When writing research papers for classes and/or publication, you often will need to include a section that is a review of the available literature on the topic of the paper.

As a social work student and social work professional, you will need to synthesize scholarly material on topics that you study or encounter in practice. When writing research papers for classes and/or publication, you often will need to include a section that is a review of the available literature on the topic of the paper. Such a section, called a literature review, provides information
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on what is known about a topic, how that knowledge was generated, and what is missing in that body of knowledge. You should have a minimum of 10 scholarly articles in your review.
Formal literature reviews that are a form of research themselves are called Systematic Literature Reviews and require a highly structured format for how they are conducted and reported. For the purpose of this class assignment, you will be conducting a regular literature review (NOT a systematic literature review). Nonetheless, your literature review needs to be conducted using an organized, systematic and transparent approach that allows you and your readers to have confidence in the integrity of the review.
We encourage you to connect with a Stony Brook University librarian, especially the social work specialty librarian, for recommendations on where and how to search for literature on your particular topic/question.
The literature review is intended provide the following information:
• What is known about this topic
• What research has been done previously on this topic
• Whether research findings are consistent with each other or if there are notable
contrasting results from past studies
• Which gaps exist in the literature on this topic that relate to your research question
• Which research methods have been mostly and/or successfully used for this topic
In writing the literature review, you want to organize it by major themes. You should avoid writing your literature review as a list of studies; rather, the review should show thoughtful organization. You will want to succinctly sum up results related to major themes from multiple studies. You do not want to provide minute details about every relevant study, but there may be some studies that are worth extra attention because of their relevance to your topic. If the literature on your topic is extensive, concentrate on the most recent findings while also including “classic” studies.
Chapter 7 and Appendix C in the Rubin and Babbie book include information on research questions and literature reviews that will be helpful for this assignment.
The final assignment submission on Week 13 should include the following elements:
• A template is provided on Blackboard for you to use for the final assignment submission.
• Section I: The assignment should begin with a paragraph describing the type of field
education placement that you have, the population it serves, and an overview of the services it offers. If you are not connected to a field education placement, describe the field of social work practice about which you are doing your review.
• Section II: Then, provide the research question that will guide your literature review. Be sure this is in the form of a question, and consider carefully the wording in the question.
• Section III: Finally, provide the literature review on your research topic, with a minimum of 10 scholarly articles included.
• You may want to include subheadings in the literature review in order to organize the presentation of the material.
• References in the literature review must conform to APA format, and the literature must be restricted to Peer-Reviewed journal articles reporting the results of a research study or meta-analysis of several studies. (Note: this does not include editorial-type articles that may appear in a journal).
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This assignment should be 3-5 pages (not including the title page and reference list). The work should be typed with 12-point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins, and double spaced. Please pay attention to writing quality, organization, grammar, spelling, and APA 7th Edition citation formatting. The literature review should reflect your skills in literature searching, writing organization, and critical analysis and synthesis of information. The completed assignment should be uploaded to Blackboard under the created location in the Assignment tab.
The full assignment is worth 35% of the final course grade. Grading is based on:
• Completeness of the assignment in terms of the requirements above
• The research question being an evaluation question.
• Thoughtful organization and coherent conceptualization of the literature review
• Adherence to APA style in citations and references
• Presentation of the assignment including spelling and grammar