SOCI 3580: Research Methods in Sociology (White)

A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period.

Literature reviews contain the following parts:

Introduction:  Explain why this research topic is important. 

Body:  Present your summaries and evaluations of the sources.  Your review must not look like an annotated bibliography (i.e. a list of sources with summaries attached).  Instead, your references in your literature review must appear related to each other.  You will be comparing and contrasting methodologies, conclusions, and importance of the research to the study of your topic (and by extension your profession).  You will be adding your own original analysis of the research presented based on your understanding of what has been published on your topic.

Ensure your final list of references includes all sources you’ve discussed.

Sometimes starting with an annotated bibliography can help you practice summary and evaluation of a specific article.  Then write your literature based on what you've learned.

If you've never written a Literature Review, or would like a refresher, UNC's Writing Center has a great explanation of the process, and UNC Charlotte addresses doing literature reviews in political science and public administration.

UNC Writing Center:  "Literature Reviews"

A guide to writing literature reviews in Political Science and Public Administration.

Purdue Owl "Writing a literature review."

When you use numeric datasets or a prepared statistical table you must cite where you retrieved the information.  To cite data or statistical tables you should include:

• Author or creator - the person(s), organization, issuing agency or agencies responsible for creating the dataset
• Date of publication - the year the dataset was published, posted or otherwise released to the public (not the date of the subject matter).
• Title or description - complete title or if no title exists, you must create a brief description of the data, including time period covered in the data if applicable
• Publisher  - entity (organization, database, archive, journal) responsible for hosting the data 
• URL or DOI  - the unique identifier if the data set is online

Citing data in APA:

I. Data sets:

Author/Rightsholder, A. A. (Year). Title of publication or data set (Version number if available) [Data File]. Retrieved from (or available from) http://xxxx

The title of the data set should be italicized unless the data set is included as part of a larger work or volume

Example:  United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2008).Indiana income limits [Data file]. Retrieved from http://www.huduser.org/Datasets/IL/IL08/in_fy2008.pdf

Example of Table generated from an interactive data set (like in Social Explorer):

Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce (2013). U.S. Direct Investment Abroad, All U.S. Parent Companies 2009-2010. [Data file].  Available from BEA.gov/iTable 

II. Table from a publication 

Author. (Year). Title of entry. In Editor (Edition), Title of publication (pp. xxx-xxx). Retrieved from http:// OR Location: Publisher OR doi:xxxx.

Example: 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2005). [Interactive map showing percentage of respondents reporting "no" to, During the past month, did you participate in any physical activities?]. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Retrieved from http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/gisbrfss/default.aspx

The title of the data set should be italicized unless the data set is included as part of a larger work or volume, as in the example above.  

Citing tables in Chicago

Chicago doesn't specifically give you instructions on how to cite tables, so here are examples of how to do it based on other items you cite in Chicago.

You would use (Author Date) parenthetical citations like you normally would, make sure they match up with your bibliography.

1) If the info is from a website or database, you'll basically follow the documentation for that type, with the title of the table being the title in the citation.  You may put information at the end of the citation about the table.

For example, 

World Bank. An Author. "Really important table." Accessed August 25, 2014. URL.

2) If you are pulling a table out of a larger work, like a book or article, you would list the name of the title at the end of the citation.

For example,

Author, An. Title of book/article. Publication information, Year. Table 2.17, "Why everything is awesome."

3) If you get a table which was reproduced in a paper or book or website, and the author is NOT the person who originally compiled the data, you will have to cite both.

For example,

Author, An.  Title of document where you found the information.  Publication information, year. Table 3.1, citing the source as John Doe. Title of original data or table source. Publication information, year.