graphic organizer about literature review

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Literature Review Graphic Organizer [classic]

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Creating rubrics, assignments, and lessons takes up too much of my time. I created this as a way to share the things that I have created/collected over the last ten years. In turn, I hope that other teachers would share their great handouts, rubrics, and lessons they have created to make all our lives a little bit easier. 

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Feel free to use any of these materials for educational use  and edit to meet your instructional context.

Last updated 3/28/07

Thanks to Zack H. by 2nd semester T.A. for his hard work updating this page

3 Literature Review

Charitianne Williams

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

• Understand the purpose and function of a literature review.
• Structure a literature review according to basic genre expectations.
• Synthesize ideas from multiple sources using a synthesis matrix.
• Choose between narrative or parenthetical citation and direct quoting, or paraphrase with intent and purpose.

I. Introduction

The purpose of a literature review is just that—it reviews. This means that literature reviews examine a text after it was produced, with all the benefits that hindsight allows a reader. In popular culture, we commonly review movies, restaurants, vacation spots, products, etc. In those reviews, you look back at the single thing you are reviewing and your experience with it. You focus on the strengths and weaknesses of your experience and judge the experience as positive or negative while recommending or not recommending the place or product and explaining why.

An academic literature review does something different, although some of the skills and strategies you use remain the same. The job of a literature review is to examine a collection of research or scholarship (not a single thing or text) on a given topic and show how that scholarship fits together. Literature reviews summarize, describe, evaluate, and synthesize the work of other authors and researchers while looking for common trends/patterns, themes, inconsistencies, and gaps in this previous research. The main strategy writers of a literature review use is synthesis.

SYNTHESIS: the combination of ideas and elements to form a complete system or theory.

A good metaphor for synthesis is cooking! Imagine the ingredients for a loaf of bread laid out on a kitchen cabinet. Each ingredient—eggs, milk, flour, sugar, salt, yeast—have their own purpose and can be combined in different ways to form food other than bread. Knowing all of those individual attributes that make an egg an egg, or the difference between yeast and flour, is what makes you a chef. When you combine all these ingredients according to the recipe, you get something different than all the ingredients on their own: and most of us would rather eat a slice of bread than a spoonful of flour. The product of synthesis is like bread. Synthesis takes a list of ingredients and makes them into something more than the ingredients alone.

Usually, the writers of a literature review will start with a question that they want to answer through informed and research-based evidence gathered while reading others’ work on related topics. The “thesis” or controlling idea of a literature review may be that same question ( “This review seeks to answer…” ) or it may be a statement describing the reviewed research. The thesis reflects the purpose of the literature review as a genre and is different from the thesis you will write for the research paper that argues a claim or asserts a new idea.

Example 3.1: Look at this thesis statement taken from the introduction of a literature review in environmental psychology on the relationship between “nature sounds” and restorative environments:

From this example, we can learn many things about literature reviews:

• They are explicit and focused on their topic. The opening states an observable truth about the current research ( emphasizes nature ), is followed by a general condition ( positive psychological experiences) within that research, and then finally focuses on describing how a particular outcome is achieved (listening to nature sounds is restorative).
• They seek to pre vent or eliminate misunderstanding. Note the use of specialized key terms, exacting transitional phrases, and meaningful verbs in the thesis such as “ restorative environments,” “in particular,” and “ generate .”
• They seek to forward understanding. In other words, literature reviews examine and link together evidence described and validated in the research of others so a reader can learn how a field is developing. ( Research seems to agree that nature sounds can relieve stress and fatigue–this review will examine that conclusion so readers can understand/ build on how and why.)

Moving from the beginning to the very end of the literature review, we can also learn many things about literature reviews from the sources used. Think of each text listed in the References section of a literature review as contributing pieces to a gigantic puzzle.

Example 3.2: Look at the first three articles listed in the References for the article excerpted above:

Abbott, L. C., Taff, D., Newman, P., Benfield, J. A., and Mowen, A. J. (2016). The influence of natural sounds on attention restoration. J. Park Recreation Adm. 34, 5–15. doi: 10.18666/JPRA-2016-V34-I3-6893

Aletta, F., and Kang, J. (2019). Promoting healthy and supportive acoustic environments: going beyond the quietness. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 16:4988. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16244988

Aletta, F., Oberman, T., and Kang, J. (2018). Associations between positive health-related effects and soundscapes perceptual constructs: a systematic review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 15:2392. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15112392

None of these sources are exactly the same. One focuses on sound and attention, the next two on sound and health, and none of them are quite the same as sound and restoration —but they are all pieces of the puzzle that give a full understanding of how sound and restorative environments relate.

As the author of the literature review, it is your job to join the pieces together, giving your reader a complete picture of what researchers know about your topic.

Literature reviews are an indispensable tool for researchers. Instead of having to read dozens of articles on a topic, a researcher could instead read a literature review that synthesizes what is known and puts each piece of scholarship into conversation with the others. This could be not only quicker, but also more valuable.

Have you heard the saying that the whole is more than the sum of its parts? The knowledge constructed by a well-written literature review often outweighs the knowledge constructed by simply reading each article in the References section on its own because the author of a literature review processes and analyzes the information for the reader.

Literature reviews occur in two general forms—as a background section in a scholarly work or as a stand-alone genre in and of itself. In both situations, the basic purpose and structure of the literature review is similar: it is the length and the scope that varies. For example, consider the previous chapter, the Proposal. In most proposals, you will want to convince your audience that you are informed on the background of your topic—a literature review is how you would do that. Since a proposal is commonly a short text, you do not have the space to summarize every piece of research. You must select an important set and synthesize that information into a small section signaling your expertise.

