Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:

Choose an interesting general topic about which you genuinely would like to know more. 
Do some preliminary research on your general topic. Do a few quick searches in current periodicals and journals on your topic to see what’s already been done and to help you narrow your focus. What questions occur to you as you read these articles?
Start asking yourself open-ended “how” and “why” questions about your general topic. 
Evaluate your questions. After you’ve put a question or even a couple of questions down on paper, evaluate these questions to determine whether they would be effective research questions or whether they need more revising and refining.
Is your research question clear? With so much research available on any given topic, research questions must be as clear as possible in order to be effective in helping the writer direct his or her research.
Is your research question focused? Research questions must be specific enough to be well covered in the space available.
Is your research question complex? Research questions should not be answerable with a simple “yes” or “no” or by easily-found facts.  They should, instead, require both research and analysis on the part of the writer. They often begin with “How” or “Why.”


Identify the relevant literature 
Identify and familiarize yourself with PsycINFO, a database that specializes in behavioral sciences. If you know of another database that you would like to use, please feel free to branch out.
Search for literature sources using Google Scholar or the UAlbany library system. Some tips for identifying suitable literature and narrowing your search:
Start with a general descriptor, but you will likely need to experiment with different searches, such as limiting your search to descriptors that appear only in the document titles, or in both the document title and in the abstract.
Redefine your descriptor if needed. As you search you will quickly find out if the descriptor that you are reviewing is too broad. Try to narrow it to a specific area of interest within the broad area that you have chosen. It is a good idea, as part of your literature search, to look for existing literature reviews that have already been written on this topic.
As part of your search, be sure to identify landmark or classic studies and theorists as these provide you with a framework/context for your study.
Analyze the literature
Once you have identified and located the articles for your review, you need to analyze them and organize them before you begin writing:
Skim the articles to get an idea of the general purpose and content of the article (focus your reading here on the abstract, introduction and first few paragraphs, the conclusion of each article.
Note emphases, strengths & weaknesses: Since different research studies focus on different aspects of the issue being studied, each article that you read will have different emphases, strengths. and weaknesses. Your role as a reviewer is to evaluate what you read, so that your review is not a mere description of different articles, but rather a critical analysis that makes sense of the collection of articles that you are reviewing. 
Identify major trends or patterns: As you read a range of articles on your topic, you should make note of trends and patterns over time as reported in the literature. This step requires you to synthesize and make sense of what you read, since these patterns and trends may not be spelled out in the literature, but rather become apparent to you as you review the big picture that has emerged over time. 
Identify gaps in the literature, and reflect on why these might exist (based on the understandings that you have gained by reading literature in this field of study). These gaps will be important for you to address as you plan and write your review.
Identify relationships among studies: Note relationships among studies, such as which studies were landmark ones that led to subsequent studies in the same area. When you write your review, you should address these relationships and discuss relevant studies using this as a framework.
Keep your review focused on your topic: make sure that the articles you find are relevant and directly related to your topic.
Summarize the literature in table or concept map format
Build tables to help you overview, organize, and summarize your findings. Including one or more of the tables that you create may be helpful in your literature review. If you do include tables as part of your review, each must be accompanied by an analysis that summarizes, interprets and synthesizes the literature that you have charted in the table.
Examples of tables that may be relevant to your review:
Definitions of key terms and concepts.
Research methods
Summary of research results
Synthesize the literature prior to writing your review
Consider your purpose and voice before beginning to write. Your initial purpose is to provide an overview of the topic that is of interest to you, demonstrating your understanding of key works and concepts within your chosen area of focus. In your final project your literature review should demonstrate your command of your field of study and/or establishing context for the study that you will propose in your research proposal.
Explain to the reader your line or argument (or thesis). Your narrative that follows should explain and justify your line of argument. 
Plan to describe relevant theories.
Plan to discuss how individual studies relate to and advance theory
Plan to summarize periodically and, again near the end of the review
Plan to present conclusions and implications
Writing the review 
Identify the broad problem area, but avoid global statements
Early in the review, indicate why the topic being reviewed is important
Indicate why certain studies are important
If citing a classic or landmark study, identify it as such
Cite all relevant references in a reference section at the end of the review
Reference:
Galvan, J. (2006). Writing literature reviews: a guide for students of the behavioral sciences ( 3rd ed.). Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing.



integrate and synthesize your research question, literature review, and method into a research proposal. Your research proposal should not just be your three previous assignments combined into the same document. First, make sure to address the feedback that I left you for each of your previous assignments. Second, you will need to write an abstract, which is a 150-250 word summary of your entire proposal. Third, there will likely be some changes that need to be made to your literature review to turn it into an introduction that flows from the problem that your research will address to your testable research question. The entire proposal should be between six and eight pages and cite at least six peer-reviewed articles. These six to eight pages do not include the title page, the abstract page, or the references section, although all three of those should also be present in your paper. The APA manual that is recommended for this course is an excellent resource for writing a proposal, but Purdue University also offers a website that includes much of the relevant information from the APA manual 

(https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html). 

Their example paper is especially useful for making sure that your proposal follows APA guidelines (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/apa_sample_paper.html). Note, though, that your proposal will only include the title page, abstract, introduction, method, and references section. Additionally, since you have not conducted the study yet, the language used in your proposal should refer to what you want to or will do rather than what you did do.