Literature Review

• Take consistent notes
  • note the same kinds of observations throughout your reading
• Create a highlighting scheme
  • Use different colors for identifying themes, types of observations and similar attributes between articles
• Group your observations
  • ​Make observations on post-its so you can group them thematically
  • You can even rough sort the articles themselves into piles in line with you might group the authors
• Summarize only key points i.e. what supports your central ideas
  • Don't overwhelm yourself with covering too many details in your paper
• Paraphrase like a pro
  • Start by reading the passage you'd like to paraphrase several times, then look away and write it in your words as if you were relaying the content to a peer - this will help you avoid copying  exact sentence structure
• Follow Citation style rules
  • Authors/ researchers should be the subjects in your paper
  • For more on using different citation styles, check out the Citation Styles Guide

Visit The Writing Center on the Hickory campus or email an Asheville librarian from your LR email account to set up a 30-minute consultation.

The Writing Center helps students:

• understand written assignments
• get started with a writing assignment
• develop and organize ideas
• with style, voice, grammar, and punctuation
• become a better editor and proofreader

The Writing Center does not write or rewrite student papers, proofread without student participation or suggest grades.