On the other hand, consider a professional journal intended to keep its readers up to date on new technologies and findings in a specific field or career. New ideas and discoveries are emerging every day, and it can be difficult to stay on top of all of these new findings, understand how they fit together, and also keep track of your own career responsibilities! A magazine might hire an author to read all the new research on a specific topic and synthesize it into a single article, a state-of-the-art review, so that practitioners in a field can read a single 25-page article instead of 100 25-page articles.

More Resources 3.1: Literature Reviews

II. Rhetorical Considerations: Voice

Using the scholarship of other writers and researchers is one of the things that differentiates academic writing from other types of writing. Using others’ scholarship in a meaningful way that creates new knowledge without mischaracterizing the original findings takes effort, attention, and usually several rounds of revision and rewriting. One of the issues is voice , which refers to the attitude and tone of a text—think of it as what the text “sounds like” in your head as you read it. Voice is an important element of cohesion , or what some people think of as “flow.” Creating a consistent voice in the mind of your reader helps them fit all the information in a text together in the way the author intends. Check out this advice from APAstyle.org about academic style and voice.

Think back to your annotated bibliography and how you created your summaries. You probably used key terms from the original authors’ texts, but because you had to take whole articles and restate the meaning in a short paragraph, there wasn’t room to just repeat the words of the original author. So you had to write the summaries in your voice . If you used those key terms correctly and in ways similar to original authors, those key terms probably did not interfere with cohesiveness and voice. However, in the literature review, you have many more voices to synthesize than you did to summarize in the annotated bibliography. Maintaining a consistent and cohesive voice will be challenging. An important way to maintain voice is through paraphrasing, discussed later in this chapter.

More Resources 3.2: Transitions

Another important way to maintain cohesion is through the use of metadiscourse (see Chapter 2) and transitional phrases. See this link for the use and meaning of transitional phrases, sometimes called signposts .

III. The Literature Review Across the Disciplines

Example 3.3: Academic and Professional Examples

Structure of Literature Reviews

While the details vary across disciplines, all literature reviews tend to have similar basic structure. The introduction of a literature review informs the reader on the topic by defining key terms, citing key researchers or research periods in the field, and introducing the main focus of the review in a descriptive thesis statement. The introduction also explains the organization of the review. In a literature review, you organize your discussion of the research by topic or theme— not article or author. This is in direct contrast to the annotated bibliography, which is often the first step in the writing process for a literature review.

In the annotated bibliography, you organize your entries in alphabetical order by authors’ last names. Each annotation is directly connected to a single text. A literature review is connected to a collection of texts, and therefore must be organized in a way that reflects this.

Example 3.4: Let’s examine the full paragraph that the thesis statement we analyzed earlier came from:

A systematic review by Aletta et al. (2018) has identified links between positive urban soundscapes (which may also include nature sounds) and health and well-being, including stress recovery. Given the emphasis on nature w ithin restorative environments (see Hartig et al., 2014 ), the present narrative literature review focuses on evidence for positive psychological experiences of nature sounds and soundscapes specifically, and in particular how listening to these can generate perceptions and outcomes of restoration from stress and fatigue. This review has five key objectives, summarized in Figure 1 [in the article] . First, it explores literature regarding the impact of nature sounds on perceptions and experiences of wider natural environments. Second, it examines evidence regarding cognitive and affective appraisals of nature sounds and their contributions to overall perceptions of restorative environments. Third, literature regarding restorative outcomes in response to nature sounds is assessed. Fourth, the relevance of key restoration theories to this top ic is examined and areas where these theories are limited are identified. Fifth, a possible new theoretical area of interest—semantic associations with nature—is discussed and exemplified by recent acoustics research (Ratcliffe, 2021, emphasis added).

Notice how the thesis statement (in bold ) is followed by an explicit description of the five key objectives—which correspond to the titles (usually called headings ) of the five major sections of the body of the literature review. The introduction basically outlines the body of the literature review to make it easier for a researcher to find the specific information they are looking for. What follows each of these headings is an analysis and synthesis of the topic described in the heading—which is what we mean when we say a literature review is organized by topic.

Example 3.5: See how the body sections of a literature review synthesize research and evidence in relation to a focused topic. Read this example taken from a literature review in another discipline, nursing.

The introduction states that the review’s purpose is to understand the issues facing nurses in situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers found several themes in the research that all contributed to nurses’ experiences. This paragraph describes one of those themes which the authors label “Professional collegiality”:

3.2.2. Professional collegiality

Professional camaraderie amongst nursing colleagues working during a pandemic was high (Ives et al., 2009, Kim, 2018, Liu a nd Liehr , 2009). Nurses acknowledged the importance of caring for their co-workers and in sharing the load. Some nurses associated the experience with working on a battlefield, whereby they worked together as a team protecting one another (Chung et al., 20 05, Kang et al., 2018, Liu and Liehr , 2009). Appreciation of their nursing colleagues was demonstrated through sharing their experiences, willingness to work together and encouraging a team spirit (Shih et al., 2007, Chung et al., 2005, Chiang et al., 2007 ). (Ratcliffe, 2021, p.4)

In this single paragraph, there are seven different research articles cited, and some of them are cited twice. There is no way to write a coherent paragraph summarizing seven different research articles at once—instead, the authors of this paragraph reviewed what the researchers said about collegiality, found where their findings pointed in the same direction, and put those connections into their own words. This is the importance of the review’s body section: it is here where you really dig into the content, meaning, and implications of the scholarship you are discussing.

