Literature Reviews

When it's time to begin your first draft, sometime the biggest challenge is knowing where to start! If you begin  by organizing your ideas, you will have a better idea of the direction your writing will take. 

You might begin by creating an outline or a concept map to help you see patterns and relationships between your own ideas and the content you have extracted from your research.

We have a resource, Credo, that may help you narrow your topic and it also has a mind map.

Concept maps are graphic tools used to organize and visualize knowledge, showing relationships between different topics and ideas. Typically the nodes represent general ideas or concepts, while the lines and arrows represent relationships between concepts. 

Concept maps can be arranged in a variety of ways. For example, they might be hierarchical in fashion, with general concepts at the top and more specific concepts below, or they might have general concepts radiating out from the central node, as in the spider map.

Tips for getting started

• First, start with a main idea or topic to focus on.
• Then, determine key concepts that connect and relate to your idea.
• Finish by connecting the main idea and the key concepts, using line segments accompanied by words or phrases.

Hierarchical Model

Linear Model

If you have a clear understanding of your topic, your research question, and your main ideas, you might use the formal outline as a way to start organizing your thoughts. Here's an example, which you could adapt to your own purposes:

Thesis Statement

I. Introduction

II. First Main Idea

   A. first subordinate idea

      1. supporting detail

      2. suppointing detail

   B second subordinate idea

      1. supporting detail

      2. supporting detail

III. Second Main Idea

   A. first subordinate idea

      1. supporting detail

      2. supporting detail

   B. second subordinate idea

      1. supporting detail

      2. supporting idea

IV. Conclusion