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How to Write Academic Reviews

• What is a review?
• Common problems with academic reviews
• Getting started: approaches to reading and notetaking
• Understanding and analyzing the work
• Organizing and writing the review

What Is a Review?

A scholarly review describes, analyzes, and evaluates an article, book, film, or performance (through this guide we will use the term “work” to refer to the text or piece to be reviewed).  A review also shows how a work fits into its disciplines and explains the value or contribution of the work to the field.

Reviews play an important role in scholarship. They give scholars the opportunity to respond to one another’s research, ideas and interpretations. They also provide an up-to-date view of a discipline. We recommend you seek out reviews in current scholarly journals to become familiar with recent scholarship on a topic and to understand the forms review writing takes in your discipline. Published scholarly reviews are helpful models for beginner review-writers. However, we remind you that you are to write your own assessment of the work, not rely on the assessment from a review you found in a journal or on a blog.

As a review-writer, your objective is to:

• understand a work on its own terms (analyze it)
• bring your own knowledge to bear on a work (respond to it)
• critique the work while considering validity, truth, and slant (evaluate it)
• place the work in context (compare it to other works).

Common Problems with Academic Reviews

A review is not a research paper.

Rather than a research paper on the subject of the work,an academic review is an evaluation about the work’s message, strengths, and value. For example, a review of Finis Dunaway’s Seeing Green would not include your own research about media coverage of the environmental movement; instead, your review would assess Dunaway’s argument and its significance to the field.

A review is not a summary

It is important to synthesize the contents and significance of the work you review, but the main purpose of a review is to evaluate, critically analyze, or comment on the text. Keep your summary of the work brief, and make specific references to its message and evidence in your assessment of the work.

A review is not an off-the-cuff, unfair personal response

An effective review must be fair and accurate. It is important to see what is actually in front of you when your first reaction to the tone, argument, or subject of what you are reviewing is extremely negative or positive.

You will present your personal views on the work, but they must be explained and supported with evidence. Rather than writing, “I thought the book was interesting,” you can explain why the book was interesting and how it might offer new insights or important ideas. Further, you can expand on a statement such as “The movie was boring,” by explaining how it failed to interest you and pointing toward specific disappointing moments.

Getting Started: Approaches to Reading and Notetaking

Pre-reading.

Pre-reading helps a reader to see a book as a whole. Often, the acknowledgments, preface, and table of contents of a book offer insights about the book’s purpose and direction. Take time before you begin chapter one to read the introduction and conclusion, examine chapter titles, and to explore the index or references pages.

Read more about strategies for critical and efficient reading

Reverse outline

A reverse outline helps a reader analyze the content and argument of a work of non-fiction. Read each section of a text carefully and write down two things: 1) the main point or idea, and 2) its function in the text. In other words, write down what each section says and what it does. This will help you to see how the author develops their argument and uses evidence for support.

Double-entry notebook

In its simplest form, the double-entry notebook separates a page into two columns. In one column, you make observations about the work. In the other, you note your responses to the work. This notetaking method has two advantages. It forces you to make both sorts of notes — notes about the work and notes about your reaction to the work — and it helps you to distinguish between the two.

Whatever method of notetaking you choose, do take notes, even if these are scribbles in the margin. If you don’t, you might rely too heavily on the words, argument, or order of what you are reviewing when you come to write your review.                                              

Understand and Analyze the Work

It is extremely important to work toward seeing a clear and accurate picture of a work. One approach is to try to suspend your judgment for a while, focusing instead on describing or outlining a text. A student once described this as listening to the author’s voice rather than to their own.

Ask questions to support your understanding of the work.

Questions for Works of Non-Fiction

• What is the subject/topic of the work? What key ideas do you think you should describe in your review?
• What is the thesis, main theme, or main point?
• What major claims or conclusions does the author make? What issues does the work illuminate?
• What is the structure of the work? How does the author build their argument?
• What sources does the author consult? What evidence is used to support claims? Do these sources in any way “predetermine” certain conclusions?
• Is there any claim for which the evidence presented is insufficient or slight? Do any conclusions rest on evidence that may be atypical?
• How is the argument developed? How do the claims relate? What does the conclusion reveal?

Questions for Works of Fiction

• What is the main theme or message? What issues does the book illuminate?
• How does the work proceed? How does the author build their plot?
• What kind of language, descriptions, or sections of plot alert you to the themes and significance of the book?
• What does the conclusion reveal when compared with the beginning?

Read Critically

Being critical does not mean criticizing. It means asking questions and formulating answers. Critical reading is not reading with a “bad attitude.” Critical readers do not reject a text or take a negative approach to it; they inquire about a text, an author, themselves, and the context surrounding all three, and they attempt to understand how and why the author has made the particular choices they have.

Think about the Author

You can often tell a lot about an author by examining a text closely, but sometimes it helps to do a little extra research. Here are some questions about the author that would be useful to keep in mind when you are reading a text critically:

• Who is the author? What else has the author written?
• What does the author do? What experiences of the author’s might influence the writing of this book?
• What is the author’s main purpose or goal for the text? Why did they write it and what do they want to achieve?
• Does the author indicate what contribution the text makes to scholarship or literature? What does the author say about their point of view or method of approaching the subject? In other words, what position does the author take?

Think about Yourself

Because you are doing the interpreting and evaluating of a text, it is important to examine your own perspective, assumptions, and knowledge (positionality) in relation to the text. One way to do this is by writing a position statement that outlines your view of the subject of the work you are reviewing. What do you know, believe, or assume about this subject? What in your life might influence your approach to this text?

Here are some prompts that might help you generate a personal response to a book:

• I agree that ... because ...                    
• I disagree that ... because ...
• I don’t understand ...
• This reminds me of …
• I’m surprised by …                 

Another way to examine your thoughts in relation to a text is to note your initial response to the work. Consider your experience of the text – did you like it? Why or why not?

• What did I feel when I read this book? Why?
• How did I experience the style or tone of the author? How would I characterize each?
• What questions would I ask this author if I could?
• For me, what are the three best things about this book? The three worst things? Why?

Consider Context

A reviewer needs to examine the context of the book to arrive at a fair understanding and evaluation of its contents and importance. Context may include the scholarship to which this book responds or the author’s personal motive for writing. Or perhaps the context is simply contemporary society or today’s headlines. It is certainly important to consider how the work relates to the course that requires the review.

Here are some useful questions:

• What are the connections between this work and others on similar subjects? How does it relate to core concepts in my course or my discipline?
• What is the scholarly or social significance of this work? What contribution does it make to our understanding?
• What, of relevance, is missing from the work: certain kinds of evidence or methods of analysis/development? A particular theoretical approach? The experiences of certain groups?
• What other perspectives or conclusions are possible?

Once you have taken the time to thoroughly understand and analyze the work, you will have a clear perspective on its strengths and weaknesses and its value within the field. Take time to categorize your ideas and develop an outline; this will ensure your review is well organized and clear.

Organizing and Writing the Review

A review is organized around an assessment of the work or a focused message about its value to the field. Revisit your notes and consider your responses to your questions from critical reading to develop a clear statement that evaluates the work and provides an explanation for that evaluation.

For example:

X is an important work because it provides a new perspective on . . .

X’s argument is compelling because . . . ; however, it fails to address . . .

Although X claims to . . ., they make assumptions about . . . , which diminishes the impact . . .

This statement or evaluation is presented in the introduction. The body of the review works to support or explain your assessment; organize your key ideas or supporting arguments into paragraphs and use evidence from the book, article, or film to demonstrate how the work is (or is not) effective, compelling, provocative, novel, or informative.

As with all scholarly writing, a well-organized structure supports the clarity of your review. There is not a rigid formula for organization, but you may find the following guidelines to be helpful. Note that reviews do not typically include subheadings; the headings listed here serve to help you think about the main sections of your academic review.

Introduction

Introduce the work, the author (or director/producer), and the points you intend to make about this work. In addition, you should

• give relevant bibliographic information
• give the reader a clear idea of the nature, scope, and significance of the work
• indicate your evaluation of the work in a clear 1-2 sentence thesis statement

Provide background information to help your readers understand the importance of the work or the reasons for your appraisal. Background information could include:

• why the issue examined is of current interest
• other scholarship about this subject
• the author’s perspective, methodology, purpose
• the circumstances under which the book was created

Sample Introduction

Within educational research, much attention has been given to the importance of diversity and equity, and the literature is rife with studies detailing the best ways to create environments that are supportive of diverse students. In “Guidance Matters,” however, Carpenter and Diem (2015) examined these concepts in a less-studied source: policy documents related to leadership training.  Using discourse analysis, they explored the ways in which government policies concerning the training of educational administrators discussed issues of diversity and equity. While their innovative methods allowed them to reveal the ways in which current policy promotes superficial platitudes to diversity rather than a deep commitment to promoting social justice, their data analysis left many of their identified themes vague and their discussion did not provide a clear explanation of the applications of their findings.

What works in this sample introduction:

• The nature of the larger issue, how best to create diversity and equity within educational environments, is clearly laid out.
• The paragraph clearly introduces the authors and study being reviewed and succinctly explains how they have addressed the larger issue of equity and diversity in a unique way.
• The paragraph ends with a clear thesis that outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the work.

Summary of the Work

Keep the summary of the work short! A paragraph or two should be sufficient. Summarize its contents very briefly and focus on:

• the purpose of the work
• the main points of the work
• the ideas, themes, or arguments that you will evaluate or discuss in the review

Analysis and Evaluation

Analyze and explain the significance of the main points of the work. Evaluate the work, answering questions such as the following:

• Does the work do what its author claimed it would?
• Is the work valid and accurate?
• How does the work fit into scholarship in the field?
• What are your reasons for agreeing, disagreeing, liking, disliking, believing, disbelieving?

Note that this section will take up the bulk of your review and should be organized into paragraphs. Because this form of writing typically does not use subheadings, strong paragraphing, particularly the use of clear topic sentences, is essential. Read more on paragraphing.

Reviews are informed by your critical reading or viewing of a work; therefore you need to include specific evidence from the work to support your claims about its message and its impact. Your writing and  your assessment of the work will be most effective if you paraphrase or summarize the evidence you use, rather than relying on direct quotations. Be sure to follow the rules for citation in your discipline. Read more on paraphrasing and summarizing.

Sample Body Paragraph

One of the strengths of Carpenter and Diem’s  (2015) study was innovative use of  and nuanced explanation of discourse analysis. Critiquing much of the research on policy for its positivist promises of “value neutral and empirically objective” (p. 518) findings, Carpenter and Diem (2015) argued that discourse theory can provide an important lens through which to view policy and its relationship to educational outcomes.  By interrogating the “inscribed discourses of policy making” (p. 518), they showed how policy language constructs particular social meanings of concepts such as diversity and equity. Significantly, this analysis was not simply about the language used within documents; instead, Carpenter and Diem (2015) argued that the language used was directly related to reality. Their “study examine[d] how dominant discourses related to equity, and their concretization within guiding policy documents, may shape the ways in which states, local school districts, and educational leaders are asked to consider these issues in their everyday practice” (Carpenter & Diem, 2015, p. 519). Thus, through the use of discourse theory, Carpenter and Diem (2015) framed policy language, which some might consider abstract or distant from daily life, as directly connected to the experience of educational leaders.

What works in this sample body paragraph:

• The paragraph begins with a clear topic sentence that connects directly to a strength mentioned in the thesis of the review.
• The paragraph provides specific details and examples to support how and why their methods are innovative.
• The direct quotations used are short and properly integrated into the sentences.

The paragraph concludes by explaining the significance of the innovative methods to the larger work.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Give your overall assessment of the work. Explain the larger significance of your assessment. Consider who would benefit from engaging with this work.