The end of a literature review looks different from the one- or two-paragraph conclusion we are used to in other texts. The end is often made up of multiple sections, each with a slightly different purpose, although all are probably recognizable to you. A “Discussion” section is almost always present, where the author summarizes the most important findings of each section. In most cases, the “Discussion” section does not contain new information, but ties the different body sections together in ways that provide a deeper analysis.

The end of a literature review may also contain an “Implications for Future Research” or “Resolution” after the Discussion—sometimes this final section is even called “Conclusion.” What this last section looks like is often dependent upon the type of review you are writing, and whether the review is standing alone as a complete text or part of a larger project.

In any situation, across all disciplines, it is important to understand how your literature review is meant to inform the reader and what kind of review is appropriate for the context, in order to decide how you should structure the beginning and end of your review.

Types of Literature Reviews

There are different types of literature reviews, although in undergraduate study the Traditional or Narrative Review is most common. Narrative reviews are somewhat exploratory in their content—in a narrative review you are synthesizing the results of specific texts selected for their connection to your topic. Narrative reviews almost always end with a section describing areas for future research if they are a stand-alone text, or a section describing why the author’s research is so needed if part of a larger research article. The chart below outlines the key differences between three major literature review types. Notice that each type has a slightly different purpose. You might think about which type best fits your project as you read.

Table 3.1: Types of Literature Reviews

More Resources 3.3: Literature Review Structures

IV. Research Strategies: Developing a Methodology

Systematic and scoping reviews should always contain a Research Methodology that explains to your reader exactly how you found the research you are reviewing. Often Narrative Reviews will also contain a research methodology, although it will be slightly different since they are not comprehensive reviews, meaning, they do not attempt to find all the research on a topic—by design, they cover only a specific portion. Even if you are not required to write up your methodology, you need clear research strategies to find the appropriate scholarship for your literature review.

Example 3.6: Check out this excerpt from the methods sections from a psychology literature review. Note how the authors clearly describe what types of sources they’ll be using as well as their steps throughout the research process.

Drawing on individual case studies, archival reports, correlational studies, and laboratory and field experiments, this monograph scrutinizes a sequence of events during which confessions may be obtained from criminal suspects and used as evidence. First, we examine the pre-interrogation interview, a process by which police …( Kassin and Gudjonsson , 2004, p.33)

Example 3.7: Here is another example from the field of education. In it the authors describe two separate searches they performed to gather the literature—the first search used key terms they decided upon before reading any scholarship, and the second search used the terms that they found were common to that first set of texts (see more about key terms here and in the Annotated Bibliography chapter).

We conducted two rounds of literature searches, utilizing the following databases: World CAT (general search), EB SCO Academic Search Complete, EBSCO Education Source, and Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (ProQuest). In the first round, we searched using every possible combination of the following terms: ‘race,’ ‘language teaching,’ ‘ethnicity,’ ‘language p edagogy,’ ‘Whiteness,’ ‘racialized,’ ‘antiracism,’ and ‘ nativeness .’ For the second round of our literature search, we searched using terms that we saw emerging from the literature such as ‘racial identities of language learners,’ ‘racial identities of lan guage teachers,’ ‘language varieties and language teaching,’ ‘race and language teacher education,’ ‘race and educational policy,’ ‘race and language programs,’ and ‘race and language curriculum’ and also repeated our earlier searches in order to keep the literature updated. (Von Esch et al., 2020, p. 392)

No matter the type of research (see a description of qualitative vs. quantitative research ), the specific genres (see descriptions of academic research genres ), or the time frame (see a discussion on the importance of publication date ) you use for your review, it is important to think through the options, make a decision, and incorporate all your research knowledge—use of key terms, use of subject filters, use of specialized databases, etc.—into a coherent and meaningful process that results in the best scholarship for your inquiry and review.

Here’s a video to help you get started on using databases for research:

Library Referral: Connecting the Conversation with Scholarly Sources and Beyond​

(by Annie R. Armstrong)

Research involves drawing from numerous voices from a range of source types. The sources you choose to include in your conversation are context-specific and might vary depending on your topic or the parameters of your assignment. Review your assignment description and talk to your instructor about guidelines. While most research papers emphasize scholarly sources, expertise isn’t always equated with scholarliness and you might want to branch out. For example, a research paper focusing on exploitation of Native American land and communities by the mining industry should make some attempt to include sources generated by the communities under discussion, especially if their point of view is not represented in the peer-reviewed, scholarly sources you’ve found. Think about who the stakeholders are as related to various aspects of your topic and how you can tap into their voices through available resources. You may want to consult a librarian about this.

The chart below summarizes the breadth of source types available through library websites versus the open web:

Table 3.2: Scholarly Sources and Beyond

V. Reading Strategies: Intertextuality and Graphic Organizers

Typically we think of reading as something we do to learn the content of a text—and this is absolutely true! But true understanding means knowing the relationships between and impact of separate but related topics, which might mean understanding how different texts—generally focused on one topic—overlap or differ.

Intertextuality refers to the connections that exist between texts. Intertextuality as a reading strategy means looking for the connections between the text you are reading and others you have already read; anticipating connections with other texts that you have not yet read, but plan to; as well as connections to whole disciplines, fields, and social phenomena. Reading for intertextuality means looking for opportunities to connect texts with each other, and keeping track of those connections in a productive way.

