and lowercase letters, centered.
C.Double-space all references
D.Format references using a hanging indent (i.e., the first line of each reference is flush left and subsequent lines are indented)
E.Alphabetize your list of sources based on the surname of the first author of the source.
1.Never rearrange authors within a source to be alphabetical
F.See chapter 7 of the APA publication manual for several reference examples including journal article, book chapter, and book references.
Additional Source Guides to APA style
The two websites below provide further introductions to APA style and may be helpful as you prepare your paper:
- The Purdue OWL in APA:
(From the website) Summary: APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in APA.
- The WritingCenter @ The University of Wisconsin-Madison:
(From the website) This section provides a quick resource for citing references in papers using the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2010).These materials will introduce you to APA documentation and show you examples which you can use as templates for citing your own references.
PossibleReview Paper Topics
- How is a life span perspective, with its focus on adult development, useful for understanding social development?
- Describe and demonstrate the importance of including historical events and changes in studying social development
- Compare and contrast genetic and environmental influences on a particular aspect of social development
- How isa child’s temperament related tohis or her social adjustment?
- Discuss the special role of fathers in children’s social development
- Discuss the development of children’s understanding of multiple and conflicting emotions
- What is the role of peers in the socialization of children’s emotions?
- Self-esteem has a “dark side.” What is it and how can it be avoided?
- How does having children change a couple’s relationship?
- Describe the association between physical punishment and child aggression in different ethnic groups
- How does the social development of children in gay and lesbian families compare with that of children in traditional families?
- Describe and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to improve the social skills of rejected children
- How does playing violent video gamesaffect children’s aggression?
- How does culture influence gender development?
- What is the role of guilt and empathy in moral behavior?
- How different are boys and girls when it comes to prosocial behavior?
- Discuss the social cognitive deficits of aggressive children
- Review research on the cycle of disadvantage experienced by teenage mothers. How can this cycle be broken?
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