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How to Review a Journal Article

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For many kinds of assignments, like a  literature review , you may be asked to offer a critique or review of a journal article. This is an opportunity for you as a scholar to offer your  qualified opinion  and  evaluation  of how another scholar has composed their article, argument, and research. That means you will be expected to go beyond a simple  summary  of the article and evaluate it on a deeper level. As a college student, this might sound intimidating. However, as you engage with the research process, you are becoming immersed in a particular topic, and your insights about the way that topic is presented are valuable and can contribute to the overall conversation surrounding your topic.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!

Some disciplines, like Criminal Justice, may only want you to summarize the article without including your opinion or evaluation. If your assignment is to summarize the article only, please see our literature review handout.

Before getting started on the critique, it is important to review the article thoroughly and critically. To do this, we recommend take notes,  annotating , and reading the article several times before critiquing. As you read, be sure to note important items like the thesis, purpose, research questions, hypotheses, methods, evidence, key findings, major conclusions, tone, and publication information. Depending on your writing context, some of these items may not be applicable.

Questions to Consider

To evaluate a source, consider some of the following questions. They are broken down into different categories, but answering these questions will help you consider what areas to examine. With each category, we recommend identifying the strengths and weaknesses in each since that is a critical part of evaluation.

Evaluating Purpose and Argument

• How well is the purpose made clear in the introduction through background/context and thesis?
• How well does the abstract represent and summarize the article’s major points and argument?
• How well does the objective of the experiment or of the observation fill a need for the field?
• How well is the argument/purpose articulated and discussed throughout the body of the text?
• How well does the discussion maintain cohesion?

Evaluating the Presentation/Organization of Information

• How appropriate and clear is the title of the article?
• Where could the author have benefited from expanding, condensing, or omitting ideas?
• How clear are the author’s statements? Challenge ambiguous statements.
• What underlying assumptions does the author have, and how does this affect the credibility or clarity of their article?
• How objective is the author in his or her discussion of the topic?
• How well does the organization fit the article’s purpose and articulate key goals?

Evaluating Methods

• How appropriate are the study design and methods for the purposes of the study?
• How detailed are the methods being described? Is the author leaving out important steps or considerations?
• Have the procedures been presented in enough detail to enable the reader to duplicate them?

Evaluating Data

• Scan and spot-check calculations. Are the statistical methods appropriate?
• Do you find any content repeated or duplicated?
• How many errors of fact and interpretation does the author include? (You can check on this by looking up the references the author cites).
• What pertinent literature has the author cited, and have they used this literature appropriately?

Following, we have an example of a summary and an evaluation of a research article. Note that in most literature review contexts, the summary and evaluation would be much shorter. This extended example shows the different ways a student can critique and write about an article.

Chik, A. (2012). Digital gameplay for autonomous foreign language learning: Gamers’ and language teachers’ perspectives. In H. Reinders (ed.),  Digital games in language learning and teaching  (pp. 95-114). Eastbourne, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Be sure to include the full citation either in a reference page or near your evaluation if writing an  annotated bibliography .

In Chik’s article “Digital Gameplay for Autonomous Foreign Language Learning: Gamers’ and Teachers’ Perspectives”, she explores the ways in which “digital gamers manage gaming and gaming-related activities to assume autonomy in their foreign language learning,” (96) which is presented in contrast to how teachers view the “pedagogical potential” of gaming. The research was described as an “umbrella project” consisting of two parts. The first part examined 34 language teachers’ perspectives who had limited experience with gaming (only five stated they played games regularly) (99). Their data was recorded through a survey, class discussion, and a seven-day gaming trial done by six teachers who recorded their reflections through personal blog posts. The second part explored undergraduate gaming habits of ten Hong Kong students who were regular gamers. Their habits were recorded through language learning histories, videotaped gaming sessions, blog entries of gaming practices, group discussion sessions, stimulated recall sessions on gaming videos, interviews with other gamers, and posts from online discussion forums. The research shows that while students recognize the educational potential of games and have seen benefits of it in their lives, the instructors overall do not see the positive impacts of gaming on foreign language learning.

The summary includes the article’s purpose, methods, results, discussion, and citations when necessary.

This article did a good job representing the undergraduate gamers’ voices through extended quotes and stories. Particularly for the data collection of the undergraduate gamers, there were many opportunities for an in-depth examination of their gaming practices and histories. However, the representation of the teachers in this study was very uneven when compared to the students. Not only were teachers labeled as numbers while the students picked out their own pseudonyms, but also when viewing the data collection, the undergraduate students were more closely examined in comparison to the teachers in the study. While the students have fifteen extended quotes describing their experiences in their research section, the teachers only have two of these instances in their section, which shows just how imbalanced the study is when presenting instructor voices.

Some research methods, like the recorded gaming sessions, were only used with students whereas teachers were only asked to blog about their gaming experiences. This creates a richer narrative for the students while also failing to give instructors the chance to have more nuanced perspectives. This lack of nuance also stems from the emphasis of the non-gamer teachers over the gamer teachers. The non-gamer teachers’ perspectives provide a stark contrast to the undergraduate gamer experiences and fits neatly with the narrative of teachers not valuing gaming as an educational tool. However, the study mentioned five teachers that were regular gamers whose perspectives are left to a short section at the end of the presentation of the teachers’ results. This was an opportunity to give the teacher group a more complex story, and the opportunity was entirely missed.

Additionally, the context of this study was not entirely clear. The instructors were recruited through a master’s level course, but the content of the course and the institution’s background is not discussed. Understanding this context helps us understand the course’s purpose(s) and how those purposes may have influenced the ways in which these teachers interpreted and saw games. It was also unclear how Chik was connected to this masters’ class and to the students. Why these particular teachers and students were recruited was not explicitly defined and also has the potential to skew results in a particular direction.

Overall, I was inclined to agree with the idea that students can benefit from language acquisition through gaming while instructors may not see the instructional value, but I believe the way the research was conducted and portrayed in this article made it very difficult to support Chik’s specific findings.

Some professors like you to begin an evaluation with something positive but isn’t always necessary.

The evaluation is clearly organized and uses transitional phrases when moving to a new topic.

This evaluation includes a summative statement that gives the overall impression of the article at the end, but this can also be placed at the beginning of the evaluation.

This evaluation mainly discusses the representation of data and methods. However, other areas, like organization, are open to critique.

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Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

A book review is a thorough description, critical analysis, and/or evaluation of the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, often written in relation to prior research on the topic. Reviews generally range from 500-2000 words, but may be longer or shorter depends on several factors: the length and complexity of the book being reviewed, the overall purpose of the review, and whether the review examines two or more books that focus on the same topic. Professors assign book reviews as practice in carefully analyzing complex scholarly texts and to assess your ability to effectively synthesize research so that you reach an informed perspective about the topic being covered.

There are two general approaches to reviewing a book:

• Descriptive review: Presents the content and structure of a book as objectively as possible, describing essential information about a book's purpose and authority. This is done by stating the perceived aims and purposes of the study, often incorporating passages quoted from the text that highlight key elements of the work. Additionally, there may be some indication of the reading level and anticipated audience.
• Critical review: Describes and evaluates the book in relation to accepted literary and historical standards and supports this evaluation with evidence from the text and, in most cases, in contrast to and in comparison with the research of others. It should include a statement about what the author has tried to do, evaluates how well you believe the author has succeeded in meeting the objectives of the study, and presents evidence to support this assessment. For most course assignments, your professor will want you to write this type of review.

Book Reviews. Writing Center. University of New Hampshire; Book Reviews: How to Write a Book Review. Writing and Style Guides. Libraries. Dalhousie University; Kindle, Peter A. "Teaching Students to Write Book Reviews." Contemporary Rural Social Work 7 (2015): 135-141; Erwin, R. W. “Reviewing Books for Scholarly Journals.” In Writing and Publishing for Academic Authors . Joseph M. Moxley and Todd Taylor. 2 nd edition. (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 1997), pp. 83-90.

How to Approach Writing Your Review

NOTE:   Since most course assignments require that you write a critical rather than descriptive book review, the following information about preparing to write and developing the structure and style of reviews focuses on this approach.

I.  Common Features

While book reviews vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features. These include:

• A review gives the reader a concise summary of the content . This includes a description of the research topic and scope of analysis as well as an overview of the book's overall perspective, argument, and purpose.
• A review offers a critical assessment of the content in relation to other studies on the same topic . This involves documenting your reactions to the work under review--what strikes you as noteworthy or important, whether or not the arguments made by the author(s) were effective or persuasive, and how the work enhanced your understanding of the research problem under investigation.
• In addition to analyzing a book's strengths and weaknesses, a scholarly review often recommends whether or not readers would value the work for its authenticity and overall quality . This measure of quality includes both the author's ideas and arguments and covers practical issues, such as, readability and language, organization and layout, indexing, and, if needed, the use of non-textual elements .

To maintain your focus, always keep in mind that most assignments ask you to discuss a book's treatment of its topic, not the topic itself . Your key sentences should say, "This book shows...,” "The study demonstrates...," or “The author argues...," rather than "This happened...” or “This is the case....”

II.  Developing a Critical Assessment Strategy

There is no definitive methodological approach to writing a book review in the social sciences, although it is necessary that you think critically about the research problem under investigation before you begin to write. Therefore, writing a book review is a three-step process: 1) carefully taking notes as you read the text; 2) developing an argument about the value of the work under consideration; and, 3) clearly articulating that argument as you write an organized and well-supported assessment of the work.

A useful strategy in preparing to write a review is to list a set of questions that should be answered as you read the book [remember to note the page numbers so you can refer back to the text!]. The specific questions to ask yourself will depend upon the type of book you are reviewing. For example, a book that is presenting original research about a topic may require a different set of questions to ask yourself than a work where the author is offering a personal critique of an existing policy or issue.

Here are some sample questions that can help you think critically about the book:

• Thesis or Argument . What is the central thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one main idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world that you know or have experienced? What has the book accomplished? Is the argument clearly stated and does the research support this?
• Topic . What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Is it clearly articulated? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? Can you detect any biases? What type of approach has the author adopted to explore the research problem [e.g., topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive]?
• Evidence . How does the author support their argument? What evidence does the author use to prove their point? Is the evidence based on an appropriate application of the method chosen to gather information? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author's information [or conclusions] conflict with other books you've read, courses you've taken, or just previous assumptions you had about the research problem?
• Structure . How does the author structure their argument? Does it follow a logical order of analysis? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense to you? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• Take-aways . How has this book helped you understand the research problem? Would you recommend the book to others? Why or why not?

Beyond the content of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the general presentation of information. Question to ask may include:

• The Author: Who is the author? The nationality, political persuasion, education, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the author is affiliated with a particular organization? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they wrote about? What other topics has the author written about? Does this work build on prior research or does it represent a new or unique area of research?
• The Presentation: What is the book's genre? Out of what discipline does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or other contextual standard upon which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know this. Keep in mind, though, that declarative statements about being the “first,” the "best," or the "only" book of its kind can be a risky unless you're absolutely certain because your professor [presumably] has a much better understanding of the overall research literature.

NOTE: Most critical book reviews examine a topic in relation to prior research. A good strategy for identifying this prior research is to examine sources the author(s) cited in the chapters introducing the research problem and, of course, any review of the literature. However, you should not assume that the author's references to prior research is authoritative or complete. If any works related to the topic have been excluded, your assessment of the book should note this . Be sure to consult with a librarian to ensure that any additional studies are located beyond what has been cited by the author(s).

