Gender differences in perceptions of use of force.

1. Here’s an example. Let’s say that I was researching college students’ attitudes about police use of force. Here’s how I might organize my literature review:
2.  Introduce my topic – perhaps with a scenario or something attention grabbing
3. What is use of force? I have to define my key concepts before we go on.
4. Who cares about this topic? I need to explain why it matters – what are the implications of my research? Who cares what college students think about police use of force?
5. Now I would present the results of studies that directly address attitudes towards police use of force. I would not address studies about the prevalence of use of force, or about court cases regarding the use of force, because those are not targeted directly to my topic. As I present the studies, I would briefly note the conclusions and I would discuss, overall, what we know and what we don’t know. I would issue critiques of previous research as necessary and tie together common themes. A (very hypothetical) paragraph might look like this:

“Previous research has found gender differences in perceptions of use of force. A number of studies (Smith, 1999; Jones, 1998; Anderson, 1983) have found that men are more likely to approve of higher levels of police force than women. However, one study found that female criminal justice students supported higher levels of force than male students (Zebulon, 1993). It is important to note that the first three studies noted above were of citizens, while the last study focused only on students. Furthermore, Zebulon’s work studied only one criminal justice department at one university –clearly, more research is necessary to understand this issue. The research conducted in this project will help clarify the nature of college students’ attitudes towards use of force.

6.  The important thing here is to NOT GET OVERWHELMED BY THIS  SECTION OF YOUR PAPER. Remember the only purpose of the literature review is to define your topic and set the stage for your hypotheses. In all reality, the literature review is one of the least important parts of your paper – it just is meant to pave the way for your original data collection and analysis (i.e., survey, interviews, etc.).