Instructions of my paper: The format should be APA
1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Conclusion
Also for each sentence or two sentence in the paper you have to cite it from different authors (from different articles).
Don't plagiarize, don't cheat by putting me article and you haven't used it in the paper.
My teacher will check the paper in Turnitin.
Also, I will read the article that you will use and check the work to see if you did it write. I don't want to fail the class again.
My paper should have 3 sections:
1)The introduction: ( You have to cite each sentence or tow sentences in the introduction)
• Roughly 1 1/2 pages long.
• Heavily cited. The more you cite, the more comprehensive your work is.Plan to
? synthesize across authors - "Researchers have found X to be used in the classroom often (Jones, 1999; Lomax, 2010; Peters, 2006).
However, research has also indicated there to be problems with how X is used (Simmons, 2012; Trevor, 2014). Therefore, this review of the literature will explore where X has worked and for whom ..."
? don't quote, summarize. If you want to use a quote to define something specific ("For this review, Acton's (1999) definition of least restrictive environment (LRE) will be used. According to Acton, LRE is "...") this is fine. However, after one or two quotes, your paper will lose points for not summarizing / synthesizing other's work.
• Provide a summary of what you will be doing in the rest of the paper. Don't review individual articles in depth; in depth reviews are for the middle section. For example: "Jones (2012) explored the use of X by teachers. In this study, there were 20 2nd grade teachers from 2 districts that had been teaching for at least five years. The researchers used a questionnaire to find ...". This is better placed in the middle section.
• Fine to say "In addition, research has indicated that 2nd grade teachers that used rubrics indicated an increase in on-task behavior for their students (Jones, 2012)." Then move on to another point / another article you want to stress.
• Again - don't quote (unless copying a definition) - paraphrase.
• Writing: short, to the point, heavily cited.
To sum up, You have to write roughly 1/2 pages and have provided a rationale (the reason for your topic),
included a justification for why you are studying your topic, and added a few sentences in your introduction outlining the structure of the rest of your paper (the purpose statement)
2) In the literature review: ( You have to cite each sentence or tow sentences in this section)
You have to use the primary article / study lit. review), you should have:
Collected a number of articles that relate to your topic of study. Remember that you'll need to review a minimum of 9 primary data-based studies in this section ... more articles equals a more comprehensive paper and therefore more points). Minimum = six articles if you have a synthesis article, or seven if you don't. However, PLEASE don't aim for the minimum.
The middle section (literature review) when you are finished will be roughly 6 or 7 pages long.
3) Discussion / Conclusions (You have to cite each sentence or tow sentences in this section)
Up until now, you should have been presenting information that others have presented. To say this another way, you shouldn't have been trying to analyze or evaluate the information - you were just providing information that others have collected, recapping what they found, who it affects, etc.
In the discussion / conclusions section, you should analyze the information. This is where you get to be creative. This is where you take a lot of information from a lot of different sources and try and make heads and tails of it? You get to ask a number of different questions:
• do the articles say the same thing? Are the outcomes (the results) similar? If they are different, is it because they reported on different types of children, teachers, etc.. Did they report different measures - e.g., attention to task, math scores, reading scores. Even within a content area: did some articles relate their results to fluency while others said whether a topic was related to phonetic awareness or comprehension. Are their differences in the results over time? Did they mention anything about whether the results changed over time?
• how meaningful are the results of the different studies. If lots of the articles did studies with one classroom and another looked at 300 kids and fifteen teachers, what does this mean to you / to the topic.
• how old are the articles? A rule of thumb is that you should be collecting articles in the past 5 to 10 years - if you have older ones, is there a good reason for this?
• what limitations were there that you found in your lit review? In every article, in the summary / conclusions section, there should be a reference to "limitations" of the study. Synthesize and summarize these limitations, note where future research should be done / which questions are left unanswered. Of course to do this, you should make sure that other articles haven't answered the questions that you are noting. Therefore, make sure that your synthesis of "areas for future study" is up to date.
In better papers, as you provide the information, let the reader know (again) where the information comes from - i.e., which literature led to your conclusions. The reason you do this is so that a reader doesn't have to try and guess which articles you are taking your conclusions from. If your paper cites two or three sources, this wouldn't be necessary. However, if you provide 15 or 20 sources, a reader can't be expected to remember who said what in your middle section.
An example:
Studies conducted by Braun (2010), Fein (2011), Kellett (2009), Kelley et al.(2010) and Verden (2012) revealed that teachers cannot merely
read aloud to students. Rather, read-aloud lessons should be strategically crafted and should include specific, rigorous comprehension and vocabulary strategies.
is better than
Studies revealed that teachers cannot merely read aloud to students. Rather, read-aloud lessons should be strategically crafted and should include specific, rigorous comprehension and vocabulary strategies.
Ideally, you want a good synthesis of information, making evaluations of the articles, identifying the potential strengths and weaknesses of the work, showing where articles complement each other to provide a good summary of what the literature about a Best Practice says:
Five of the studies reviewed (Baxter et al., 2001; Empson, 2003; Griffin et al., 2013; Hufferd-Ackles at al., 2004; Kazemi & Stipek, 2008) focused on students who may potentially struggle mathematically because they come to the classroom with limited mathematical relationships due to being an English language learner, having a disability, or other home or cultural reasons. Challenges with language are often thought to be obstacles to mathematical discourse for students such as those with learning disabilities or who are English language learners (Griffin et al., 2013).
Griffin et al.'s study did not find any ways to recommend to teachers to facilitate discourse with these students, and instead called for others to research ways. This study is unhelpful to teachers who are looking for action steps. In contrast, Empson's (2003) study answered Griffin et al.'s call and did find specific teacher actions that supported learning for struggling students that can be used in the classroom.
Important Note for the literature review section:
Remember that you need a certain number of primary articles. You need to make sure that you are reading articles that have studied the effectiveness of the topic under study. Regardless of whether the studies are qualitative or quantitative, you should have data that support or challenge the evidence related to your review.
Reminder: ( You have to cite each sentence or tow sentences in this section)