Book Reviews. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Book Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Hartley, James. "Reading and Writing Book Reviews Across the Disciplines." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 57 (July 2006): 1194–1207;   Motta-Roth, D. “Discourse Analysis and Academic Book Reviews: A Study of Text and Disciplinary Cultures.”  In Genre Studies in English for Academic Purposes . Fortanet Gómez, Inmaculada  et  al., editors. (Castellò de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I, 1998), pp. 29-45. Writing a Book Review. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing Book Reviews. Writing Tutorial Services, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Indiana University; Suárez, Lorena and Ana I. Moreno. “The Rhetorical Structure of Academic Journal Book Reviews: A Cross-linguistic and Cross-disciplinary Approach .” In Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, María del Carmen Pérez Llantada Auría, Ramón Plo Alastrué, and Claus Peter Neumann. Actas del V Congreso Internacional AELFE/Proceedings of the 5th International AELFE Conference . Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, 2006.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Bibliographic Information

Bibliographic information refers to the essential elements of a work if you were to cite it in a paper [i.e., author, title, date of publication, etc.]. Provide the essential information about the book using the writing style [e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago] preferred by your professor or used by the discipline of your major . Depending on how your professor wants you to organize your review, the bibliographic information represents the heading of your review. In general, it would look like this:

[Complete title of book. Author or authors. Place of publication. Publisher. Date of publication. Number of pages before first chapter, often in Roman numerals. Total number of pages]. The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History . By Jill Lepore. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. xii, 207 pp.)

Reviewed by [your full name].

II.  Scope/Purpose/Content

Begin your review by telling the reader not only the overarching concern of the book in its entirety [the subject area] but also what the author's particular point of view is on that subject [the thesis statement]. If you cannot find an adequate statement in the author's own words or if you find that the thesis statement is not well-developed, then you will have to compose your own introductory thesis statement that does cover all the material. This statement should be no more than one paragraph and must be succinctly stated, accurate, and unbiased.

If you find it difficult to discern the overall aims and objectives of the book [and, be sure to point this out in your review if you determine that this is a deficiency], you may arrive at an understanding of the book's overall purpose by assessing the following:

• Scan the table of contents because it can help you understand how the book was organized and will aid in determining the author's main ideas and how they were developed [e.g., chronologically, topically, historically, etc.].
• Why did the author write on this subject rather than on some other subject?
• From what point of view is the work written?
• Was the author trying to give information, to explain something technical, or to convince the reader of a belief’s validity by dramatizing it in action?
• What is the general field or genre, and how does the book fit into it? If necessary, review related literature from other books and journal articles to familiarize yourself with the field.
• Who is the intended audience?
• What is the author's style? Is it formal or informal? You can evaluate the quality of the writing style by noting some of the following standards: coherence, clarity, originality, forcefulness, accurate use of technical words, conciseness, fullness of development, and fluidity [i.e., quality of the narrative flow].
• How did the book affect you? Were there any prior assumptions you had about the subject that were changed, abandoned, or reinforced after reading the book? How is the book related to your own personal beliefs or assumptions? What personal experiences have you had related to the subject that affirm or challenge underlying assumptions?
• How well has the book achieved the goal(s) set forth in the preface, introduction, and/or foreword?
• Would you recommend this book to others? Why or why not?

III.  Note the Method

Support your remarks with specific references to text and quotations that help to illustrate the literary method used to state the research problem, describe the research design, and analyze the findings. In general, authors tend to use the following literary methods, exclusively or in combination.

• Description : The author depicts scenes and events by giving specific details that appeal to the five senses, or to the reader’s imagination. The description presents background and setting. Its primary purpose is to help the reader realize, through as many details as possible, the way persons, places, and things are situated within the phenomenon being described.
• Narration : The author tells the story of a series of events, usually thematically or in chronological order. In general, the emphasis in scholarly books is on narration of the events. Narration tells what has happened and, in some cases, using this method to forecast what could happen in the future. Its primary purpose is to draw the reader into a story and create a contextual framework for understanding the research problem.
• Exposition : The author uses explanation and analysis to present a subject or to clarify an idea. Exposition presents the facts about a subject or an issue clearly and as impartially as possible. Its primary purpose is to describe and explain, to document for the historical record an event or phenomenon.
• Argument : The author uses techniques of persuasion to establish understanding of a particular truth, often in the form of addressing a research question, or to convince the reader of its falsity. The overall aim is to persuade the reader to believe something and perhaps to act on that belief. Argument takes sides on an issue and aims to convince the reader that the author's position is valid, logical, and/or reasonable.

IV.  Critically Evaluate the Contents

Critical comments should form the bulk of your book review . State whether or not you feel the author's treatment of the subject matter is appropriate for the intended audience. Ask yourself:

• Has the purpose of the book been achieved?
• What contributions does the book make to the field?
• Is the treatment of the subject matter objective or at least balanced in describing all sides of a debate?
• Are there facts and evidence that have been omitted?
• What kinds of data, if any, are used to support the author's thesis statement?
• Can the same data be interpreted to explain alternate outcomes?
• Is the writing style clear and effective?
• Does the book raise important or provocative issues or topics for discussion?
• Does the book bring attention to the need for further research?
• What has been left out?

Support your evaluation with evidence from the text and, when possible, state the book's quality in relation to other scholarly sources. If relevant, note of the book's format, such as, layout, binding, typography, etc. Are there tables, charts, maps, illustrations, text boxes, photographs, or other non-textual elements? Do they aid in understanding the text? Describing this is particularly important in books that contain a lot of non-textual elements.

NOTE:   It is important to carefully distinguish your views from those of the author so as not to confuse your reader. Be clear when you are describing an author's point of view versus expressing your own.

V.  Examine the Front Matter and Back Matter

Front matter refers to any content before the first chapter of the book. Back matter refers to any information included after the final chapter of the book . Front matter is most often numbered separately from the rest of the text in lower case Roman numerals [i.e. i - xi ]. Critical commentary about front or back matter is generally only necessary if you believe there is something that diminishes the overall quality of the work [e.g., the indexing is poor] or there is something that is particularly helpful in understanding the book's contents [e.g., foreword places the book in an important context].

Front matter that may be considered for evaluation when reviewing its overall quality:

• Table of contents -- is it clear? Is it detailed or general? Does it reflect the true contents of the book? Does it help in understanding a logical sequence of content?
• Author biography -- also found as back matter, the biography of author(s) can be useful in determining the authority of the writer and whether the book builds on prior research or represents new research. In scholarly reviews, noting the author's affiliation and prior publications can be a factor in helping the reader determine the overall validity of the work [i.e., are they associated with a research center devoted to studying the problem under investigation].
• Foreword -- the purpose of a foreword is to introduce the reader to the author and the content of the book, and to help establish credibility for both. A foreword may not contribute any additional information about the book's subject matter, but rather, serves as a means of validating the book's existence. In these cases, the foreword is often written by a leading scholar or expert who endorses the book's contributions to advancing research about the topic. Later editions of a book sometimes have a new foreword prepended [appearing before an older foreword, if there was one], which may be included to explain how the latest edition differs from previous editions. These are most often written by the author.
• Acknowledgements -- scholarly studies in the social sciences often take many years to write, so authors frequently acknowledge the help and support of others in getting their research published. This can be as innocuous as acknowledging the author's family or the publisher. However, an author may acknowledge prominent scholars or subject experts, staff at key research centers, people who curate important archival collections, or organizations that funded the research. In these particular cases, it may be worth noting these sources of support in your review, particularly if the funding organization is biased or its mission is to promote a particular agenda.
• Preface -- generally describes the genesis, purpose, limitations, and scope of the book and may include acknowledgments of indebtedness to people who have helped the author complete the study. Is the preface helpful in understanding the study? Does it provide an effective framework for understanding what's to follow?
• Chronology -- also may be found as back matter, a chronology is generally included to highlight key events related to the subject of the book. Do the entries contribute to the overall work? Is it detailed or very general?
• List of non-textual elements -- a book that contains numerous charts, photographs, maps, tables, etc. will often list these items after the table of contents in the order that they appear in the text. Is this useful?

Back matter that may be considered for evaluation when reviewing its overall quality:

• Afterword -- this is a short, reflective piece written by the author that takes the form of a concluding section, final commentary, or closing statement. It is worth mentioning in a review if it contributes information about the purpose of the book, gives a call to action, summarizes key recommendations or next steps, or asks the reader to consider key points made in the book.
• Appendix -- is the supplementary material in the appendix or appendices well organized? Do they relate to the contents or appear superfluous? Does it contain any essential information that would have been more appropriately integrated into the text?
• Index -- are there separate indexes for names and subjects or one integrated index. Is the indexing thorough and accurate? Are elements used, such as, bold or italic fonts to help identify specific places in the book? Does the index include "see also" references to direct you to related topics?
• Glossary of Terms -- are the definitions clearly written? Is the glossary comprehensive or are there key terms missing? Are any terms or concepts mentioned in the text not included that should have been?
• Endnotes -- examine any endnotes as you read from chapter to chapter. Do they provide important additional information? Do they clarify or extend points made in the body of the text? Should any notes have been better integrated into the text rather than separated? Do the same if the author uses footnotes.
• Bibliography/References/Further Readings -- review any bibliography, list of references to sources, and/or further readings the author may have included. What kinds of sources appear [e.g., primary or secondary, recent or old, scholarly or popular, etc.]? How does the author make use of them? Be sure to note important omissions of sources that you believe should have been utilized, including important digital resources or archival collections.

VI.  Summarize and Comment

State your general conclusions briefly and succinctly. Pay particular attention to the author's concluding chapter and/or afterword. Is the summary convincing? List the principal topics, and briefly summarize the author’s ideas about these topics, main points, and conclusions. If appropriate and to help clarify your overall evaluation, use specific references to text and quotations to support your statements. If your thesis has been well argued, the conclusion should follow naturally. It can include a final assessment or simply restate your thesis. Do not introduce new information in the conclusion. If you've compared the book to any other works or used other sources in writing the review, be sure to cite them at the end of your book review in the same writing style as your bibliographic heading of the book.

Book Reviews. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Book Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Gastel, Barbara. "Special Books Section: A Strategy for Reviewing Books for Journals." BioScience 41 (October 1991): 635-637; Hartley, James. "Reading and Writing Book Reviews Across the Disciplines." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 57 (July 2006): 1194–1207; Lee, Alexander D., Bart N. Green, Claire D. Johnson, and Julie Nyquist. "How to Write a Scholarly Book Review for Publication in a Peer-reviewed Journal: A Review of the Literature." Journal of Chiropractic Education 24 (2010): 57-69; Nicolaisen, Jeppe. "The Scholarliness of Published Peer Reviews: A Bibliometric Study of Book Reviews in Selected Social Science Fields." Research Evaluation 11 (2002): 129-140;.Procter, Margaret. The Book Review or Article Critique. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Reading a Book to Review It. The Writer’s Handbook. Writing Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Scarnecchia, David L. "Writing Book Reviews for the Journal Of Range Management and Rangelands." Rangeland Ecology and Management 57 (2004): 418-421; Simon, Linda. "The Pleasures of Book Reviewing." Journal of Scholarly Publishing 27 (1996): 240-241; Writing a Book Review. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing Book Reviews. Writing Tutorial Services, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Indiana University.

Writing Tip

Always Read the Foreword and/or the Preface

If they are included in the front matter, a good place for understanding a book's overall purpose, organization, contributions to further understanding of the research problem, and relationship to other studies is to read the preface and the foreword. The foreword may be written by someone other than the author or editor and can be a person who is famous or who has name recognition within the discipline. A foreword is often included to add credibility to the work.

The preface is usually an introductory essay written by the author or editor. It is intended to describe the book's overall purpose, arrangement, scope, and overall contributions to the literature. When reviewing the book, it can be useful to critically evaluate whether the goals set forth in the foreword and/or preface were actually achieved. At the very least, they can establish a foundation for understanding a study's scope and purpose as well as its significance in contributing new knowledge.

Distinguishing between a Foreword, a Preface, and an Introduction . Book Creation Learning Center. Greenleaf Book Group, 2019.

