Defining key ideas and hypotheses for a capstone literature review
1. Points Possible: 100 This section has a few purposes: 1.
Points Possible: 100This section has a few purposes:1. Define the key ideas (e.g., variables,
concepts) relevant to your project. If you have aguiding theory or model, you should
introduce and discuss how the theory/model is usedin the project. Simply summarizing the
key ideas/theory/model will not be sufficient. Besure to make a specific connection with the
focus of your topic;2. Review major claims on the topic and findings from past studies; and3.
Point out what is missing in the prior literature and suggest a hypothesis or a
researchquestion.A well polished literature review is concrete, is well organized, is
integrated, makes seamlessconnections between the authors’ argument and supporting
evidence/sources, and establishes areasonable argument why a proposed hypothesis is
tenable or a research question should beexplored. A clear literature review has section
dividers. Typically, a theory has its own subsection under the literature review. If you have
a major concept outside of the theory, you shouldcreate a sub-section for this concept
(typically (a) dependent variable(s) in a social sciencestudy).What NOT to do in the
literature review:● Organize by source and summarize each source. Literature review
should not be a list ofsummaries. It integrates the sources thematically or under
subtopics.● Supporting evidence (i.e., sources) is summarized without making a specific
connectionto the focus of the project. You can use only the relevant parts from each
source.● Sources are not well connected with each other.● All sources already support
your hypothesis or answer your research question. If yourhypothesis is already tested or
your research question is already answered, why do youstudy what’s already been
discovered?!● Excessive use of direct quotations.● Leave the reader hanging after a
quotation or summary of a source. Make sure to connectit back to your argument.The lit
review should conclude with (a) research question(s) and/or (a) hypothesis/ses. Based
onwhat you know about the topic from the previous studies, pose at least one research
question or ahypothesis that you want to investigate in this project. This is typically
different from a general,overarching question that you might have posed in the
introduction.When to post a Research Question vs Hypothesis vs. Thesis:● Media project
→RQ or Tthis is the promptthis is a capstone literature review so theres some critieria too
for it to be doneIdentifies a creative, focused, andmanageable topic that
addressespotentially significant yetpreviously less-explored aspects ofthe topic.Synthesizes
in-depth informationfrom relevant sources representingvarious points of
view/approaches.Integrates at least one theory toframe the project anddemonstrates
precise relevanceto the focus of the researchtopic.Information is taken fromsource(s) with
