TASKS/STEPS FOR THE ACTIVITY:

1. Read through the listed studies, and choose five of them (write down the citations for each article that you chose), with the goal of identifying the main theme and finding three sub-themes in this collection of resources. With this, you are looking for how each article relates to other.

1. Name your main and sub-themes.

1. Imagine that you are preparing to write literature review using these sources and your identified main and sub-themes (from #2). Each section of a paper begins with an introductory-type paragraph where the author introduces the main points of what they're about to tell their reader in the upcoming section. Write this introductory paragraph using the themes you've identified with the provided sources. Remember it's an overview of a more detailed upcoming section, so you're providing the highlights in compact, synthesized format.

1. Develop a research question based on what you have learned from reviewing these sources. Write your research question and a brief statement about your research question (should be about a paragraph in length). Your brief statement can include: your reasoning on why or how you developed your question, how you feel about developing the question (this is another opportunity to practice this skill - assess how you think you're doing), what you think you would do to test your question, etc.

*A note on paraphrasing vs. direct quotes: Remember the gold standard is to paraphrase from articles, not to use direct quotes. Anyone can write paper filling it with quotes, and it says absolutely nothing about what you as the author have learned or think. Don't do that! "So when do I use direct quotes," you might wonder. Direct quotes should be used only when the original author has said something so profound or in such a way that you cannot paraphrase it without losing the meaning or power of the statement. Synthesize: verb. to combine (a number of things) into a coherent whole.