Locating Book Reviews

There are several databases the USC Libraries subscribes to that include the full-text or citations to book reviews. Short, descriptive reviews can also be found at book-related online sites such as Amazon , although it's not always obvious who has written them and may actually be created by the publisher. The following databases provide comprehensive access to scholarly, full-text book reviews:

• ProQuest [1983-present]
• Book Review Digest Retrospective [1905-1982]

Some Language for Evaluating Texts

It can be challenging to find the proper vocabulary from which to discuss and evaluate a book. Here is a list of some active verbs for referring to texts and ideas that you might find useful:

• account for
• demonstrate
• distinguish
• investigate

Examples of usage

• "The evidence indicates that..."
• "This work assesses the effect of..."
• "The author identifies three key reasons for..."
• "This book questions the view that..."
• "This work challenges assumptions about...."

Paquot, Magali. Academic Keyword List. Centre for English Corpus Linguistics. Université Catholique de Louvain.

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Implementing Peer Review in Your Course

During her graduate studies at The Ohio State University, Nicole Pizarro worked as both an English instructor and a consultant at the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing’s Writing Center .   

“In my teaching, I didn’t have time to help each student craft and edit their papers. But as a peer consultant, I could focus on a client’s writing and walk them through the revision process while providing comprehensive feedback. This work highlighted for me the benefits of peer-to-peer feedback in everyday writing instruction.”

It wasn’t long before Pizarro’s Writing Center experience influenced her teaching. In a second-year writing course, she used a CarmenCanvas discussion board to encourage students to actively reflect on each other’s writing styles and the bottlenecks they encountered when composing.  

“We talked about what we valued in peer-to-peer feedback. For each assignment, students would use Carmen’s peer review tool and a set of guiding questions to provide feedback to each other. Weaving those interactions throughout the course fostered a classroom community where students could identify areas of improvement in their peers’ work as well as actively reflect on their own writing.” 

Why peer review? 

Feedback is essential to any writing task, especially in the workplace. Whether your students move on to academic careers or other professions, they must be comfortable with the practice of seeking feedback from colleagues. For example, active feedback is integral to the production of scholarly and business communications such as grant proposals, presentations, memos, technical guides, and reports. What’s more, many of the bottlenecks college students face with writing tasks can be addressed through peer review, which helps them further develop the writing skills they need to enter the workforce.  

Unfortunately, peer review activities are not always successful, and many instructors avoid them altogether. Some common reasons for this: 

• Instructors may believe it is unproductive to have students who encounter the same bottlenecks in their writing provide feedback to one another. 
• Instructors may be hesitant or unable to commit the time and energy needed for effective peer review activities, which necessitate advance planning and active participation from students throughout the length of a writing assignment or even a whole course. 
• Students may have difficulty differentiating between feedback and criticism, leading peer review activities to feel intimidating or unpleasant. Furthermore, students who are not confident in their own composition skills may be hesitant to “judge” their peers’ writing. 
• Students may not see the point of peer review because they have been conditioned to value feedback only from their instructors.  

Do any of these concerns hit home for you or your students? The good news is that while designing peer review activities may seem daunting, research suggests that effective peer review can enhance students’ writing education. 

What the research says 

Encouraging students to actively reflect on their own and their peers’ writing can have lasting effects on their development as writers. In Peer Review: Successful from the Start , Shelley Reid notes that peer review “broadens the audience to whom student writers are responsible,” reinforces “the idea that writing is the result of the writer’s choices—which can be controlled and modified,” and increases students’ “awareness of writing as a negotiation between the intent of the writer and the needs of the audience” (2008, para. 5-6). Similarly, WAC Clearinghouse contends that “peer review enhances students’ critical thinking skills as readers and writers... [and] fosters the collaborative awareness of peer readers and their needs” (n.d.).  

Because of the varied ways peer review is implemented in higher ed, the research suggests that its effectiveness varies. Lundstrom and Baker (2009) identified three key benefits of peer review: students receive extra feedback, they have more language interactions, and they improve their own writing by providing feedback to others. However, they also found that the training students got on giving and receiving feedback influenced whether their writing improved overall or globally. “Students who revised student papers improved in specific areas of writing more so than those who only learned to use student feedback” (Lundstrom & Baker, 2009, p. 38). Other researchers have echoed the importance of providing “explicit training in both giving and receiving formative feedback” (Dressler, Chu, Crossman, & Hillman, 2019).  

Ultimately, for a peer review activity to be successful, students must receive training or clear instructions regarding the expectations for the activity . Providing a rubric, working with students to establish criteria, and having open conversations about how to structure helpful feedback can all enhance the peer review process. Asao Inoue (2005) suggests that instructors implement community-based assessment pedagogies in which “students take control of the writing and assessment practices of the class” by contributing to the development of assignments and rubrics. Such methods support students to “evolve as writers, assessors, and theorizers of language” while structured opportunities to evaluate their own writing processes can turn them into “reflective, more self-conscious writers” (p. 210). 

Research also demonstrates that students for whom English is a second language, sometimes called L2 students, can benefit from peer review activities. “Especially popular in L2 instruction, peer response has been shown to help students understand their own process of writing development by analyzing the writing of peers at similar stages in the process” (Anson & Anson, 2017, p. 14 ). Lundstrom and Baker (2009) found that peer review activities help English language learners improve their own writing by “transferring abilities they learn when reviewing peer texts” (p. 38 ). In other words, peer review activities allow English language learners to critically evaluate their own writing through evaluating their peers’ work. 

Supporting International Students

Are you considering how best to support the success of international students on writing assignments, peer reviews, and other learning activities? Find guidance in the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing’s Supporting International Student Learning in the Classroom . 

Ultimately, peer review can help students improve their writing. But to maximize its benefits, students must be trained on how to provide effective feedback and what to do with the feedback they receive. Even if a final product doesn’t show significant improvement, peer review can influence students’ overall development as writers, spurring them to be more self-aware, reflective, and thoughtful about their writing choices and processes.

In Practice

The following approaches can help you plan productive peer review activities for your course.  

Provide students opportunities to reflect on their writing process. Encouraging students to reflect on their own writing processes helps you understand specific areas to address in their writing skills development so you can tailor your instruction. It also helps students set individual goals that their peers can use to provide meaningful, targeted feedback. When students consciously consider their strengths and areas for improvement, they are set up to be accountable in how they respond to the feedback they receive in those areas.

Ask students to write a paragraph explaining what their writing process looks like for a traditional paper. Ask guiding questions, such as:  

• Do you enjoy writing? Why or why not? 
• How do you brainstorm ideas?  
• How do you organize your ideas before writing?  
• What is a piece of writing you are most proud of? Why? 
• What do you struggle with when working on a writing assignment? 

Develop a questionnaire asking students to reflect on or rate their writing skills. Using the anonymous submission option when  building your survey in Carmen can help students feel comfortable being honest about the bottlenecks they experience when writing.  

Spend class time explaining the benefits of peer review and addressing students’ questions and concerns. We mentioned earlier some negative connotations that are often associated with peer review activities. Because many students share similar concerns, it is helpful to dedicate class time to openly discussing their prior experiences with peer review. Ask them to share what they find most valuable about peer feedback and what they want to gain from peer review activities. This is a good opportunity to explain the difference between feedback and criticism, as well as the benefits that understanding and practicing peer review can have on students’ writing.  

Create a contract as a class to lay out key guidelines for peer review . Once you’ve discussed students’ experiences and concerns, you can dive into specific expectations and parameters for peer review. Together with students, create a peer review contract wherein key areas for development and feedback are highlighted. This contract can serve as a reminder of the difference between criticism and feedback, and how to provide useful feedback. Developing a community contract allows students to have control in the peer review process and tailor activities to their shared needs. Along these lines, you can also work with students to establish the specific criteria for the individual peer review activities you assign throughout the term. 

Scaffold major assignments and implement feedback loops throughout their duration.   In a First Year Writing course in Ohio State’s English department, students are expected to develop an academic paper analyzing a popular media text. This research paper is broken down into smaller writing tasks focused on specific skills: primary source analysis, annotated bibliography, secondary source integration, and analytical research. For each of those individual tasks, students perform peer reviews and follow up on feedback to make improvements to their drafts. The frequent feedback loops throughout the course help students actively reflect upon and develop their writing skills and become more comfortable providing and responding to feedback in the process.  

Provide a detailed worksheet, checklist, or rubric for each peer review assignment. Students are often unsure how to evaluate peers’ writing and compose their review, so explicit guidance for them to reference during the process is crucial. Delineate clear areas for feedback or provide guiding questions, such as: 

• In a few sentences, summarize your peer’s paper. 
• What is the paper’s main argument? Is the argument clear and specific? 
• Does the introduction establish the argument and provide an overview of the paper’s topic? 
• Are the main points well organized? Are there any paragraphs that could be expanded, clarified, or re-ordered? 
• Does the conclusion wrap up the paper by synthesizing ideas or suggesting new directions of thought? 
• What were the writer’s most interesting or illuminating points? 
• What questions do you still have after reading the paper? Did you find anything confusing?  
• Does the author cite reliable sources? Do the sources support the paper’s argument?  

It is also helpful to encourage students to pose specific questions about their papers that they would like their peer reviewers to consider. 

For additional ideas for structuring peer review assignments, see the University of Alaska, Fairbanks’ extensive list of Peer Review Activities .

Teaching Online

Peer review has value no matter your mode of instruction. If you’re wondering how to best adapt peer review activities for the online classroom, explore the Purdue Online Writing Lab’s Remote Peer Review Strategies . Find more support for promoting peer connections at a distance in Student Interaction Online  and Creating and Adapting Assessments for Online Courses .

Guide students to reflect on each peer review activity and the feedback they received . After a peer review activity concludes, have students reflect on their peers’ feedback, revisit their work, and identify the revisions they plan to apply. This can be as simple as asking them to compose a paragraph or bulleted list outlining the changes that they want to make to their drafts. Prompting students to reflect on peer feedback throughout the duration of a project motivates them to see the revision process as ongoing.  

Leverage university-supported technology to support your peer review activities.  Carmen has a built-in peer review tool that can streamline the peer review process for you and your students. It facilitates students’ reviews and enables you to grade them, all in a centralized location. Learn more about using the Carmen peer review tool . 

Integrating peer review activities in your course can support your students’ holistic development as writers. For peer review to be effective, you must train your students in how to provide feedback as well as how to respond to the feedback they receive. Setting up clear expectations and resources will go a long way toward making peer review a productive endeavor for all involved. 

When designing peer review activities for your course: 

Encourage students to actively reflect on their writing processes. This helps students better establish the kind of feedback they want from peers and consider how they will incorporate it into their revisions.  

Provide opportunities for students to share their concerns and questions about peer review before conducting any activities. 

Give students agency in peer review activities by creating a community-generated peer review contract and working together to establish criteria for peer review assignments.  

Scaffold all major assignments and build multiple opportunities for peer feedback into the writing process. 

Provide students with a detailed worksheet, checklist, or rubric to guide their evaluation of their peers’ writing.  

Allow students to reflect on the feedback they received after a peer review and consider how they will incorporate it into their revisions. 

Take advantage of university-supported tools like Carmen to streamline peer review activities. 

• Peer Review in CarmenCanvas Can Aid in Students’ Learning Process (ODEE/CSTW ar…
• Shelley's (Quick) Guides for Writing Teachers: Full-Circle Peer Review (web res…
• Teaching Students to Evaluate Each Other (web resources)

Anson, I.F., & Anson, C.M. (2017). Assessing peer and instructor response to writing: A corpus analysis from an expert survey. Assessing Writing , 33 , 12-24.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2017.03.001

Cho, K., Schunn, C.D., & Charney, D. (2006). Commenting on Writing: Typology and perceived helpfulness of comments from novice peer reviewers and subject matter experts. Written Communications , 23 (3), 260-294.  https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088306289261

Inoue, A.B. (2005). Community-based assessment pedagogy. Assessing Writing , 9 , 208-238.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asw.2004.12.001 

Lundstrom, K. & Baker, W. (2009). To give is better than to receive: The benefits of peer review to the reviewer’s own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing , 18 , 30-43.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2008.06.002

Reid, E. S. (2006). Peer Review: Successful from the Start. The Teaching Professo r, 20 (8), 3.

