SXST 1600 Introduction to Sexuality Studies (2022-23)
Professor Mike Palamarek
Gender and Women’s Studies and Sexuality Studies Programs Glendon College, York University
Academic Research Literature Review
This assignment gives students the opportunity to develop their research skills by selecting a topic, theme, issue, or question related to sexuality that they want to investigate.
The objectives of the assignment are as follows:
to stimulate curiosity with respect to an unknown or unfamiliar topic
to learn how to use academic article databases effectively
to develop the ability to identify and synthesize common themes and differences in research on the chosen topic
to deepen students’ skills with respect to reading, understanding, and analyzing academic research articles
to develop students’ academic writing skills and the effective presentation of ideas
Length: FIVE double-spaced pages (without counting the bibliography page) Due date: April 10, 2023, before 11:59 p.m.
Submission method
< Please upload your assignment to the “Literature Review” drop box on eClass, in Microsoft Word format.
< Make sure that your TA’s name is clearly indicated on the title page or first page.
Grade weight: 20 percent of the final course grade
Instructions
1) Choose a well-definedtopic, theme, issue, or question related to sexuality that interests you.
There is tremendous diversity of topics to consider. You are completely free to choose. Here is a non-exhaustive list of possible topics.
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pornography sexuality and the elderly disability and |
homophobia transphobia biphobia sexual |
LGBTQI+ activism media representations of monogamy and/or polyamory |
After choosing a topic, it is very important to narrow it down. No piece of research, from a fivepage literature review to a 500 page book, can cover every possible element of a topic or issue. Rather, research proceeds collectively through the focused projects of a community of researchers, who publish their research for others to consult.
Here is an example of how to narrow down a topic.
Example topic: Sexual health and women
– Great topic, but there are almost four billion women in the world. Which particular group ofwomen do you want to focus on? e.g. Canadian women, South African women, or Indigenous women, Filipino women, etc.?
– Are you interested in sexual health issues for lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual, trans women, etc.?- Is the question of sexual health issues for racialized women something you want to explore? e.g. Black Canadian women, Afro-American women (United States), South Asian women (in Canada, the US, United Kingdom, or elsewhere), Indian or Pakistani women, etc.?
– Other possibilities could be looking at a particular class of women (e.g. low-income, working class,middle class, upper class), women living with disabilities, or a specific age group (e.g. adolescents, young adults, middle-aged, or elderly women).
Two possibilities (among many!) for narrowing down the topic of sexual health and women
Example 1: issues of sexual health for lesbians in India
Example 2: sexual health issues for elderly heterosexual Black, Latino, or white women in the United States (pick one group, or two at the most, if you want to do a comparison)
Once you have narrowed down a topic sufficiently, the next step is to formulate your research question or questions.
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Formulate |
2) material
Research questions are essential for not only finding relevant research, but also for helping you find the parts in a research article that address your particular questions.
Some sample research questions for Example 1: sexual health issues for lesbian women in India
a) What are the key sexual health needs for lesbian women in India?
b) What are the most important barriers to accessing health care for this group?
c) What role does lesbophobia play in health care for Indian lesbian women?
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Find THREE peer-reviewed, academic articles or other peer-reviewed |
3) chapters or books) in the York Library academic article databases
Note: media articles or reports are notpeer-reviewed academic research. Do not use them for this assignment.
How to find relevant academic articles
a) Make a list of three or four keywords (or search terms) related to your topic, so that you have a place to start.
e.g. lesbians sexual health India
b) Go to the York Library home page: https://www.library.yorku.ca/web/
c) In the omni box, type in your keywords. Click on the “Search” button.
d) On the next page, in the Availability section on the left hand side, click on
– Available online
– then Peer Reviewed Journals
– then, under Resource Type, click on Articles
– in the Subject section, you can further select Gays & Lesbians and/or Life Sciences & Biomedicine;to narrow down the number of articles that appear. You can experiment with these subject selections.
e) It is extremely helpful to use the Advanced Search function (click on the button beside the omni search box), which helps you build a more precise search.
– In the Search filters section, select Subject, then either “contains” or “is (exact), then type one of your keywords.
– Repeat the above process for each of your search terms. Make sure that “AND” is selected at thebeginning of the second search line.