This means note-taking is essential to intertextual reading. Once you have thought carefully about why you are reading a text, what types of information to look for, and what you will do with that information, you can better decide how to keep track of that information. In regards to literature reviews, one type of graphic organizer dominates: the Synthesis Matrix.

The synthesis matrix is a way to keep track of the themes, concepts, and patterns that are emerging from your reading—NOT all the individual content of each article. This is important, yes, and you will need the citations, but literature reviews move one step further into the topic than simply identifying the pieces. You will need to synthesize.

If you have an annotated bibliography of sources already, it is the perfect way to start your synthesis matrix. An annotated bibliography is often the first step in preparing for a literature review, and is quite similar to an ingredient list, if we are using the metaphor from the introduction. (For a detailed description of how to write an annotated bibliography, see Chapter 1 ).

In your annotations, you will have selected the most important information that text supplies in relation to your topic. For an example, let’s take the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s statement “ Students’ Right to Their Own Language ,” which contains two annotated bibliographies. The second uses more recent sources and looks most like the annotated bibliographies you will write as a student, so let’s start there.

Example 3.8: Here are three annotations from that bibliography. As you read, take notice of the different highlighted colors. Phrases italicized and highlighted green identify ideas related to linguistic identity , phrases bolded and highlighted in blue identify concepts related to grammar analysis , and phrases underlined and highlighted orange identify groups and ideas related to educational objectives :

Fought, Carmen. Chicano English in Context. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Based primarily on data collected from adolescent and young adult native speakers in Los Angeles , this book is a comprehensive sociolinguistic study of language and language change in Latino/a communities. It provides the basics of Chicano English (CE) structure (phonology, syntax, and semantics) and its connection to the social and cultural identity of its speakers, along with detailed analyses of particular sociolinguistic variables. Emphasis is given to the historical, social, and linguistic contexts of CE. In addition, the differences between native and non-native CE speakers are covered. A final chapter discusses the future of research on CE.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States . London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

The author examines linguistic facts about the structure and function of language , explores commonly held myths about language, and develops a model of “the language subordination process.” Then, using a case-study approach, she applies the model to specific institutional practices (e.g., in education, news media, business) to show how false assumptions about language lead to language subordination. The author analyzes specific groups and individuals (speakers of African American English, Southern U.S. English, and the foreign-language accent of Latinos and Asian Americans) and discusses why and how some embrace linguistic assimilation while others resist it.

Nero, Shondel J. Englishes in Contact: Anglophone Caribbean Students in an Urban College. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2001.

This qualitative study of four anglophone Caribbean students at a New York City college offers an in-depth examination of the students’ written and spoken language and the challenges faced by both students and teachers as such students acquire academic literacy. Case studies of the four participants include excerpts from tape-recorded interviews, which reflect their linguistic self-perception, and sociolinguistic and educational experiences in their home countries and in New York City. Samples of their college writing over four semesters are represented and analyzed on morphosyntactic and discourse levels to determine the patterns that emerge when Creole English speakers attempt to write Standard Written English. Related issues such as language and identity , language attitudes, and educational responses to ethnolinguistic diversity are also discussed.

Once you have identified a concept like “language and identity” for your literature review, you can start getting “intertextual”! Review your other annotated sources and your new sources for their discussion of language and identity, as well as parallel concepts—what else do researchers address when they discuss language and identity? What do they discuss instead? Go back to the methods you used to come up with key terms for your literature search—the same strategies now apply to your reading. Also look for “umbrella” concepts, patterns in methodologies—anything that emerges while you read intertextually, focusing on the text in front of you while also remembering all the others you read before. Look for the themes in your annotated bibliography and keep track of the page numbers where these themes appear—plan to go back to those pages several times as you write your literature review.

This is a different type of reading than you did for the annotated bibliography, and might mean you go back and reread your sources several times in this new way—don’t think of this as just repeating labor you have already performed. This is new work, designed to uncover new things in the research. Re-reading articles multiple times is something all serious writers do, and something you should do, too. It isn’t redundant, it is recur sive .

Table 3.3: Synthesis Matrix for Individuals’ Choices in Linguistic Identity

Put your sources into conversations around your themes, as shown in the table above. Notice that the top row names the themes covered in that column, put into original wording similar, but not identical, to the wording in the annotated bibliographies. Not every source will address every topic—not every article is the same. The last row starts to describe what is happening in each column across the whole collection of texts. In this way, your synthesis matrix takes the ingredient list provided by the annotated bibliography and makes it into a recipe for your final product—the literature review.

More Resources 3.4: Synthesis Matrix

VI. Writing Strategies: Citation, Quotation, and Paraphrase

Citation is when you use the work of other authors in your writing and mark that portion of your writing so your reader understands what idea is being “borrowed.” Citation also tells your reader where they could find that original idea in the original text, and how your text fits together with the web of other texts related to your topic: in other words, citations help create intertextuality. A citation placed in your sentences should refer directly to the full bibliographic information in your Works Cited or References page.

As you read in Chapter 1, there are different styles of citation including AMA, APA, CMS, and MLA. You can refer back to that chapter for a more detailed explanation of each. In this section, we’ll cover the basics that are common to citation practices. Most academic styles use the original author’s last name as the central part of the in-text citation, since References pages usually list cited works alphabetically by last name, but some use footnotes or endnotes instead, listing works in the order they were cited. It is important to know which academic style you are using for your literature review so that you can make the right choice.

In-text citation takes one of two forms: parenthetical or narrative. In a narrative citation the author of the original work is mentioned in the sentence.