WAC Clearinghouse. (n.d.). How can I get the most out of peer review? . https://wac.colostate.edu/resources/wac/intro/peer/    

Related Teaching Topics

Designing assessments of student learning, helping students write across the disciplines, supporting student learning and metacognition, related toolsets, carmencanvas, search for resources.

Subject Guides

Literature Review and Evidence Synthesis

How to determine the type of review to assign, narrative literature review, peer review exercise, protocol exercise, search methods exercise, critical appraisal exercise, data extraction exercise, qualitative data synthesis exercise, systematized review, updating an existing review, rapid review exercise.

• Annotated Bibliography
• Integrative Review
• Scoping Review This link opens in a new window
• Systematic Review This link opens in a new window
• Other Review Types
• Subject Librarian Assistance with Reviews
• Grey Literature This link opens in a new window

Due to the complex methodology of a systematic review  and the extended timeline required ( >1 year), assigning this type of review for a semester long assignment may be frustrating for both the students and the faculty. (See A Step by Step Guide to a Systematic Review ).

If the goal is for the students to develop life-long research skills and learn how to explore the scholarly conversation within the profession, many types of reviews, with less demanding methodologies, will help the students develop these skills successfully! 

Below are various types of assignments which incorporate essential elements of a systematic review in semester size chunks. Learning objectives are included for each of the examples. 

Please reach out to your subject librarian with any questions . 

Descriptions of the various types of reviews and the associated guidelines can be found in these articles : 

• Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies.  Health information and libraries journal ,  26 (2), 91–108.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19490148/
• Sutton, A., Clowes, M., Preston, L. & Booth, A. (2019). Meeting the review family:  Exploring review types and associated information retrieval requirements. Health information and libraries journal. 36 (3).   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31541534/

A narrative literature review is an integrated analysis of the existing literature used to summarize a body of literature, draw conclusions about a topic, and identify research gaps.  By understanding the current state of the literature, you can show how new research fits into the larger research landscape.  

The purposes of a narrative literature review:

• Explain the background of research on a topic
• Demonstrate the importance of a topic
• Suggest new areas of research
• Identify major themes, concepts, and researchers in a topic
• Identify critical gaps, points of disagreement, or flawed approaches for a research topic

More information about Narrative Reviews can be found here

Learning outcomes for a Narrative Literature Review would show that students have learned: 

• How to develop a research question
• How to search for literature to answer the research question
• Which databases are applicable to their topic of inquiry
• How to format a literature review
• How to synthesize sources of information
• How to cite literature sources

The complexity of this assignment can be modified dependent upon the course objectives. 

Peer review is a process all scholars will experience in their career whether it is in the form of receiving or providing this feedback. Many of the  exercises mentioned on this page would be appropriate for a peer review exercise.

A narrative literature review can be a good starting point for novice peer reviewers.

The protocol development exercise and the search strategy development exercises can be reviewed using the PRISMA-P and the PRISMA-S checklists.

The critical appraisal exercise can be reviewed using the CASP or JBI Critical Appraisal Checklists .

The data extraction exercise can be reviewed by comparing the results to a previously developed protocol.

For this exercise students would benefit from faculty developed examples of constructive review feedback along with an explanation of how the peer review process works, and why it is important in health science scholarship.

Learning objectives for the peer review exercise: 

Students will learn the importance of the peer review process

Students will learn how peer review supports the scholarly process

Students will learn more about the conduct and reporting standards through the critique process

Students will learn how to provide and learn from constructive feedback

One of the initial steps for completing an evidence synthesis project, such as a Scoping or Systematic Review, is to develop and register a protocol. The purpose of a protocol is to provide a detailed plan for the review project, reduce the risk of bias within the review and to establish providence of the research question to be evaluated. 

The  PLoS Medicine  Editors (2011) Best Practice in Systematic Reviews: The Importance of Protocols and Registration. PLoS Med 8(2): e1001009. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001009

Protocols are developed according to the PRISMA-P protocol reporting guidelines . 

Assigning the development of a protocol will help the students to: 

• learn the basics of the PRISMA guidelines
• learn how to develop a research question
• learn how to develop and identify the inclusion and exclusion criteria
• learn how to identify which information sources are most appropriate to answer the research question
• learn how to develop a search strategy
• learn how to document and record the data management process
• learn how to define the data that will be collected and will answer the research question
• learn about the resources available to assess for the risk of bias

Detailed instructions for protocol development and additional protocol resources . 

• PRISMA-P Elaboration & Explanation
• Evidence Synthesis Protocol Template
• Systematic Review Protocol Template

Developing an equally sensitive and specific search strategy to ensure that the results are comprehensive for a systematic or scoping review is a complex task which often involves days of work for information professionals/academic librarians . This process involves learning which databases are applicable to the research topic, learning the controlled vocabulary of those databases and learning how to translate the search strategy from one database to the next to ensure a consistent search. Developing a systematic searching method is the basis of a systematic review. 

A systematic review is considered strong evidence when the methodology is reproducible. In this type of assignment, the students will also learn how to document their search strategy to ensure that it is transparent and reproducible. PRISMA- S provides reporting standards for systematic review search strategy documentation. The PRISMA- S may be used as a rubric for the assignment. 

Learning outcomes for the Search Method Exercise would show that students have learned: 

• which databases are applicable to their profession
• how to navigate an academic database and use the controlled vocabulary
• valuable expert searching skills
• the process of systematic searching
• how to document a transparent and reproducible search
• why transparency and reproducibility are an important element of strong evidence

"Critical appraisal is the process of carefully and systematically examining research to judge its trustworthiness, and its value and relevance in particular context. It is an essential skill for evidence-based practice because it allows healthcare professionals to find and use research evidence reliably and efficiently" 

Burls, A. (2009). What is critical appraisal? In What Is This Series: Evidence-based medicine. Available online at  What is Critical Appraisal?

Critical appraisal of the evidence to be synthesized is a vital step in the methodology of a systematic review. The process involves becoming familiar with the JBI or CASP checklists, learning the whys and hows of critical appraisal, and using critical thinking to determine the validity, reliability and relevance of a study in relation to the research question. 

Learning outcomes for a Critical Appraisal Exercise would show that students have learned:

• The purpose of the critical appraisal process
• Where to find critical appraisal checklists for specific types of studies
• The concepts of validity, reliability, transparency and relevance in relation to scientific study methodology
• What is required to ensure a study is valid, reliable and relevant
• How to use critical thinking to determine if a study would be included in the evidence synthesis of their review

This exercise could be modified to include few to many studies, multiple types of studies and could be an assignment on its own or part of a larger project. 

< id="docs-internal-guid-596bd17a-7fff-8c21-8dcb-280fbc9ba492">Data extraction is the first step in the synthesis process of a systematic review. This step requires that the review team adhere strictly to the PICO elements of the research question and extract data according to those elements. For this exercise, the students may work independently and then come together as a team to discuss their findings. Additional information regarding the data extraction process can be found in chapter 5 of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews 29 .

Learning objectives for the data extraction exercise: 

Students will learn the data extraction process of a systematic review

Students will learn the process of adhering to predefined criteria

Students will gain experience with data collection, management, and documentation

Students will gain experience working with a team

Qualitative synthesis of the data extracted is a required aspect of a systematic review. This process is completed regardless of a quantitative analysis. The qualitative synthesis is a narrative thematic analysis of the themes found within the data. A summarization of general characteristics of the data are analyzed along with relationships, patterns, heterogeneity and degrees of consistency. This narrative will also describe how the data answers the research question, determine the strengths and weaknesses of the data, identify evidence gaps and compare the findings with known scholarship. 

Learning objectives for the qualitative data synthesis exercise: 

Students will learn how to analyze and synthesize qualitative data

Students will apply critical thinking skills

Students will develop higher order writing skills

Students will learn the qualitative data synthesis process of a systematic review

Introduced by Grant & Booth (2009) , the systematized review is an introductory review process for students. While a systematized review does not meet the strict criteria for conducting and reporting a systematic review, it can work as an introduction to the process. This type of review can also be completed by a single researcher or student whereas a systematic review requires a team of experts. 

"Attempt to include elements of systematic review process while stopping short of systematic review. Typically conducted as a postgraduate student assignment" Grant (2009).

Learning objectives for a systematized review will allow students to learn:

• An overview of the methodology for a systematic review according to the guidelines
• How to determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• How to determine which databases and resources are appropriate for their research question
• How to develop an systematic search strategy
• How to document a transparent and reproducible search strategy
• How to critically appraise scholarly evidence
• How to synthesize evidence
• How to report a systematic review according to the PRISMA guidelines

Prior to initiating a systematic review it is common practice to ensure that a review does not already exist related to your research question. In this search you may run across a systematic review that is outdated, this presents the opportunity to update the data. It is essential that prior to starting the update of a review, that the initial review is critically appraised to ensure that the methodology is correct and that all of the essential elements needed to update the review are available. 

"The update of a systematic review should be conducted according to the standards for any review, including the additional requirements of an update. These standards will ensure that any changes are managed appropriately and reported clearly to readers" 

Please refer to these resources for guidance to update systematic reviews:

• Cochrane Handbook Ch IV: Updating a Review
• Cochrane MECIR Manual: Reporting Standards Specific to Updates
• Cochrane Handbook Ch 22.2  Maintaining the currency of systematic reviews

The PRISMA flow diagram for SR updates is required in the reporting of the update. 

Student learning objectives for updating a systematic review: 

• The standard guidelines for conducting a systematic review
• How to modify an existing search strategy
• How to implement a comprehensive and systematic search strategy
• How to document/report a systematic review
• Why the conduct and reporting standards of a systematic review are essential to produce rigorous evidence
• How to complete a group project
• How to use citation managers

A rapid review provides a rapid synthesis of knowledge about a policy or clinical practice issue and attempts to inform an evidence-based decision quickly. It follows many of the stages of a systematic knowledge synthesis but may modify stages to shorten the timeline.

• Garritty, C., Gartlehner, G., Nussbaumer-Streit, B., King, V. J., Hamel, C., Kamel, C., … & Stevens, A. (2020). Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group offers evidence-informed guidance to conduct rapid reviews. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.10.007
• Khangura, S., Konnyu, K., Cushman, R., Grimshaw, J., & Moher, D. (2012). Evidence summaries: the evolution of a rapid review approach. Systematic Reviews, 1, 10.  http://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-1-10

Learning outcomes for Rapid or Scoping Review Exercises: 

Students will learn: 

• to develop an answerable research question
• to develop advanced search skills for various databases
• to develop an understanding of the methodology for rapid or scoping reviews
• how to determine the scholars of a specific topic within the profession
• how to synthesize the evidence acquired from the studies 

Source: Price, C. (n.d.)  Is there better teaching opportunity than assigning systematic reviews in a semester ? Covidence.  https://www.covidence.org/blog/elementor-2112/

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Peer Review

• About Peer Review

Best Practices for Instructors

Student readings to encourage best practices.

• Scholarly Peer Review
• Open Peer Review
• Peer Reviewer Recognition/Credit

Creative Commons License

As with any other assignment or activity, a peer review exercise should be constructed with learning outcomes in mind.  Do you want students to gain skill in editing?  Do you primarily want them to improve as writers?  Are you using this interactive work to build connection and community within the cohort?  All of the above?  How much time do you have to devote to it?  Would it be more effective to move an in-class session to asynchronous homework?  Is the writing assignment iterative?  Is there a way to make the peer review iterative as well?

