FAMS 2800: Teaching Human Sexuality

Your Sexuality Education Program Proposal will include a literature review that references at least 15 peer-reviewed articles or scholarly books on your topic. The purpose of the literature review is to lay the scholarly foundation for your program. It will need to provide convincing evidence on the importance of your topic, describe who is affected by the problem, summarize what is currently known about your topic, and provide evidence-based solutions or best practices you can use in your program.

Your literature review will primarily include research articles published in peer-reviewed journals, although you may also include chapters from scholarly or edited books, and dissertations/theses relevant to your topic. Your textbook and popular sources like newspapers, magazines, and general population books are not acceptable sources for this assignment. Keep reading to learn how to locate your sources, find tips for reading scholarly articles effectively, and find tools for formatting your APA citations.

Literature reviews are often included in the intro section of research articles, but they can also be published as full-length, stand-alone articles. Systematic reviews are another type of full-length article that compiles published literature on a topic and then compares and analyzes the results from the included studies. Looking at published literature reviews or systematic reviews can help you learn how to organize this type of work, and they can also be a gold mine of potential articles you could include in your own paper! Systematic reviews and literature reviews are also an awesome way to see big picture trends related to your topic.

The following are examples of full-length literature review articles. You can look for more in the library databases by adding AND "literature review" or AND "systematic review" after your search terms related to your topic. For example: communication AND sexuality AND "systematic review"

• Start a document for your literature review where you'll keep track of all your sources. Use this document to save APA citations for each source and take notes on the main ideas from that source. If you take notes as you're reading, that will help you remember which source various concepts came from and make citing your sources much easier when you start writing the actual paper. This document will serve as an informal annotated bibliography
• When reading your articles, it's OK to skim rather than read each article from beginning to end! Skimming is encouraged and is a useful skill when choosing articles.
  • Read the Abstracts, Introductions, Discussions, and Conclusions, then circle back and skim the Methods and Results. Highlight and take notes on important findings, main ideas and arguments, and references to previous studies and theories.
• Create an outline that sets up the structure for your literature review—see your assignment guidelines for a suggested layout for your paper. Then, organize your sources into a logical order (topical, educational program components, etc.) for where they will fit into the paper's outline.
• In your literature review, avoid writing paragraphs that summarize one research article after another—this is not an effective way to format a literature review. Instead, write paragraphs organized by topic or components of your educational program, with supporting citations from the research that back up your claims or support your program's design. Each paragraph should address one major idea and may cite more than one of your sources. Similar sources can be summarized together in statements like, "Most researchers agree that..." or "Current trends in the literature are..."
• Use headings throughout your paper to assist in the organization and flow.
• Avoid the overuse of one article, and avoid using your personal opinion or anecdotal evidence.
• Use direct quotations sparingly—you should be summarizing and paraphrasing in your own words as much as possible. Avoid starting a sentence with a direct quote.
• Remember to cite your sources using in-text citations when you refer to an idea from a specific source, whether you're paraphrasing or using a direct quotation. Avoid sweeping generalizations without a scholarly reference—if you make a claim, there should be a citation to support that claim. See the APA Citations page for more details.
• At the end of your paper, include a reference list with APA citations for all of your sources, in alphabetical order. All of the sources in the references list should be cited in your paper, and all of the sources you quoted, paraphrased, or mentioned in your paper should be included in the references list. See the APA Citations page for more details.
• Proofread, proofread, proofread! The UVU Writing Center is a great resource for helping you structure your paper or for help with grammar and citations questions.

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