LITERATURE REVIEW for IRP
How do you refine ideas for an Independent Research project?
 Read articles on the topics you identified as interesting to you (from popular or scientific
articles). As you read, something may cause you to think, “I wonder why …”. At that
moment, refine your causal question from the last assignment or write a new causal
question.
 Alternatively, refine a question proposed as a result of last year’s science fair experiment.
This must be a new causal question and very different from the question you
investigated last year.
 Sometimes you find asking an expert, looking in a book, or researching articles can
answer the question quite readily. In this case, it is not appropriate for independent
research. Then you should try to find a new question that requires investigation to be
answered.
 Questions should come first, not an experiment
 DO NOT visit science fair idea websites  these projects have been done numerous
times.
Literature Review Summary
The next step of Independent Research is a thorough review of literature. A review of literature
will help you refine your topic selection and is essential for later design of your experiment.
Literature used for the IRP may include journal articles and trade magazine articles. Using
information published in articles is important because it is current. In many subject areas, new
discoveries will first appear in articles, and scholarly articles provide an authoritative source of
information. Scholarly journal articles are written for researchers and professionals in a
particular field to report the results of research. The literature review should help you determine
what is already known about a topic. The review will also help you learn where there are “gaps”
in the knowledge base for a particular topic.
Literature Review Assignment for each Journal Article:
1. Cite the source of the article (pick a style, i.e. MLA or APA and stick with it).
2. State the investigator’s (author’s) Research Question that drove the research. You should
state this in your own words.
3. What was the independent variable in the experiment described in the article? What was
the dependent variable?
4. Summarize the important findings of the research described in the article.
5. What questions were answered by the research described in the article? (These could be
questions you had or questions the researchers who wrote the article had.)
6. What new questions come up as a result of this research? (These could be questions you
now have or questions that the researchers who wrote the article posed.)
LITERATURE REVIEW for IRP
So how do you know it is a journal article?
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Written by experts in the particular field
The title of the publication contains the word “Journal”. (Ex. Journal of the Americal
Chemical Society)
Are frequently long, and will contain bibliographies
Are often published on plain paper, in a journal format (like a lab report) with little or no
advertising
FINDING FULL-TEXT JOURNAL ARTICLES AND ABSTRACTS
Using these databases does not guarantee that the article source is a journal. It is your
responsibility to choose journal articles.
Chandler Public Library
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Go to the library homepage at www.chandlerlibrary.org
Choose “Information Databases” from the left side.
There is a large Science heading on the bottom right of this screen. Select “Science
Resource Center”.
Enter your library card number and PIN number.
Select a topic from the list.
On the new screen, choose the tab labeled “Academic Journals”
You need to use judgment on what constitutes a journal article.
o Do not us New Scientist as a journal resource. These articles are usually great for
ideas but are not peer-reviewed by scientists in the field as research articles.
Google scholar
1. If you are already on Google, just type google scholar into the search box and select it
OR type in www.scholar.google.com.
2. Search for your topic and choose appropriate journal articles.
Others
http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl
Awesome!
http://www.scienceinschool.org/repository/docs/issue2_web.pdf
Lists websites to get journal articles
http://www.dmoz.org/Science/Publications/Journals/
Free online science journals
www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov
Searches through multiple science search engines