– Click on “+ ADD A NEW LINE” to add additional search terms.
– Once you have built your search, click on the SEARCH button in the bottom right-hand corner ofthe window.
f) You will have to spend some time scrolling through the list to find articles directly relevant to your topic. To determine if an article is relevant to your topic and research questions, read the library description or view the article abstract (a brief summary at the beginning of most articles that tells you what the article is about).
g) Tips
– Once you find a very good article for your topic, open it and take note of the keyword list,usually on the first page. Add new keywords to your original search term list. You will likely have to try different combination of keywords, as each article database uses somewhat different keywords.
– Again, once you find a very good, relevant article that you want to use, check the references inthe bibliography. It is extremely likely that you will find an article or two that will be useful for you.
– Publication date of research articles
Research is constantly evolving, and new research that deepens our knowledge is published regularly. The general guideline for academic assignments is to use research that has been published in the last 10 to 15 years. Thus, it would not be advisable to work with articles that were published in the 1990s, for example, unless you wanted to do a historical comparison with more recent research.
h) Google Scholar
– This resource can be helpful, but the York Library does not have access to all of the academic journals available in Google Scholar. If you find an article in Google Scholar, look up the journal title in the York Library system. It is possible, but not guaranteed, that you can then access the article for free.
4) Literature review structure (summary versus synthesis)
The goal of an academic literature review, even a short one, is to give a snapshot of the state of research on your topic and your research questions on the topic. A literature review presents the similarities and differences in the research articles that you have selected. In other words, what are the notable similarities or differences in terms of the themes, approaches, theories, concepts, methodology, and results in the research you are examining?
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A literature review |
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of |
three articles closely, and make notes – or even a table or diagram – on the commonalities and differences between them. These themes provide the organization and structure of the writing.
For a selection of guides on how to do a literature review, please see York University Libraries, “Preparing a Literature Review,” available at:
In the above list, you will find links to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s “How to Write a Literature Review” and the University of Toronto’s “The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It.” Both of these sources are very useful, concise explanations of what a literature review is. However, please keep in mind the specific instructions for this SXST 1600 assignment, as some of the advice in the guides may be somewhat different.
For excellent advice, techniques, and strategies on how to do academic assignments, students are encouraged to also explore York’s SPARK: Student Papers and Academic Research Kit, available here: https://spark.library.yorku.ca/
5) Assignment writing structure
< Academic writing features an introduction, well-defined sections and paragraphs, interesting or important connections between sections and paragraphs, a conclusion, and a bibliography or references page at the end, on a separate page.
< Write using well-constructed paragraphs. A paragraph is like a mini-essay. It has a topic sentence that introduces one or two ideas, then develops these ideas in the rest of the paragraph. The next idea that you want to address needs to have its own paragraph. This second idea should follow logically from the material in the previous paragraph. Each paragraph often features a transition sentence that connects it to the next paragraph. This transition sentence can be written at the end of a paragraph, or at the beginning of the next one.
Tip: If your paragraph is more than half a page long, or even longer, this is almost always an indication that your paragraph is not well-structured. There are probably many useful ideas in this long paragraph, but they need to be logically separated out in their own paragraphs. A paragraph should not be just a list of many unconnected ideas, but a development of one or two particular ideas, as per above.
< Logically present the sequence or flow or your ideas and analyses.
6) Assignment presentation and formatting. These requirements must be respected. If you are unclear as to what any of the terms below mean, do a quick Google search!
page size setting: “Letter”
2.5 cm (1 inch) for all margins (left, right, top, bottom)
Times New Roman font
12 pt font size
left justification or full justification
double-spaced text, including between paragraphs
– In Microsoft Word, open the “Paragraph” section (little arrow in the right hand corner).
– In the “Spacing” section, make sure that the “Before” and “After” boxes are set to “0 pt”.- Check the “Don’t add space between paragraphs” box.
indent the first line of paragraphs, except for the very first paragraph of each answer
set up page numbering, so that your pages are numbered
correct presentation of direct citations, indirect and general references, where relevant
You may use any referencing style, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, ASA, etc., as long as it is used correctly and consistently.
Please reread these instructions carefully.