Topic:
Writing a Literature Review about the benefits of probiotics

Introduction:
Outline:
Your assessment task is to select 8 to 10 references relating to a research topic of your choice. You are required to create a Literature Review Grid to develop general claims or points about the research’s findings or limitations. You will then synthesize the articles creating a 1500 word literature review on the topic.

Format:
1500 words (not including reference list)

The following conventional sequence should be followed when writing your Literature Review:
1. Title Page – Include a descriptive title, your name and student number and word count.

2. Introduction – approximately 250 words – Introduce your research topic and briefly explain why it is significant or an important area for study. What are the aims and objectives of the review? Define terms if necessary.

3. Main Body – approximately 1000 words – Critically examine the literature. Indicate organizational structure within your literature review by using headings and subheadings. Your literature review needs to critically examine the texts that relate to your topic, rather than to just list what you have located. Therefore, you must link the literature to your topic, demonstrating how it supports or extends the topic or the existing knowledge in the area. You should also highlight the strengths, weaknesses and omissions of the literature, providing a critique of the research. Hence, the language used in a literature review is often evaluative and demonstrates your perspectives of the literature in relation to your research topic
A literature review is essential in researching a topic to determine what is current in the field. The importance of a literature review is it teaches you to evaluate and report on the main
ideas of a particular subject area using synthesis. Synthesizing information requires you to process and interact with information rather than simply copying and pasting information. Synthesizing information is not summarizing each article, but rather organizing the information by each main points of the larger topic.

4. Conclusion – approximately 250 words – Briefly summarise the major findings of the studies chosen. Comments about what questions need to be still answered may be included.

5. Reference List – Formatted according to the APA Style of referencing using Endnote.

The reference list must:
# total no more than 10 references
#nclude at least two original articles from peer-refereed journals published within the last
5 years
#include no more than one www site
#not include Wikipedia, as it is not a reliable source of information.