Example 3.9: Here’s an example taken from the introduction of the same literature review discussed in the Research Strategies: Developing a Methodology section of this chapter.

Several pieces offered a comprehensive review of the historical literature on the formation of Black English as a construct in the context of slavery and Jim Crow, and the historical teaching of Black English within the U .S. context, including Wheeler ( 2016 ) and Alim and Baugh (2007). Wheeler (2016) equated Standard English with ‘White’ English and challenged its hegemony in dialectically diverse classrooms. She named the “racism inherent in [fostering] bidialectalism [th rough teaching]” (p. 380), arguing that we are acknowledging that the only way for African-Americans to be upwardly mobile was to learn how to speak ‘White’ English. Alim (2010) , explained, “By uncritically presenting language varieties as ‘equal’ but diff ering in levels of ‘appropriateness,’ language and Dialect Awareness programs run the risk of silently legitimizing ‘Standard English’” (p. 215)…. Current work addressing AAVE studies has been shifting focus to translingualism and to promoting such pedag ogies as code-meshing (Young, Barrett, Young Rivera and Lovejoy, 2014) and translanguaging (García & Wei, García and Wei, 2014) , embedded in a critical analysis of the racial logics underpinning the denigration of some languages. This work, combined with e xtensive examinations of the connections between race, language, teaching, and identity ( e.g. Flores & Rosa, 2015; Alim et al., 2016 ), has laid a foundation for a raciolinguistics approach to teaching, which we return to later in this article. (Von Esch et al., 2020, p. 399, emphasis added .)

In the first sentence, we see two narrative citations just before the period. These citations state the authors’ names as a part of the sentence, and put the publication date of the articles in parenthesis. It makes sense to use a narrative citation in the topic sentence, since most of the paragraph is a synthesis of Wheeler and Alim’s research. The second sentence starts with Wheeler’s name in the subject position, and the fourth sentence starts with Alim’s name in the subject position—both are narrative citations, a form chosen by the author to emphasize the importance and similarities in the two articles.

In the last two sentences, we see parenthetical citations. The citation information is in parenthesis within the sentences, which focuses the reader on the ideas, not the research itself. Imagine you were reading this article out loud—you would most certainly say the narrative citations “Wheeler” and “Alim”; you might choose not to say “Young, Barrett, Young-Rivera, & Lovejoy, 2014,” though, and no one listening to you would notice the omission. This is the most important difference between narrative and parenthetical citation—narrative draws attention to the researchers, while parenthetical allows a focus on ideas. In academic writing, you often have reason to use both, but it is important to note that using parenthetical citation is less disruptive to your voice—it keeps a reader focused on the ideas you are explaining.

Usually you are citing a type of quotation in your text (although different disciplines have other situations that they cite). Direct quotation and paraphrase are usually what we talk about when we talk about using resources in your writing, although summary is cited as well.

Direct quotation is when you take the original words of one author and place them in your own text. When you quote in your own writing, you mark the copied text—usually with quotation marks “” around the text and a citation afterwards. Quoting is useful when the original author is an important authority on a topic or if you want to define/describe another’s point of view in a way that leaves no room for misinterpretation.

In a literature review, a direct quote will almost always be accompanied by a narrative citation. But direct quoting can cause some issues in your own text, such as a sudden shift in voice and a loss of cohesion; the potential for misunderstanding and misrepresentation, since the quote has been separated from its original context; and wordiness —quotes can take up too much space both in terms of the quote itself, and of the explanation and context you must provide for the introduced idea. For these reasons, literature reviews do not contain much direct quoting.

Paraphrasing is a way to accomplish similar goals to direct quoting without causing the same problems. Paraphrasing is when you use only the original author’s key terms and ideas, but your own words. Paraphrasing still contains a citation afterwards that directs the reader to the full bibliographic information in your Works Cited, but does not require quotation marks since the language is yours. Paraphrase may be longer or shorter than the original author’s text, and uses both narrative and parenthetical citation. Paraphrase also allows you to cite more than one piece of research containing the same idea in a single sentence, such as the last sentence in the example paragraph above. This kind of citation string is important to literature reviews because it clearly identifies patterns and trends in research findings.

Key Takeaways

• Literature reviews are a synthesis of what other researchers have discovered on your topic. Think of reviews as “the big picture.”
• Taking so much information from other sources can get confusing–use section headings to keep your review organized and clear.
• Diverse citation, quotation, and paraphrasing techniques are necessary to help your reader understand where the ideas are coming from, AND to help make the ideas “stick together.”
• Keeping all the new knowledge you are learning from your sources organized is hard! Take notes using citations and use a graphic organizer to keep yourself on track.

Fernandez, Lord, H., Halcomb, E., Moxham, L., Middleton, R., Alananzeh, I., & Ellwood, L. (2020). Implications for COVID-19: A systematic review of nurses’ experiences of working in acute care hospital settings during a respiratory pandemic. International Journal of Nursing Studies , 111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103637

Kassin, S. M., & Gudjonsson, G. H. (2004). The psychology of confessions. Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 5 (2), 33–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2004.00016.x

National Council of Teachers of English. (2018, June 16). Students’ right to their own language (with bibliography) . Conference on College Composition and Communication. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/srtolsummary

NEIU Libraries. (2020). “How should I search in a database?”  YouTube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fgBF0EuH_o

Ratcliffe, E. (2021). Summary Flowchart [Image]. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.570563/full#B3

Ratcliffe, E. (2021). Sound and soundscape in restorative natural environments: A narrative literature review. Frontiers in Psychology , 12 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.570563

Sasaki. K. (2022). Synthesis and Recipes [Image].

