Mrs. Jordan
Psychology
Research Writing Tips for Literature Review
No first person - “I”, “you”, “me”, “our”
No rhetorical questions – Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have no tastebuds? Well, researchers at Harvard have determined…..
Avoid making opinion/assumption statements: For example making a statement such as: “Pretty much all kids who drink, drink to get drunk”, or “People with disabilities have a really horrible quality of life” – Many people would argue these statements are – A – not true, and –B- potentially offensive.
Proper use of Tenses: Use present tense when you are interpreting the data, but past tense when you are writing about studies that were conducted in the past. The excerpt below from College Students and Problematic Drinking: A Review of Literature illustrates this premise. (yellow = past tense, pink present)
The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study found that the median
number of drinks consumed by a random sample of students from 140 4-year colleges across
the United States was1.5 drinks per week with a mean of 5 drinks per week
(Wechsler, Molnar, Davenport, & Baer, 1999). Although this result seems to imply little problematic
drinking in college students, the problem in binge drinkers becomes apparent when
examining the median of 14.5 drinks per week for frequent binge drinkers within this
sample. Overall, binge drinkers in this sample represented 44% of the college population, but
the binge drinkers accounted for 91% of the alcohol consumed by college students. Thus,
binge drinkers are consuming large quantities of alcohol that may not be identified when
using mean scores in college drinking research. This estimate may even be low when one
considers that this particular survey only allowed for up to 9 drinks per sitting in the self-
report questionnaires. According to Clements (1999), 13.1% of the 306 undergraduate
psychology students sampled met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental DisordersFourth Edition (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994)criteria for alcohol abuse and 11.4% for alcohol dependence within the last 12 months.Further, it appears that minimum drinking age laws have failed to reduce the availability ofalcohol to underage drinkers or reduce drinking rates among 18–20-year-old students.Approximately one in two underage students (i.e., students under the legal drinking age of21 years old) reported that alcohol was ‘‘very easy’’ to obtain (Wechsler, Lee, Nelson, & Kuo,
2002). Further, odds of binge drinking when under age 21 were slightly higher than being over the legal drinking age(Wechsler, Dowdall, Davenport, & Castillo, 1995).
Citing statistical data: When citing data that involves numbers, or measurements, the citation should appear as soon after the information is presented as is reasonable. For example you would not want to cite data on alcohol consumption (see above example) early in a paragraph, and then wait until the very end of the paragraph to cite the source of the statistics.
Sufficient Citations: Referring again to the above excerpt below from College Students and Problematic Drinking: A Review of Literaturenote that the author does multiple citations per paragraph. Generally speaking when moving between different parts of an experiment in your literature review – hypothesis, procedure, conclusion, it is a good idea to put an internal citation after your discussion of each part.
Initiating discussion of an experiment: When you are beginning to discuss an experiment, or shifting from presenting data from experiment to another, introduce the experiment by at the very least noting who (what researcher, or study – ex: Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study) is the source or can claim credit for the information.
Using psychology “lingo”: When using scientific terminology that researchers use in discussing their experiments, be sure to translate such language into terms that could be understood by someone outside of the field. For example you could use the term in the text and then go on to define it so that others reading your work know what it means. Ex: what does a term like “cognitively rigid” mean?
Internal Citations works with more than THREE authors: Use last name of first author, followed by “et al. page #). It is technically ok to just list all of the authors, but standard practice is to shorten it to “et al.”.
Use at least THREE primary sources in your literature review: Some of you still do not have three primary sources in your literature review. This is something you need to correct for the final draft which will be part of the research project if you wish to receive full points for the section.