Topic: A health issue (The dangers of using e-cigarettes)
Using the research write a review of the literature on the topic above. Below are some guidelines.
Audience: Literature reviews are written for a range of audiences. They may be useful for professionals who specialize in your area, but also for professionals who need to know about the state of research on a given issue. These audiences have a specialized background, but they are not necessarily experts on the issue or topic at hand, or they are not familiar with the most current research.
Contents: Unlike reports, which follow a fairly standard format in most journals, literature reviews can have different organization schemes, depending on the subject, your objectives, and the editorial guidelines of the journal. Most have an introduction, body (including headings and sub-headings), a conclusion or summary, and a bibliography. Your review should include the following:
Introduction: In this section, you should orient the readers so that they know what topic will be addressed and why it is important for them to know about. You should define the topic and inform the reader about the approach you are taking. What aspects will be covered, and what aspects will not be covered? And, most crucially, what is the question you are attempting to answer with this review.
Body: Include at least three sections here describing different trends, themes, or approaches relevant to your topic. In each section, do not simply summarize research—build a focused discussion of that topic. Rather than moving through each source one at a time, develop comparisons, contrasts, or similarities between articles or studies.
Conclusion: Summarize the major points of the literature review, and add a final perspective or conclusion. Here, you should refer back to the question or objective set out in the introduction and to the relationships or patterns you developed in the body section. What is the significance of the research you have reviewed? What problems still need to be solved? What research is still needed?
Bibliography: Prepare a list of the sources you have cited in your article using CSE name-year formatting.
a. Describe your topic and establish what makes it interesting—both from a scientific perspective and to you personally.
b. State your research question and make clear why this question is important or worth answering. Be specific rather than general when writing this section.
c. Establish what is known and not known about this topic as well as critical subtopics pertinent to your focus.
