The purpose of this Literature Review is for you to create a scholarly piece of graduate-level research and writing, which conforms to current APA format. Competency in APA format is required of all Business graduates of Liberty University, as set forth by policy of both the Graduate Faculty and the administration.

You will research and write a literature review on a topic relevant to the course. Do not “recycle” any work from any previous courses you have taken. Your Literature Review will be a comprehensive thematic review of the scholarly literature related to your topic.

What is a Literature Review?

“A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period.
A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant” (The Writing Center, para. 2).

How is a literature review different from an academic research paper?

“While the main focus of an academic research paper is to support your own argument, the focus of a literature review is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others”(The Writing Center, para. 3). The academic research paper also covers a range of sources, but it is usually a select number of sources, because the emphasis is on the argument. Likewise, a literature review can also have an “argument,” but it is not as important as covering a number of sources. In short, an academic research paper and a literature review contain some of the same elements. In fact, many academic research papers will contain a literature review section. However, it is the aspect of the study (the argument or the sources) emphasized that determines what type of document it is.