Operations Management homework help. SARS Review Assignment Guidelines Biochemistry
Please write a 8 to 11-page literature review (single-spaced; ~15 references), including
figures if appropriate, about a biochemical process related to SARS-CoV viruses. The paper
should also include 2 pages that outline two new experiments that should be done to further our
understanding of your topic. Additional pages can be used for references. Note: figures are
encouraged but there need to be 8 pages of text. In other words, do not fill the paper with
images.
Due Date: (deadline is MAY 29th the end of Finals week)
Submit: Use Blackboard to submit as Word document
Contact: Todd Lorenz tlorenz@laverne.edu if there are questions about this final assessment.
What is a literature review?
A literature review may be published as an independent report or as part of a larger report. The
purpose of both is to provide information on current publications about a particular topic.
Literature reviews are highly condensed and heavily documented. This literature review will
serve as your final lab paper in place of the Laboratory report on your isolated microbe.
A literature review is a report that describes the “literature” (i.e., the important source material)
on a particular topic. A literature review also helps you synthesize the literature on your topic
because, in the process of writing a literature review, the writer learns to (1) identify various
important issues/questions raised in the literature, and (2) sort and categorize experts’ views
according to the issues/questions identified in the literature.
The primary purpose of the report is to provide your target audience with an overview of what
the experts are saying about the problem under investigation. Your report will update your target
audience on recent research in the field.
Completion of this assignment will build your skills in the following areas: critical reading,
evaluation, analysis, synthesis, report organization, use and integration of sources, and
reference documentation. Developing these skills will demonstrate great progress toward
achieving our programmatic goals.
Who is the intended audience?
A literature review is often written for another researcher who is interested in gaining a general
understanding of the important literature on a particular topic. Therefore, the review should go
into depth regarding the topic of interest.
Tips on synthesize multiple sources
Literature reviews synthesize large amounts of information and present it in a coherent,
organized fashion. Synthesis comes from the Greek word suntithenai — to put together, and
occurs when two or more things are combined to create something new — whether it is a new
idea, a new fabric, a new sound, or a new piece of writing. Therefore, for this assessment, you
will be combining material from several texts to create a new text – your literature review.
One tip to help organize your multiple sources is to generate a spreadsheet or outline of
common points among the articles is critical to helping you synthesize the material. This tool will
ensure that your review is organized by subtopic, not by source. Therefore, each paragraph of
the literature review will mention several different authors. In drafting the review of the literature,
some students make the mistake of structuring it like an annotated bibliography without the
citations. They list the sources one after another but do not make connections between them or
show how the authors’ views compare or contrast. Those connections should weave the
elements of the lit review together, but the connections cannot be made if the sources are
simply listed. Creating and using a spreadsheet or outline will almost guarantee that you will not
make this mistake!
How do you gather information?
Using the ULV library resources as well as various online search engines (e.g. Google Scholar,
Pubmed) include only authoritative, reliable, recently published articles from credible journals
(For SARS you can go back as far as 2003) which address your topic of interest.
You have to decide what pieces of information from which articles to include in your literature
review. To fulfill the purpose of the assignment, you will probably be most interested in the
causes and effects of a particular aspect of SARS viruses and the strategies the authors
suggest to understand mechanisms of infection or treatment strategies, or which other
organizations have been used, to address the issue. Evaluate the articles and narrow the
collection to the best articles for a focused review of SARS-CoV viruses. It is expected that you
will have to read thoroughly the top articles that are referenced in your literature review.
How do you decide which articles to use?
Carefully evaluate the information presented in each of your articles by asking the same
questions that a skeptical reader would ask:
• Is it accurate?
• Is it complete?
• Is it up-to-date?
• Is it unbiased?
• Is it supported by evidence my readers will find compelling?
• Does it conflict with other evidence?
• Is it clearly relevant to my readers’ situation?
As I write, how do I maintain the focus on the literature?
You must remain objective and unbiased as you review the literature. Remember, your purpose
is only to report on what has been written recently about your topic. You should not discuss the
issues involved or take a position. The readers of the literature review do not wish to learn what
you think; they want to learn what the authors of the original research think. Therefore, you must
be careful not to go beyond describing the authors’ views. Do not say which views are “right” or
“better”; instead, show how they are related.
A good literature review sticks to its purpose by “addressing the literature.” Addressing the
literature means that as you write you make it clear that the subject of the paper is the
literature. You should identify the topic of each section or paragraph with topic statements like
Although the literature suggests that elucidating microbiome interactions are not easily solved,
several strategies are mentioned which ….. Since the literature itself is the subject of your paper,
you must be careful to introduce and identify sources consistently.
Establish your focus on the literature, beginning with the introduction, and maintain it through to
the conclusion. Use transitional words and phrases, which show the connection between the
sources. Using effective transitions will help you sustain the focus on the literature. End each
section with a closing sentence that wraps up the section and/or serves as a transition to the
next section: what can be concluded about the literature on that specific subtopic?
Overview of Compiled Literature Review Format: 8–11 pages total (single-spaced, single
column). Figures are encouraged but the paper has to be 8 pages of text minimum (in
other words don’t fill the literature review with images)
Introduction: First, you will add a brief introduction to the literature review: simply introduce the
purpose and scope of the literature review, including the key issues the review will address.
Think of the broad topic of your paper and narrow into the main topic of your discussion.
Body: Using relevant headings, the body should be composed of sections. If these sections
were done effectively, they take up each issue one at a time and discuss how the authors of the
articles respond to that issue.
Don’t forget to introduce and close each section with a sentence focused on the literature
(topic sentence and a concluding sentence.)
Length of body: 5-8 pages or more, single-spaced, single column. (Length of each section will
vary, but each typically contains several paragraphs. Estimate about 15 citations to thoroughly
cover the subject matter (published literature reviews usually contain >50 citations).
Conclusion: Summarize what the literature says about your topic. Approximate length 1 page
Experimental Development: Develop two experiments that would help to answer an unknown
associated with your topic based on your review that would further our understanding of your
topic. Make sure to include controls and iterations that would give the experiments meaning.
Additional Formatting Guidelines
The document needs to be single-spaced (no spaces between paragraphs except headers,
indent paragraphs) use Times New Roman font of 12 pt and margins of 1”. It is acceptable to
include figures as long as they are properly cited in the text and references. The length of the
manuscript should be no less than 7 pages and no more than 10 pages excluding references.
The formatting of the citations (e.g. Foster et al., 2019) and references (estimated n = 15)
can follow any mainstream science peer-review journal formats (e.g. Nature,
Environmental Microbiology, PLOS One, Frontiers in Microbiology ect…).
It is important to put things in your own words and not directly quote from sources in literature
reviews, as this is a test of your ability to synthesize the material. I also recommend making an
online appointment with one of the writing tutors at the Academic Success Center (ACS
(https://laverne.edu/asc/tutoring-services/)) to assess the grammar and clarity of your paper