First, some best practices on including peer review in your course assignments from several organizations on teaching and learning:

• Planning and Guiding In-Class Peer Review - Washington U in St Louis Center for Teaching and Learning Incorporating peer review into your course can help your students become better writers, readers, and collaborators. However, peer review must be planned and guided carefully.
• Peer Assessment - McGill Teaching and Learning Services These resources from McGill University's Teaching and Learning Services include a detailed planning and implementation document for instructors, as well as several examples of instructor-created assessment worksheets and instructions to students.
• Teaching Students to Evaluate Each Other - Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation One-page description of best practices in designing the assignment and supporting students throughout.
• Designing Effective Peer and Self Assessment - UFlorida Center for Instructional Technology and Training Best practices, with emphasis on designing a rubric for students to refer to. Resources for creating effective rubrics.
• Instructor Resource Hub - Eli Review Eli Review is a for-profit teaching and learning suite of tools. Eli was invented by Jeff Grabill, Bill Hart-Davidson, and Mike McLeod, all faculty in the Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures department at Michigan State University and researchers in the Writing in Digital Environments Research Center. These Instructor Resources include a free four-part series on peer learning pedagogy and collection of teaching materials from classrooms using Eli.

Next, a couple of first-hand accounts of professors changing up how they incorporate the peer review activities and assignments to overcome student disengagement and dissatisfaction with the way it's usually done:

• Peer Review Reviewed by Rachel Wagner In this Inside Higher Ed article, one instructor describes her goal of trying to get her students to care about writing, by getting them to care about editing. After a failure to engage students in a one-shot, in-class peer review activity, she reimagined it as an integrated part of writing, with the opportunity to work with a different partner on each assignment.
• A Better Way to Do Peer Review of Writing in Large Classes by Lauren McCarthy A UMass professor describes making peer review work for a 100+ student lecture by moving it to the online LMS and reaching out to non-participants.

Students may be engaging in a peer review activity for the first time in your classroom.  As the instructor, try to share one or more example of what is expected, what constitutes good, passable, and poor peer review, and possibly even provide a rubric or worksheet as part of the assignment.  The resources below are written for students performing peer review in the classroom, and go into more detail on these best practices and expectations:

Read the entire work before starting your peer review.

Make notes to yourself as you go, but reading the entire work might clarify things that confused you to start - it might be a stylistic choice.  Respect stylistic choices, because their paper is not and should not be just like your paper.

Be explicit about the parts you liked or thought worked well, not just things to fix.

Not only does this make the feedback feel less negative, it can help guide changes to problem areas.

When you suggest changes, be specific.

"This is unclear" is not helpful.  "The purpose of this sentence/the information it's trying to convey is not clear.  Do you mean XYZ or ABC?"

Describe, Evaluate, Suggest

Take a moment to write out your thinking, how the part you're commenting on caught your attention, before making a suggestion.  The Eli Review resource below has a good video describing the technique.

Be constructive and professional in your review!

Drafts are going to have mistakes - that's why they're not finished yet.  The point of peer review is to improve the work.  That only works if your feedback is understandable, helpful, kindly given.

• Giving Feedback for Peer Review The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) offers advice on all areas and stages of writing. This page comes from their "Writing with Feedback" section.
• Student Guidelines for Peer Review - Pedagogy in Action This page includes a number of tips and suggestions to provide to students before completing their first peer review assignment. A number of these guidelines have been compiled from the University of Richmond's Writing Center and University of Hawaii at Manoa's Writing Program. Instructors may want to discuss these guidelines with students during a peer review practice session.
• Describe-Evaluate-Suggest: A Helpful Feedback Pattern - Eli Review Learning to give helpful feedback takes practice. An easy way to start is to follow the describe-evaluate-suggest pattern. Describe-evaluate-suggest doesn’t necessarily describe everything that goes into giving good feedback, but it’s one way for newer reviewers to get started. It also helps to make the feedback writers receive more useful for planning revision. In this video, one of Eli’s co-inventors Bill Hart-Davidson explains how the pattern works.

• Student Resource Hub - Eli Review Eli Review is a for-profit teaching and learning suite of tools. Eli was invented by Jeff Grabill, Bill Hart-Davidson, and Mike McLeod, all faculty in the Writing, Rhetoric, & American Cultures department at Michigan State University and researchers in the Writing in Digital Environments Research Center. These Student Resources include free tutorials and advice on both giving feedback and incorporating feedback into your writing from classrooms using Eli.

And one specific example of an assignment from a classroom here on campus:

• Peer Review Worksheet used in Prof. McCarthy's classes Described in her article above, "A Better Way to Do Peer Review of Writing in Large Classes," Prof. McCarthy provides this worksheet to students in her classes performing peer review.
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Literature Review Assignment

Note to instructors: This literature review assignment may be used as part of an ongoing research project, or it may be used as a stand-alone project. You are encouraged to adopt, adapt, or remix these guidelines to suit your goals for your class.

Rough Draft:

Peer Review:

Final Draft:

This assignment will help you become aware of how writers and researchers consider previous work on a topic before they begin additional research. 

• Locate a variety of scholarly print and digital sources that represent multiple perspectives on a topic.
• Analyze sources by critically reading, annotating, engaging, comparing, and drawing implications.
• Methods of gathering and determining the credibility of sources
• Strategies for identifying and discussing multiple perspectives in research

A literature review provides context and establishes the need for new research. In your literature review, you will summarize and analyze published research on your topic by identifying strengths, weaknesses, commonalities, and disagreements among your sources.

For this assignment, you will conduct research on your topic and then compose a thoughtful, well-organized literature review that reflects your own analysis of at least five scholarly sources and their contributions to your topic. (Note that a literature review differs from an annotated bibliography, which simply lists sources and summaries one-by-one. A literature review also differs from a research paper because it does not include new arguments or unpublished primary research.)

Your literature review should have three parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

Introduction

In the introduction, identify your research topic and provide appropriate background information to clarify the context in which you will be reviewing the sources. You should also identify commonalities, conflicts, and/or gaps in published research. Finally, you should explain the criteria you’ve used to analyze, compare, and contrast sources.

In the body, discuss your sources. Organize your discussion of sources based on a common characteristic such as authors’ purposes, findings, or conclusions; research methodologies; or chronology. Briefly summarize each source and describe the strengths and weaknesses of each source. Identify and analyze each source’s contribution to the topic and address differing viewpoints. Integrate source information effectively using lead-in phrases and citations. 

In the conclusion, discuss the ways your sources have contributed to greater knowledge and understanding of the topic and address shortcomings in the existing research. Answer the following questions: What has your review of the sources revealed or demonstrated about the topic? What new questions that have been raised? What areas need further study? 

Formatting requirements

Follow MLA format. Use black Calibri or Times New Roman font in size 12. Double-space the entire document. Use 1-inch margins on all sides.

Criteria for success

General criteria:.

• The writing is clear and coherent/makes sense. 
• The tone and language are appropriate for the audience.
• The writing adheres to grammar and punctuation rules.
• All sources are cited properly, both within the literature review and on the Works Cited page. 

In the introduction, you should . . .

• Identify the general topic or issue you have researched.
• Provide appropriate background information to clarify the context in which you will be reviewing sources. 
• Identify overall trends conflicts, and/or gaps in research and scholarship; and/or identify a single problem or new perspective. 
• Explain the criteria you’ve used to analyze, compare, and contrast sources.
• When necessary, state why certain sources are, or are not, included. 

In the body, you should . . .

• Include at least five scholarly sources.
• Organize discussion of sources logically according to a common characteristic (E.g.: authors’ purposes, findings, or conclusions; research methodologies; or chronology)
• Briefly summarize individual sources.
• Describe strengths of each source.
• Describe weaknesses of each source.
• Identify and analyze each source’s contribution to the topic. 
• Address differing viewpoints.
• Integrate source information effectively using lead-in phrases and citations.

In the conclusion, you should . . .

• Discuss the ways your sources have contributed to greater knowledge and understanding of the topic.
• Address shortcomings in the existing research. 
• Note new information or understanding the literature review has revealed about the topic. 
• Note new questions that have been raised.
• Note areas where further study is needed.

The literature review should adhere to all formatting criteria:

• Follow MLA format throughout the literature review and on the Works Cited page.
• The entire document should be double-spaced. 
• The font should be Calibri or Times New Roman in size 12.
• The margins should be one inch on all sides.

This material was developed by the COMPSS team and is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License . All materials created by the COMPSS team are free to use and can be adopted, adapted, and/or shared as long as the materials are attributed. Please keep this information on materials you adopt, adapt, and/or share. 

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Book Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write a book review, a report or essay that offers a critical perspective on a text. It offers a process and suggests some strategies for writing book reviews.

What is a review?

A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles, entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies, exhibitions, performances, and many other forms. This handout will focus on book reviews. For a similar assignment, see our handout on literature reviews .

Above all, a review makes an argument. The most important element of a review is that it is a commentary, not merely a summary. It allows you to enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with other audiences. You can offer agreement or disagreement and identify where you find the work exemplary or deficient in its knowledge, judgments, or organization. You should clearly state your opinion of the work in question, and that statement will probably resemble other types of academic writing, with a thesis statement, supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Typically, reviews are brief. In newspapers and academic journals, they rarely exceed 1000 words, although you may encounter lengthier assignments and extended commentaries. In either case, reviews need to be succinct. While they vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features:

• First, a review gives the reader a concise summary of the content. This includes a relevant description of the topic as well as its overall perspective, argument, or purpose.
• Second, and more importantly, a review offers a critical assessment of the content. This involves your reactions to the work under review: what strikes you as noteworthy, whether or not it was effective or persuasive, and how it enhanced your understanding of the issues at hand.
• Finally, in addition to analyzing the work, a review often suggests whether or not the audience would appreciate it.

Becoming an expert reviewer: three short examples

Reviewing can be a daunting task. Someone has asked for your opinion about something that you may feel unqualified to evaluate. Who are you to criticize Toni Morrison’s new book if you’ve never written a novel yourself, much less won a Nobel Prize? The point is that someone—a professor, a journal editor, peers in a study group—wants to know what you think about a particular work. You may not be (or feel like) an expert, but you need to pretend to be one for your particular audience. Nobody expects you to be the intellectual equal of the work’s creator, but your careful observations can provide you with the raw material to make reasoned judgments. Tactfully voicing agreement and disagreement, praise and criticism, is a valuable, challenging skill, and like many forms of writing, reviews require you to provide concrete evidence for your assertions.

Consider the following brief book review written for a history course on medieval Europe by a student who is fascinated with beer:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, investigates how women used to brew and sell the majority of ale drunk in England. Historically, ale and beer (not milk, wine, or water) were important elements of the English diet. Ale brewing was low-skill and low status labor that was complimentary to women’s domestic responsibilities. In the early fifteenth century, brewers began to make ale with hops, and they called this new drink “beer.” This technique allowed brewers to produce their beverages at a lower cost and to sell it more easily, although women generally stopped brewing once the business became more profitable.

The student describes the subject of the book and provides an accurate summary of its contents. But the reader does not learn some key information expected from a review: the author’s argument, the student’s appraisal of the book and its argument, and whether or not the student would recommend the book. As a critical assessment, a book review should focus on opinions, not facts and details. Summary should be kept to a minimum, and specific details should serve to illustrate arguments.

Now consider a review of the same book written by a slightly more opinionated student:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 was a colossal disappointment. I wanted to know about the rituals surrounding drinking in medieval England: the songs, the games, the parties. Bennett provided none of that information. I liked how the book showed ale and beer brewing as an economic activity, but the reader gets lost in the details of prices and wages. I was more interested in the private lives of the women brewsters. The book was divided into eight long chapters, and I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to read it.