Von Esch, K., Motha, S., & Kubota, R. (2020). Race and language teaching. Language Teaching, 53 (4), 391-421. doi:10.1017/S0261444820000269

Writing for Inquiry and Research Copyright © 2023 by Charitianne Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Literature Search

6 Best Research Note-Taking Graphic Organizer Templates

Explore the 6 best research note-taking graphic organizer templates to enhance your study sessions and organize information effectively.

Sep 10, 2024

Gathering sources for a research paper can be a time-consuming and stressful process. As you sift through articles, books, and notes, it’s easy to lose track of your findings and forget essential details. This is especially true when working with a large number of sources that all have overlapping themes. If you’ve ever started writing a paper only to realize that you can’t remember where you read a particular piece of information, you know exactly what I mean. 

This is where a research note-taking graphic organizer can help. In this guide, we'll explore the benefits of using a research note-taking graphic organizer and help you find the right one for your next literature search . 

Table of Contents

What is a note-taking graphic organizer, purpose of a research note-taking graphic organizer, what are the 5 types of graphic organizers, how to write a research note, supercharge your researching ability with otio — try otio for free today.

A research note-taking graphic organizer helps students and researchers systematically collect and organize information during the research process. This visual tool typically includes structured sections or frameworks to record key points from sources, such as facts, quotes, summaries, or reflections, making it easier to track and reference information later. Research note-taking graphic organizers help with clarity, structure, and addressing all relevant aspects of the research topic. 

What Are the Components of Research Note-Taking Graphic Organizers?

Research note-taking graphic organizers can vary but usually have several standard components. Here are a few of the most common parts of these graphic organizers : 

Main Topic/Research Question

The central focus or question that guides the research. 

Source Information 

Details like the title, author, and publication date of each source. 

Key Ideas/Notes 

A section to jot down key points, facts, or data from each source. 

Quotes 

An area dedicated to direct quotes from the source, usually with citations. 

Paraphrasing 

Space to rewrite information in your own words. 

Personal Thoughts/Reflections 

A place to note any thoughts, connections, or questions that arise during the research.

Page Numbers 

Working with physical texts helps with tracking where the information was found.

Related Reading

• Systematic Review Vs Meta Analysis • Impact Evaluation • How To Critique A Research Article • How To Synthesize Sources • Annotation Techniques • Skimming And Scanning • Types Of Literature Reviews • Literature Review Table • Literature Review Matrix • How To Increase Reading Speed And Comprehension • How To Read Research Papers • How To Summarize A Research Paper • Literature Gap

1. Get Organized with a Research Note-Taking Graphic Organizer

Research graphic organizers help students systematically gather and sort key details, ensuring that all relevant information is captured in a structured way. This prevents essential data from being overlooked or forgotten.

2. Simplify Complex Information

Research graphic organizers break down complex topics into manageable sections and aid in better understanding and processing the research material.

3. Track Your Sources

A research graphic organizer helps you keep track of where specific information or quotes come from, which is crucial for accurate citations and avoiding plagiarism.

4. Improve Your Focus and Efficiency

A graphic organizer directs attention to the most critical aspects of the research, helping avoid distractions and making note-taking more efficient.

5. Enhance Critical Thinking

Research note organizers encourage analysis, reflection, and synthesis of the information, helping researchers connect ideas and draw meaningful conclusions.

6. Prepare for Writing

A well-structured organizer can be a blueprint for writing essays, reports, or presentations, allowing researchers to refer back to their notes and ideas easily.

1. Tackling Research Overload with Otio

Today, knowledge workers, researchers, and students suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with a button, this problem will only worsen. Otio solves this problem by providing researchers with one AI-native workspace. It helps them: 

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Draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. Otio helps you to go from the reading list to the first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also enables you to write research papers/essays faster. 

Here are our top features that researchers love: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enabling you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, and AI-assisted writing. 

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2. Supporting Student Research with Graphic Organizers from Teachers Pay Teachers

These research graphic organizers will help your students form strong note-taking habits, organize findings, build vocabulary, and keep track of the sources they use to find information. TPT has various templates for research note-taking graphic organizers. You can also find some free templates on TPT.

3. Download a Research Note Taking Template from Education.com

Students will use this graphic organizer template in the first step of their research process, honing note-taking skills as they document their sources, pick out relevant information from resources, and concisely record essential details. After gathering information, students will be prompted to reflect and draw conclusions about their research. Geared toward students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, this worksheet is a helpful way to get learners in the habit of citing sources and preparing for the next steps in the writing process. You can easily download the worksheet from their website.

4. Use This Research Note-Taking Organizer from Loyala Marymount University

Loyala Marymount Univeristy provides a free note-taking graphic organizer PDF that you can download for all your research notes. Click here to check it out!

5. Avoid Plagiarism with This Research Notes Graphic Organizer from Twinkle

Use this research notes graphic organizer to help students as they research for a project or essay. This resource allows students to keep track of where their information is coming from to help avoid plagiarism. They have a wide variety of note-taking graphic organizers for students.

6. Get Organized with This Note-Taking Graphic Organizer from Teach Starter

Use this teaching resource when students are required to take notes from a particular source of information, e.g., a nonfiction book, a website, a podcast, or a video clip. Students can record the main idea, essential vocabulary, and essential information in the table. There is also space to summarize the text and list the source of the information. Use the drop-down menu to choose between the PDF or Google slide versions.

