This document serves as a basic outline of how you might organize your literature review and provides a very rough guide to what you might include. Note that this is designed specifically to accompany an experimental study with a single IV and a single DV. Note that your outline project should answer these questions (with several complete sentences) with facts, findings, and theories you’ve drawn from your sources with citations!
X Causes Y: A Review of the Literature
I. Introduction (1 or 2 pages)
A. How does this hypothesis fit into the “big picture” of your field?
B. Why should policymakers/practitioners care about your hypothesis?
C. What precisely is your hypothesis?
II. Variable X (2 – 10 pages)
A. Is there a generally accepted conceptual definition of your variable?
B. If conceptual definitions conflict, can you provide the best one and explain why it is best?
C. Do some studies do a poor job of defining the concept? What is wrong with the definition?
D. Is there a generally accepted operational definition of your variable?
E. If there is no single, generally accepted way of measuring your variable, can you identify the best from the literature you are reviewing?
F. Do some studies do a poor job of measuring the variable? What is wrong with the measurement method? (Talk about Reliability and Validity)
III. Variable Y (2 – 10 pages)
A. Is there a generally accepted conceptual definition of your variable?
B. If conceptual definitions conflict within the studies you cite, can you provide the best one and explain why it is best?
C. Do some studies do a poor job of defining the concept? What is wrong with the definition?
D. Is there a generally accepted operational definition of your variable?
E. If there is no generally accepted way of measuring your variable, can you identify the best from the literature you are reviewing?
F. Do some studies do a poor job of measuring the variable? What is wrong with the measurement method? (Talk about Reliability and Validity)
IV. Variable X Causes Variable Y (4 – 10 pages)
A. What strategies have researchers used to evaluate your hypotheses?
B. Is there a consensus in the literature as to the validity of the hypothesis?
C. Are there common methodological flaws or patterns of flaws in the literature evaluating your hypothesis?
D. What research still needs to be done to clarify the truth of your hypothesis?
E. Given the findings from the studies you evaluated, how strong is the relationship between X and Y? (report correlations/effect sizes)
F. What methodological issues crop up repeatedly in the studies you are reviewing that the reader should understand?
V. Conclusions (1 to 2 pages)
A. Given the state of the research evidence, is it safe to implement policy/practice based on your hypothesis?
B. Are there limits to the generalizability of the results based on the literature you reviewed?
C. What questions remain about the validity of your hypothesis? (What should future researchers look into?)
Developed by Adam J. McKee.
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Last Modified: 10/29/2023