There’s no shortage of judgments in this review! But the student does not display a working knowledge of the book’s argument. The reader has a sense of what the student expected of the book, but no sense of what the author herself set out to prove. Although the student gives several reasons for the negative review, those examples do not clearly relate to each other as part of an overall evaluation—in other words, in support of a specific thesis. This review is indeed an assessment, but not a critical one.

Here is one final review of the same book:

One of feminism’s paradoxes—one that challenges many of its optimistic histories—is how patriarchy remains persistent over time. While Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 recognizes medieval women as historical actors through their ale brewing, it also shows that female agency had its limits with the advent of beer. I had assumed that those limits were religious and political, but Bennett shows how a “patriarchal equilibrium” shut women out of economic life as well. Her analysis of women’s wages in ale and beer production proves that a change in women’s work does not equate to a change in working women’s status. Contemporary feminists and historians alike should read Bennett’s book and think twice when they crack open their next brewsky.

This student’s review avoids the problems of the previous two examples. It combines balanced opinion and concrete example, a critical assessment based on an explicitly stated rationale, and a recommendation to a potential audience. The reader gets a sense of what the book’s author intended to demonstrate. Moreover, the student refers to an argument about feminist history in general that places the book in a specific genre and that reaches out to a general audience. The example of analyzing wages illustrates an argument, the analysis engages significant intellectual debates, and the reasons for the overall positive review are plainly visible. The review offers criteria, opinions, and support with which the reader can agree or disagree.

Developing an assessment: before you write

There is no definitive method to writing a review, although some critical thinking about the work at hand is necessary before you actually begin writing. Thus, writing a review is a two-step process: developing an argument about the work under consideration, and making that argument as you write an organized and well-supported draft. See our handout on argument .

What follows is a series of questions to focus your thinking as you dig into the work at hand. While the questions specifically consider book reviews, you can easily transpose them to an analysis of performances, exhibitions, and other review subjects. Don’t feel obligated to address each of the questions; some will be more relevant than others to the book in question.

• What is the thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world you know? What has the book accomplished?
• What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? What is the approach to the subject (topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive)?
• How does the author support their argument? What evidence do they use to prove their point? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author’s information (or conclusions) conflict with other books you’ve read, courses you’ve taken or just previous assumptions you had of the subject?
• How does the author structure their argument? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• How has this book helped you understand the subject? Would you recommend the book to your reader?

Beyond the internal workings of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the circumstances of the text’s production:

• Who is the author? Nationality, political persuasion, training, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the biographer was the subject’s best friend? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they write about?
• What is the book’s genre? Out of what field does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or literary standard on which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know. Keep in mind, though, that naming “firsts”—alongside naming “bests” and “onlys”—can be a risky business unless you’re absolutely certain.

Writing the review

Once you have made your observations and assessments of the work under review, carefully survey your notes and attempt to unify your impressions into a statement that will describe the purpose or thesis of your review. Check out our handout on thesis statements . Then, outline the arguments that support your thesis.

Your arguments should develop the thesis in a logical manner. That logic, unlike more standard academic writing, may initially emphasize the author’s argument while you develop your own in the course of the review. The relative emphasis depends on the nature of the review: if readers may be more interested in the work itself, you may want to make the work and the author more prominent; if you want the review to be about your perspective and opinions, then you may structure the review to privilege your observations over (but never separate from) those of the work under review. What follows is just one of many ways to organize a review.

Introduction

Since most reviews are brief, many writers begin with a catchy quip or anecdote that succinctly delivers their argument. But you can introduce your review differently depending on the argument and audience. The Writing Center’s handout on introductions can help you find an approach that works. In general, you should include:

• The name of the author and the book title and the main theme.
• Relevant details about who the author is and where they stand in the genre or field of inquiry. You could also link the title to the subject to show how the title explains the subject matter.
• The context of the book and/or your review. Placing your review in a framework that makes sense to your audience alerts readers to your “take” on the book. Perhaps you want to situate a book about the Cuban revolution in the context of Cold War rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union. Another reviewer might want to consider the book in the framework of Latin American social movements. Your choice of context informs your argument.
• The thesis of the book. If you are reviewing fiction, this may be difficult since novels, plays, and short stories rarely have explicit arguments. But identifying the book’s particular novelty, angle, or originality allows you to show what specific contribution the piece is trying to make.
• Your thesis about the book.

Summary of content

This should be brief, as analysis takes priority. In the course of making your assessment, you’ll hopefully be backing up your assertions with concrete evidence from the book, so some summary will be dispersed throughout other parts of the review.

The necessary amount of summary also depends on your audience. Graduate students, beware! If you are writing book reviews for colleagues—to prepare for comprehensive exams, for example—you may want to devote more attention to summarizing the book’s contents. If, on the other hand, your audience has already read the book—such as a class assignment on the same work—you may have more liberty to explore more subtle points and to emphasize your own argument. See our handout on summary for more tips.

Analysis and evaluation of the book

Your analysis and evaluation should be organized into paragraphs that deal with single aspects of your argument. This arrangement can be challenging when your purpose is to consider the book as a whole, but it can help you differentiate elements of your criticism and pair assertions with evidence more clearly. You do not necessarily need to work chronologically through the book as you discuss it. Given the argument you want to make, you can organize your paragraphs more usefully by themes, methods, or other elements of the book. If you find it useful to include comparisons to other books, keep them brief so that the book under review remains in the spotlight. Avoid excessive quotation and give a specific page reference in parentheses when you do quote. Remember that you can state many of the author’s points in your own words.

Sum up or restate your thesis or make the final judgment regarding the book. You should not introduce new evidence for your argument in the conclusion. You can, however, introduce new ideas that go beyond the book if they extend the logic of your own thesis. This paragraph needs to balance the book’s strengths and weaknesses in order to unify your evaluation. Did the body of your review have three negative paragraphs and one favorable one? What do they all add up to? The Writing Center’s handout on conclusions can help you make a final assessment.

Finally, a few general considerations:

• Review the book in front of you, not the book you wish the author had written. You can and should point out shortcomings or failures, but don’t criticize the book for not being something it was never intended to be.
• With any luck, the author of the book worked hard to find the right words to express her ideas. You should attempt to do the same. Precise language allows you to control the tone of your review.
• Never hesitate to challenge an assumption, approach, or argument. Be sure, however, to cite specific examples to back up your assertions carefully.
• Try to present a balanced argument about the value of the book for its audience. You’re entitled—and sometimes obligated—to voice strong agreement or disagreement. But keep in mind that a bad book takes as long to write as a good one, and every author deserves fair treatment. Harsh judgments are difficult to prove and can give readers the sense that you were unfair in your assessment.
• A great place to learn about book reviews is to look at examples. The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The New York Review of Books can show you how professional writers review books.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Drewry, John. 1974. Writing Book Reviews. Boston: Greenwood Press.

Hoge, James. 1987. Literary Reviewing. Charlottesville: University Virginia of Press.

Sova, Dawn, and Harry Teitelbaum. 2002. How to Write Book Reports , 4th ed. Lawrenceville, NY: Thomson/Arco.

Walford, A.J. 1986. Reviews and Reviewing: A Guide. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Guidelines for Students - Peer Review

Student guidelines for peer review.

• Before you even make your first comment, read the document all the way through.
• Make sure you leave enough time for you to read through, respond, and for your peer to edit his/her document with your comments before any deadlines.
• If you are provided with a feedback form to fill out and something is unclear, do not ignore the item but ask the instructor for clarification.
• Point out the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the document.
• Offer suggestions, not commands.
• Editorial comments should be appropriate and constructive. There is no need to be rude. Be respectful and considerate of the writer's feelings.
• Be sure that your comments are clear and text-specific so that your peer will know what you are referring to (for example, terms such as "unclear" or "vague" are too general to be helpful).
• Try not to overwhelm your peer with too much commentary. Follow the feedback form and the issues you are supposed to address.
• Be careful not to let your own opinions bias your review (for example, don't suggest that your peer completely rewrite the paper just because you don't agree with his/her point of view).
• Reread your comments before passing them on to your peer. Make sure all your comments make sense and are easy to follow.
• Avoid turning your peer's paper into your paper.

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GWS 302: Feminist Methods

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Coordinator of Information Literacy & Instruction

Your Literature Review Assignment

For your literature review assignment, you are supposed to place peer reviewed articles (you have retrieved and selected) in conversation with each other and write a draft of the literature review. You are expected to show:

1. how each author addresses your topic

2. how the articles differ from or build on each other in light of your topic

3. develop a research question or hypothesis (ie. based on what you have read, what is the one research question you intend to test and answer through your review of a primary source)? The question, in other words, is what the articles raise for you and what you and you alone will be able to answer with primary data analysis. 

The Scholarly Conversation

A literature review provides an overview of previous research on a topic  that critically evaluates, classifies, and compares what has already been published on a particular topic. It allows the author to synthesize and place into context the research and scholarly literature relevant to the topic. It helps  map out the different approaches to a given question and reveals  patterns.  It forms the foundation for the author’s subsequent research and justifies the significance of the new investigation.

Typically Literature reviews are designed to accomplish two main goals:

1) provide your readers an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic or idea

2) demonstrate how your research/topic fits into the larger field of study

Steps to successfully producing a literature review

1) Decide on a topic and identify the literature base you will review

-Become familiar with the relevant databases for that subject

-Identify search terms that capture your subject

-Start with general search terms and experiment with different terms noting which work

-Identify the important studies on the topic

-Redefine your topic if necessary. Try to narrow it to a specific interest area with the broad area

2)  Analyze the literature (Your role is to evaluate what you’ve read.)

-Usually a review covers the last 5 years of literature on a topic

-Skim the articles to get an idea of the purpose and content.

-Group the articles into categories and sub-categories

-Take notes: Define key terms, key statistics, identify useful quotes

-Note strengths, weaknesses and emphases

-Identify trends or patterns

-Identify gaps in the literature

-Identify relationships between studies, which led to others etc.

-Stay focused on your topic

3) Synthesis

-Identify your area of focus and say why it is relevant or important to the topic

-summarize the contributions of important studies/articles to the topic

-evaluate the current “state of the art” point out gaps or inconsistencies in research or theories     point out areas of possible future research

-provide some insight into the relationship between the central topic of the literature review and a larger area of study

-write a conclusion that clarifies how the material in the review has supported your proposition in the introduction

What is a Literature Review?

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Designing peer-review assignments.

Peer review often takes place in multiple steps, with students reviewing other students’ work and then having follow-up discussions. Sometimes faculty wish to facilitate blind review. Often faculty assign multiple reviewers to review each student’s work. You have many choices when you design peer-review procedures or assignments.

Tools & materials

Required tools and materials:

• Using Assignments for peer review
• Using Discussions for peer review

Step-by-step implementation

These instructions assume that you're using the Assignments tool to collect and disseminate peer feedback.

• In Canvas, navigate to the peer review assignment .
• To edit the assignment, click Edit Assignment . Add the assignment rubric and guiding peer review questions to the assignment.

Note: Be clear about peer review due dates, as students will see the assignment due date as the peer review due date.

• If you choose automatically, Canvas will allow you to edit the number of Reviews Per User . If you want groups of three for the assignment, the number of reviewers should be two ( two reviewers + one submitter = group of three students ).
• In class: You can conduct and guide the review process in class via zoom or as a blend of face to face and zoom.
• Asynchronous: you can schedule the peer review as an assignment.

Note: To maintain a level of objectivity and neutrality for students' responses, select Peer Reviews Appear Anonymously .

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Book Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

This resource discusses book reviews and how to write them.

Book reviews typically evaluate recently-written works. They offer a brief description of the text’s key points and often provide a short appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the work.

Readers sometimes confuse book reviews with book reports, but the two are not identical. Book reports commonly describe what happens in a work; their focus is primarily on giving an account of the major plot, characters, and/or main idea of the work. Most often, book reports are a K-12 assignment and range from 250 to 500 words. If you are looking to write a book report, please see the OWL resource, Writing a Book Report.

