Literature Review

Your major research project for the quarter will be an in-depth literature review of one topic related to the course material. You should submit your topic for approval no later than the end of the third week of the quarter.

A good literature review focuses on a topic in which some controversy or conflict is apparent. For example, if you were to choose email, there is the question of whether email is increasingly more or less effective as a communications medium. If you were to choose wikis, there is the question of risk in allowing "user-generated content". Almost any area associated with CSCW has associated differences of opinion on some aspect. Your job is to:

1. Identify an area of research related to the variety of topics we're covering this quarter for which there is a significant body of research.
2. Within that body of research, identify one or more key areas of conflict or controversy.
3. Collect (and read) a minimum of fifteen peer-reviewed journal articles, academic conference papers, or published books/chapters on the topic, with at least five of those representing one or more divergent opinions on your area of controversy.
4. Organize the resources you have collected into subtopics as necessary.

Once you've done that, you can begin to write your review. This is not simply an annotate bibliography, in which you simply list the items you've identified and write descriptive summaries. Instead, your task is to critically analyze and synthesize the information in the references you've reviewed.
I strongly suggest that you review these guides to writing a literature review:
* Literature Reviews (University of North Carolina)
* How To Write a Literature Review (UC Santa Cruz)
* Writing a Literature Review (University of Canberra)

Remember to include a properly formatted bibliography (which does not count towards page/word count!) with your paper. I don't care which style guide you use, as long as you're consistent in your formatting of citations. (See the Internet Public Library guide to citing sources for more information if needed.)

I expect the completed review to be at least ten pages long. Rather than specifying things like font size and margins, I'll simply say that a page should include at 250 words, which means that your review should include at least 2500 words.

Things I will be looking for when grading:

• Choice and description of topic and its importance
• Clear identification of conflict or controversy
• Currency of sources--while older resources are often important to include because of the way they can frame a field, a field like CSCW changes so quickly that up-to-date references are also very important
• Quality of sources--have you selected articles and papers that have been influential in the field? Use tools like Google Scholar, Windows Live Academic Search, CiteSeer, and the Social Science Citation Index (available via the Wallace Library website) to determine how frequently cited a given resource is. If you need help with this process, take advantage of the excellent reference staff at the Wallace Library, who are available both in-person and via online tools.
• Quality of analysis: Did you identify key issues and arguments? Did you synthesize rather than enumerating the various positions and results? Did you do a critical assessment rather than a series of descriptions?
• Quality of writing: As graduate students, I expect you to write clearly and accurately, with attention to grammar, syntax, and spelling. You can take advantage of services at the RIT Writing Lab for assistance with technical aspects of writing.

The review should be submitted to the dropbox in myCourses by midnight on May 19th. I am willing to review and provide feedback on drafts, but drafts must be submitted by May 6th in order for me to review and return them in time for you to make changes.