For the third and final assignment, students are individually responsible for writing a short literature
review on the topic of Youth Suicide. This review must be a minimum of 1,500 words, including a title
page, abstract, and reference page. APA formatted is required! This assignment is worth 40% of your
final grade.
Later in the quarter, each student will pick from one of six sub-topics. After the sub-topic has been
assigned, each student will write a literature review using three articles (all on the same sub-topic)
posted on the course website. You may not use any other articles or sources. The sub-topics are as
follows:
• LGBT Youth and Suicide
• Minority Youth and Suicide
• Family Factors and Youth Suicide
• Bullying and Youth Suicide
• Youth Offenders/Homeless Youth and Suicide
• Prevention of Youth Suicide
For this literature review, it is important for students to show their knowledge about the research topic.
This literature review is different from an annotated bibliography, which is a listing of articles with
descriptions. A critical review is not a string of summaries, it is a synthesized review. In other words,
students do not simply write a short review of each research study, but tie the research studies together
into a “story” or “conversation.”.
This process requires some insight and interpretation, not evaluation. Keep in mind that personal
opinions are not included in a literature review.
Report what is relevant to your study and ignore what is not. This means you need to read the abstract,
the introduction and conclusion of your articles. And, for long articles, focus on the parts that relate to
your topic.
