How have scholars and specialists in the toxicology and medical field argued/debated the effects of stimulants such as caffeine, nicotine, and Adderall on work productivity including fatigue and focus?
For this portfolio, you will learn to represent the specialist discussions through a kind of essay called a literature review. A scholarly literature review (a common genre for synthesizing and presenting scholarly discussions, one you’ll likely encounter throughout your academic career) differs from a book or movie review and from the argument papers and literary analyses you may be more familiar with from high school:
• While a movie review typically conveys a judgment (“This film was well done; everyone should see it”), a literature review describes more than judges. In the literature review, you are a tour guide who walks readers through research on and schools of thought about your question.
• Though you may start to situate yourself within the discussions and schools of thought about your question, a literature review’s primary goal isn’t to end the discussion with a decisive argument but to show how and why discussion about this question continues, what further research or action might now be needed.
• The texts you’ll discuss won’t be essays, novels, or poems but instead the scholarly literature on your question—though it can be illuminating to consider the different specialists as characters and debates and developments as a kind of drama!
The final product should be typed, doubled-spaced, in Times New Roman size 12 font, in proper APA format, and 4-6 pages in length. Please use ‘Literature Review’ as the running header and let your research question stand as the title on the title page.