1. Circle Map Graphic Organizer: Brainstorming Made Easy  

The circle map graphic organizer is an excellent tool for brainstorming an idea or topic using related information. A circle map consists of a large circle with another circle inside, where the main subject or idea takes center stage. Surrounding it is the larger circle, where corresponding ideas flow. As the second circle fills up, connections and definitions grow organically and visually. In the second circle, any wording, including nouns, adjectives, or phrases, can define the main idea. 

Circle maps are great for brainstorming the very beginning of an idea. You can use it on a whiteboard for a group brainstorming session. With the help of a circle map, great ideas can begin to take shape and eventually become complete and complex plans. You can also use a circle map with a newly created team to get the ball rolling. If the team members don’t know each other very well, a circle map exercise can break the ice and get them to open up about their ideas. Use the interior circle to ask, “What do we want to achieve with this project?” and watch the interaction flourish.  

2. Idea Web Graphic Organizer: Easy Comparison of Concepts  

The ideal web graphic organizer is a combination of two spider maps. It's a comparison organizer that defines differences and similarities between topics. In an idea web, the two central circles contain the main ideas. Stemming out from both are circles of two types. The two first-stemmed circles contain shared similarities. Towards the sides are the circles that define the differences. This type of organizer is perfect for situations in which concepts or ideas need a visual comparison. 

School students use idea webs for courses like Language Arts. They compare characters, situations, and parts of the story, making it all easier to grasp. Another situation in which an idea map could help make decisions. If you have to choose between two solutions to a problem or an idea, we can help you decide. By comparing and contrasting visually, the option becomes more apparent.

In the same way, an idea web can be a slide inside a presentation. It can show a comparison between concepts. Idea webs can also work well as infographics. The layout of the circles doesn’t need to follow a strict grid. Get creative with organizing the circles as long as they're still understandable.  

3. Concept Map Graphic Organizer: Understanding One Topic at a Time  

The concept map is very similar to an idea web. This graphic organizer can analyze one topic instead of two or more topics at once. A concept map and an idea web look very similar, with circles stemming from the center. The difference is that an idea web is for comparing, while a concept map is for brainstorming and organizing. Concept maps sometimes stem out in so many directions that they look complicated. 

These graphic organizers are suitable for many stages of content production, from the messy brainstorming stage to the more structured hierarchical organization. This type of organizational chart usually ends up very large and complex. It's more suited for personal use than for an infographic or presentation. Although, a concept map is sometimes used for data visualizations that show connections between topics.  

4. Organizational Chart Graphic Organizer: Visualizing Hierarchy 

Although it resembles a tree chart, an organizational chart has a different purpose. A tree chart separates information into sections that stem from each other as classification, while an organizational chart is more about hierarchy. The most common use for an organizational chart is for internal company purposes. It can help visually organize the founders' positions and everyone who comes after. The sections at the top of the chart are for the CEO, CFO, etc. Below them are the managers and so on in hierarchical order. The same system can be used to visualize a team inside a company.  

5. Cause and Effect Map Graphic Organizer: Understanding Complex Events  

The cause and effect map helps determine the causes and effects of certain events. The way to use it is to start with a main event, which fills the main central section of the map. From the main section, other connected shapes stem out to the left and right. The shapes to the left represent the causes that helped the event happen. The shapes to the right are the effects of the chosen event. Sometimes, an effect can also become a cause, creating a feedback loop. This graphic organizer can help show how something is achieved using the causes functionality. For example, "Be more productive" can be the main event. 

Some causes on each side could be spending less time on social media or using a calendar or timer. Another way to use a cause-and-effect map is to predict the outcome of a particular event. For example, "Move the office to a bigger place downtown" can be the main event. To predict possible effects, connect shapes to the right of the main event and fill them in. Some of the impacts could be that it would be a longer commute or we would be closer to networking events. 

The cause and effect map can also be combined with a sequence of events chain. 

This way, you can progress towards a cause or a succession of events after an effect. You could make a combined cause-and-effect map with a sequence of events chains for flipping a house. The main event would be "Flipping a House." The causes could include looking for a new investment, buying an old home, or seeing a great investment opportunity. The cause-and-effect map is one of the most versatile of all graphic organizers.

1. Stay on Track with a Clear Focus: Define Your Research Goals

Before taking notes, take some time to define your research goals. What information are you hoping to find? As you read and make notes, keep returning to your original purpose. It’s okay for your goals to change as you conduct your research , but having a clear direction will help you stay organized and avoid getting lost in the details.  

2. Organize Your Research Notes for Easy Access   

Effective note-taking begins long before you start writing. Set up a folder for your research and label it clearly. As you find articles, books, and other sources, save them in your folder to keep your research organized. If you’re using digital files, create subfolders to categorize your sources and save your digital files frequently. Make sure to label all files clearly. This will help you locate information quickly when it’s time to write.  

3. Summarize Key Information in Your Own Words  

Taking point-form notes in your own words will help you better understand your research and avoid plagiarism. Include your thoughts and analysis about the reading. This will help you make connections to your work and develop original ideas. Be sure to note references and page numbers for all sources so you can cite them properly in your writing.  

4. Wait for the Right Moment to Take Notes  

As you read, it’s tempting to start taking notes immediately when you come across interesting information. Instead, wait for breaks in the text—such as paragraphs, sub-sections, or chapters—before summarizing the author’s ideas. Then, go back to the specific details you wish to include. This will help you process the information and understand how it fits into your work.  

5. Review Your Notes and Summarize Key Points  

Once you have finished the whole text, review your notes and summarize the key points and how they relate to your work. This will help reinforce your understanding of the material and make incorporating your research into your writing easier. 

