1) Literature Review (4000 + 10%), to assess the ‘quality’ of articles recommended by your supervisor and/or selected by yourself, using a selected critical appraisal tool (see examples on BREO). It is suggested that between 9 and 12 well chosen papers should be sufficient for the purpose of this assessment. Your literature review should be structured as follows:
a. Study Selection (where applicable): indicate the papers identified for you by your supervisor and describe how you selected any additional papers for appraisal
b. Quality Assessment: provide a ‘score’ [descriptive assessment] of each paper; you will need to define your ‘scoring system’. For example, you may wish to scale your readings as:
i. Poor, Moderate, Excellent;
ii. Weak, Fair, Average, Good, Superior; or,
iii. 1 – ‘of little or no credibility’ to 10 – ‘excellent design, analysis and discussion; very valuable’.
c. Review: Compare/contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the papers, culminating in a statement about whether all the papers broadly agree or differ
d. Conclusion: provide a conclusion following on from c, which summarises the overall state of evidence in the field
e. References