For this assignment, prepare a references page in APA style in which you include all the sources you plan to discuss in your literature review (AT LEAST seven, no more than ten).
Because formatting is an important consideration in this assignment, attach it as a Word document. DO NOT post directly on Blackboard.
For this assignment, you are then required to identify at least four issues related to the topic choice. These will include the subject matter analyzed by the sources and/or the topics on which they disagree.
PLEASE NOTE: You will not know what these four issues are until you read several sources about your topic. In other words, the more you research and read, the more four issues across your sources will jump out at you.
As you read your sources carefully, you will begin to see common topics and themes in their discussions. These will be the issues around which you will organize your literature review. What are the common themes discussed in these sources?
From the seven to ten sources you are using for this project, you must identify at least four issues they discuss in common and on which they probably disagree to some extent. For this assignment, provide a list of the four (or more) issues you will discuss in your literature review. For each, note in at least 100 words some of the differing or similar presentations or disagreements and agreements among your sources.
CONTENT AND RESOURCES
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The Social Sciences
For this module, we will turn our attention to the social sciences, including for our purposes primarily psychology and sociology, but also such fields as economics, political science, and anthropology. The social sciences are defined as the academic disciplines concerned with “the institutions and functioning of human society and . . . the interpersonal relationships of individuals as members of society” (Merriam-Webster Online). As you can readily guess, these fields have much to offer the researcher interested in disabilities or disability studies. Psychologists study and treat those with mental disabilities as well as those whose other disabilities affect their emotional well-being. Sociologists are concerned with how the disabled fit into the larger society. Economists and political scientists could also be interested in the disabled as topics for their own research.
The Literature Review
Both the natural sciences and the social sciences place great emphasis on the type of scholarly research paper known as the literature review. As you will find when you begin the first assignment for this module, literature reviews are often published separately as individual works in their own right. However, they also make up an important introductory part of the broader research papers published in these disciplines.
Aside from the scholarly sources you locate on your chosen topic, the most important reading for this module is this handout from the UNC Writing Center: Literature Reviews. Please read this handout very carefully. In it, you will find a definition of the literature review, a discussion of how it differs from other scholarly works, strategies for planning and researching a literature review, and important instructions for composing the review. I cannot stress enough how essential it is that you become immediately familiar with this document.
The other sources for this module will be scholarly sources about the specific topic you choose to investigate. Without exception, these sources MUST come from the databases available through the FTCC library.
