Assignment Content: Literature Review / Summary of Substantive Issues in Project Domain
The third written assignment for the term, which constitutes the third project milestone, asks students to provide a first
draft of the literature review/background statement that will comprise an important section of your final project report.
For any reporting document, whether it be based on a program evaluation, on policy research or an analysis of policy
alternatives, or documentation explicating the nature of an applied work activity (e.g. an explanation of how an incident
annex was created), identifying and explaining the context of the policy or program or operational setting is
fundamentally important to explaining the nature of the work undertaken. In other words, one key aspect of the final
project report is to demonstrate knowledge of the substantive field in which the project work is situated—by explaining
that to the reader of the final report.
There are two different ways this context is communicated: either through a formal literature review or through a
detailed background statement. Chapter 4 of the Eller, et al. text provides a thorough discussion of conducting
preliminary research, including collecting background information and writing a literature review. Sometimes students
are not entirely familiar with the idea of a literature review. It is fairly straightforward, with the Eller, et al. text defining
it as “a reasonably comprehensive survey of previous research studies related to a specific research topic area.” The
text goes on to explain further that the needs of the audience shape the nature of the literature review.
For some projects, especially those that are geared toward a very specific applied work product, such as designing an
exercise, or evaluating an organizational process, or creating a planning document, the literature review might more
appropriately described as a background statement. This is a subtle distinction: a literature review is oriented toward
writing up an account that summarizes prior research on a topic, while a background statement is geared toward
explaining a policy and/or operational context for an organization’s actions. However, both of these require careful
citation of relevant public documents, policy statements and reviews (e.g. by entities such as the Government
Accountability Office or various think tanks), or academic research studies that explain and set the context for the
reader. This is essential to allowing the reader of the final report to understand why the work was done, how it fits into
our understanding of the subject area, and how the work product (applied product or policy analysis) has an impact in
practice or in understanding a question of public importance.
As a result, this project milestone is a key early step in producing one key element of the final report’s content.
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