By contrast, book reviews are most often a college assignment, but they also appear in many professional works: magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. They typically range from 500-750 words, but may be longer or shorter. A book review gives readers a sneak peek at what a book is like, whether or not the reviewer enjoyed it, and details on purchasing the book.

Before You Read

Before you begin to read, consider the elements you will need to included in your review. The following items may help:

• Author: Who is the author? What else has s/he written? Has this author won any awards? What is the author’s typical style?
• Genre: What type of book is this: fiction, nonfiction, romance, poetry, youth fiction, etc.? Who is the intended audience for this work? What is the purpose of the work?
• Title: Where does the title fit in? How is it applied in the work? Does it adequately encapsulate the message of the text? Is it interesting? Uninteresting?
• Preface/Introduction/Table of Contents: Does the author provide any revealing information about the text in the preface/introduction? Does a “guest author” provide the introduction? What judgments or preconceptions do the author and/or “guest author” provide? How is the book arranged: sections, chapters?
• Book Jacket/Cover/Printing: Book jackets are like mini-reviews. Does the book jacket provide any interesting details or spark your interest in some way? Are there pictures, maps, or graphs? Do the binding, page cut, or typescript contribute or take away from the work?

As You Read

As you read, determine how you will structure the summary portion or background structure of your review. Be ready to take notes on the book’s key points, characters, and/or themes.

• Characters: Are there characters in the work? Who are the principal characters? How do they affect the story? Do you empathize with them?
• Themes/Motifs/Style: What themes or motifs stand out? How do they contribute to the work? Are they effective or not? How would you describe this author’s particular style? Is it accessible to all readers or just some?
• Argument: How is the work’s argument set up? What support does the author give for her/findings? Does the work fulfill its purpose/support its argument?
• Key Ideas: What is the main idea of the work? What makes it good, different, or groundbreaking?
• Quotes: What quotes stand out? How can you demonstrate the author’s talent or the feel of the book through a quote?

When You Are Ready to Write

Begin with a short summary or background of the work, but do not give too much away. Many reviews limit themselves only to the first couple of chapters or lead the reader up to the rising action of the work. Reviewers of nonfiction texts will provide the basic idea of the book’s argument without too much detailed.

The final portion of your review will detail your opinion of the work. When you are ready to begin your review, consider the following:

• Establish a Background, Remember your Audience: Remember that your audience has not read the work; with this in mind, be sure to introduce characters and principles carefully and deliberately. What kind of summary can you provide of the main points or main characters that will help your readers gauge their interest? Does the author’s text adequately reach the intended audience? Will some readers be lost or find the text too easy?
• Minor principles/characters: Deal only with the most pressing issues in the book. You will not be able to cover every character or idea. What principles/characters did you agree or disagree with? What other things might the author have researched or considered?
• Organize: The purpose of the review is to critically evaluate the text, not just inform the readers about it. Leave plenty room for your evaluation by ensuring that your summary is brief. Determine what kind of balance to strike between your summary information and your evaluation. If you are writing your review for a class, ask your instructor. Often the ratio is half and half.
• Your Evaluation: Choose one or a few points to discuss about the book. What worked well for you? How does this work compare with others by the same author or other books in the same genre? What major themes, motifs, or terms does the book introduce, and how effective are they? Did the book appeal to you on an emotional or logical way?
• Publisher/Price: Most book reviews include the publisher and price of the book at the end of the article. Some reviews also include the year published and ISBN.

When making the final touches to your review, carefully verify the following:

• Double-check the spelling of the author name(s), character names, special terms, and publisher.
• Try to read from the vantage point of your audience. Is there too much/enough summary? Does your argument about the text make sense?
• Should you include direct quotes from the reading? Do they help support your arguments? Double-check your quotes for accuracy.

ENGL 103 King: Assignment review

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Information Literacy Instruction Goals

• Search WorldCat Discovery to identify books and other materials owned by the library; find a book on the shelf using its LC call number.  
• Search multidisciplinary databases to find full text articles on a topic; use " Find It" links to find full text of articles.  
• Cite sources using a citation style.

Assignment and research approach

Manage & organize sources.

ProQuest RefWorks  is a citation management tool that can help you organize and cite your sources and create bibliographies.

Sign into your RefWorks account. Keep RefWorks open in a tab at the top of your web browser.

Consult the RefWorks Guide for additional help.

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Common Assignments: Review and Revise

Review and revise.

After writing your jounal enty, review your ideas by asking yourself:

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• Does my journal entry demonstrate evidence that I have read and thought critically about required readings, experiences, events, or issues?
• Have I proposed a unique perspective that is supported well?
• Do I support my claim with required readings or other credible outside sources?
• Have I used a scholarly tone, complete sentences, and adhered to other specific assignment requirements?
• Have I self-edited and proofread my response for grammar, style, and structure?

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Book Review Herbert Butterfield Assignment Instructions

ENGL 1102 Worozbyt Spring 2024 : Assignment

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Literature Research Assignment

Research Essay Topics

Compose in MLA format a research essay of at least 1000 words, using a minimum of four secondary sources. (The OED is a primary, not a secondary, source, but you are encouraged to use it.) Source material must be drawn from books and articles located in Galileo databases or the GSU library. Use secondary critical resources to support and complexify your arguments and points. The task is textual analysis, that and that alone. The supplemental lectures I have been posting are pretty good examples of what I am looking for. This is a research project, but I am most interested in seeing you display your own skill at critical thinking and analysis. Sources not found in Galileo or the GSU library will not count toward the research requirement, and you are discouraged from using them. That said, Wikipedia entries often have links at the bottom to legitimate, academic sources. Feel free to use Wikipedia as a launching point for research, even though Wikipedia entries themselves cannot be used, as they are not vetted. Do not summarize plots or provide biographies of the author. This essay is not to be about the author; it is to be about the text.

The Caveats:

You are obliged to familiarize yourself with proper MLA formatting and citation. This information is found in my Course Content, online at OWL, on Youtube, or simply by Googling “MLA citation.” By now I expect professionally clean and error-free copy, with no typos or mechanical errors. Papers not following these guidelines will be penalized accordingly. By now you have had a full semester of training in proper citation and format. Failure to format the body of your essay in MLA results a penalty up to twenty points, depending on severity. Failure to provide sufficient, relevant source material results in a fifteen-point penalty per missing source. Failure to properly acknowledge the use of secondary material constitutes plagiarism, whether intentional or not, and will result in no credit given, since I cannot distinguish between what writing is yours and what is not.. Make sure you quote and cite, both internally and in your works cited page.

Tennesse Williams, The Glass Menagerie:

1. Discuss the play’s presentation (and subversion) of traditional family and gender roles. How does the assumption and subsequent disruption of those roles define and control Laura’s destiny? How does having a brother for a father and a sister for a mother determine the outcome of Laura’s seduction by Jim?

2. Why does Williams’ reject conventional “realistic” stage drama? Analyze the stage directions and locate at least two echoes within the range of Tom’s dialogue and action. Are the lyrical and poetical qualities of the stage directions in (literary)/dramatic conflict with Tom’s desire to create a unified self, a “character” who characters, through writing poetry? Explain.

3. Consider the use of names and the function of naming in the play. How do names advance and complicate the major arguments and themes in The Glass Menagerie. Remember that a title is a “name” as well, and that to be a caller, gentleman or otherwise, is to be a namer. Needless to say, you should name the major arguments and themes.

4. Explore Williams’ concept of the stage as defined by the text of the play. How does our author manipulate the space and time of the stage? The first questions to wrestle with are: What is a stage? Where is the stage? When is the stage? Then: how does the playwright accomplish his redefinition of the conventional boundaries? Be specific, analyzing selected text passages.

5. Analyze the similarities and differences in the text of Williams’ play and the film of it you watched. This should not be simply a compare/contrast essay, but a thorough investigation of the way the two different media (reading and watching) are anticipated and dealt with by the play itself. The Production Notes and the corresponding echoes in the play would be a good place to start.

Alice Walker, Everyday Use:

1. “Everyday Use” presents us with the clash between personal and cultural history. Walker manages in this short work to interweave them and to produce a dialectic (a “conversation,” if you will) between the seemingly competing histories. Track this interweaving and explain how the story resolves the apparent contradictions between the two.

2. Consider Dee and Maggie as expressions of two sides to the mother’s character. Investigate and discuss how Walker creates these characters and how she makes them come so vibrantly alive in this story. Do not neglect in your analysis to discuss the significance of the mother’s dream.

3. Landscape and objects play a big role in this story. Discuss the idea of “inside” and “outside” in the story, paying careful and close attention to the way objects are depicted and used in the story to generate and facilitate the story’s major themes and ideas

Final Items:

Be generous with quotations, and never paraphrase the text or your secondary source material. Also, make absolutely sure you reproduce the text exactly as it appears in the original. When you change the words you change the meaning; when you change the meaning your argument fails. Likewise, it is always better to overquote than underquote. Analysis based on a brief, out of context phrase is much weaker than analysis of an entire paragraph or sentence.

Whether you choose Williams’ or Walker’s text to research, make sure you do the research before you start to write. Reading articles by vetted, published critics will help you deepen and organize your thoughts. Writing an essay and then going hunting for quotes that suit your wants will always lead to a poor research essay

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University Hospital Galway: changes made after review of head injuries to some babies in delivery

Hospital group decided to audit case files after nine cases of babies suffering bleeding under the scalp in 2022.

Nine babies at University Hospital Galway suffered head injuries during delivery in 2022. Photograph: Eric Luke/The Irish Times

University Hospital Galway (UHG) says it has fully implemented recommendations of a review after a small number of cases where newborn babies suffered head injuries in 2022.

Nine babies at the hospital were identified as suffering subgaleal haemorrhages in that year.

Subgaleal haemorrhage (SGH) is a form of bleeding under the scalp that can lead to severe complications and death of newborns.

The condition is rare and is mostly associated with difficult births, where medical staff may have to use tools such as forceps or vacuum devices to assist the delivery.

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It can be classified as mild, moderate and severe and is almost exclusively associated with vacuum-assisted delivery (VAD), also called ventouse delivery.

At UHG, skull fractures were detected in some cases, while two babies were given treatment for neonatal jaundice.

Management at the HSE’s Saolta hospital group decided to audit the case files of the babies for insights into the occurrence of the injuries. It found that there were no other apparent causative factors other than the assistive births.

Saolta defended the rate of neonatal SGH at the hospital of 2.6 per cent for ventouse deliveries, saying it was below international rates. It cited a rate of 4.4 per cent found in a study of almost 8,000 babies born with VAD at an Israeli hospital between 2009 and 2018.

Saolta said: “Different senior obstetricians were present at all deliveries, including members of the consultant staff.

“GUH had a clinical guideline in place since November 2020 to provide advice to staff regarding the detection and management of potential subgaleal haemorrhage in the newborn.”

Saolta said all of the infants were well on discharge and that all of the cases were considered mild.

It added: “It is also acknowledged that the prevalence of this condition may vary with how closely it is examined for.”

Following a review, a local management team made eight recommendations to senior management.

These included clarifications on the role of the consultant on-call’s care for women in labour, formal structures and plans around handover care and labour ward management, accurate initial head circumference readings, the use of ultrasound in cases where imaging was considered necessary, and further review.

It also recommended that the department should develop a formal guideline of the management of neonatal SGH.

Saolta said there had not been a cluster of cases of neonatal SGH in the period since these recommendations had been fully implemented.

The Department of Health said all parents involved had had direct engagement and each of the families had been provided with an opportunity to meet the clinical team to go over their individual report.

In August, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said his “hope” and “default position” was that the full report should be made public.

But the department said this week that it had been advised by Saolta that the full report on these cases would not be published due to concerns in relation to protecting the privacy of the families involved and their entitlement to confidentiality in respect of their health information. – PA

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