• Literature Search Template • ChatGPT Prompts For Research • How To Find Gaps In Research • Research Journal Example • How To Find Limitations Of A Study • How To Do A Literature Search • Research Concept Map • Meta-Analysis Methods • How To Identify Bias In A Source • Search Strategies For Research • Literature Search Template • How To Read A Research Paper Quickly • How to summarize a research article • How To Evaluate An Article • ChatGPT Summarize Paper • How To Take Notes For A Research Paper

Researching for a paper or project can quickly get overwhelming. You will find countless articles, papers, videos, websites, and other sources as you search for information. Before you know it, hundreds of potential resources are saved to various platforms, and your brain is overloaded. Collecting and organizing research is a critical step in writing any paper, but the task can be daunting with the sheer volume of information available today. 

Otio can help you calm the research chaos with a centralized platform for collecting, organizing, and writing research papers. Instead of getting lost in a maze of digital files and notes, you can use Otio to create a smooth workflow that helps you get from reading to writing quickly. 

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Literature Review Guide: How to organise the review

• What is a Literature Review?
• How to start?
• Picking your research question and searching
• Search strategies and Databases
• How to organise the review
• Examples of Literature Reviews
• Library summary

How to structure your literature review (ignore the monotone voice as advice is good)

How to structure and write your literature review

• Chronological, ie. by date of publication or trend
• Methodological
• Use Cooper's taxonomy to explore and determine what elements and categories to incorporate into your review
• Revise and proofread your review to ensure your arguments, supporting evidence and writing is clear and precise

Cronin, P., Ryan, F. & Coughlan, M. (2008). Undertaking a literature review: A step-by-step approach . British Journal of Nursing, 17 (1), pp.38-43.

Different ways to organise a Literature Review

CHRONOLOGICAL (by date): This is one of the most common ways, especially for topics that have been talked about for a long time and have changed over their history. Organise it in stages of how the topic has changed: the first definitions of it, then major time periods of change as researchers talked about it, then how it is thought about today.

BROAD-TO-SPECIFIC : Another approach is to start with a section on the general type of issue you're reviewing, then narrow down to increasingly specific issues in the literature until you reach the articles that are most specifically similar to your research question, thesis statement, hypothesis, or proposal. This can be a good way to introduce a lot of background and related facets of your topic when there is not much directly on your topic but you are tying together many related, broader articles.

MAJOR MODELS or MAJOR THEORIES : When there are multiple models or prominent theories, it is a good idea to outline the theories or models that are applied the most in your articles. That way you can group the articles you read by the theoretical framework that each prefers, to get a good overview of the prominent approaches to your concept.

PROMINENT AUTHORS : If a certain researcher started a field, and there are several famous people who developed it more, a good approach can be grouping the famous author/researchers and what each is known to have said about the topic. You can then organise other authors into groups by which famous authors' ideas they are following. With this organisation it can help to look at the citations your articles list in them, to see if there is one author that appears over and over.

CONTRASTING SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT : If you find a dominant argument comes up in your research, with researchers taking two sides and talking about how the other is wrong, you may want to group your literature review by those schools of thought and contrast the differences in their approaches and ideas.

Ways to structure your Literature Review

Different ways to organise your literature review include:

• Topical order (by main topics or issues, showing relationship to the main problem or topic)
• Chronological order (simplest of all, organise by dates of published literature)
• Problem-cause-solution order
• General to specific order
• Known to unknown order
• Comparison and contrast order
• Specific to general order
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• Next: Examples of Literature Reviews >>
• Last Updated: Sep 6, 2024 3:37 PM
• URL: https://ait.libguides.com/literaturereview

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• Hirsh Health Sciences Library

Writing in the Health Sciences

• Graphic Organizers
• Writing in General - Books and E-Books
• Writing in General - Articles and Links
• What Kind of Review is Best for you?
• Case Reports
• Literature Review
• Research Papers
• Style Guides
• Personal Statements and Interviewing

What is a Graphic Organizer?

A graphic organizer is a visual tool used to express ideas and concepts, and convey meaning. A graphic organizer often depicts the relationships between facts; concepts; terms; thoughts; and/or ideas. It can help writers by creating a visual map or diagram of ideas . There are many similar names for graphic organizers including: knowledge maps, concept maps, story maps, cognitive organizers, advance organizers, or concept diagra ms

• The Great and Powerful Graphic Organizer Excellent explanation of graphic organizers, with examples from a teaching perspective.
• Houghton Mifflin Graphic Organizers A long list of many types of organizers, free to download.
• Write Design Organizers This site describes five main types of graphic organizers in detail. It provides links to many more. It then describes the process one must go through in using a graphic organizer.
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• Last Updated: Jun 25, 2024 9:16 AM
• URL: https://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/papers

Literary Elements Map

About this Interactive

Related resources.

An updated version of the Story Map , this interactive best suits secondary students in literary study. The tool includes a set of graphic organizers designed to assist teachers and students in prewriting and postreading activities, focusing on the key elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution development (shown at left). As with the Story Map, this interactive can be used in multiple contexts, whether they be author studies, genre studies, or thematic units, among others. Students can map out the key literary elements for a variety purposes, including response to literature or as a prewriting activity when composing their own fiction. After completing individual sections or the entire organizer, students have the ability to print out their final versions for feedback and assessment.

• Lesson Plans
• Calendar Activities

Students will enjoy this blast from the past as they read the works of Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein to analyze the way social issues are addressed in selected works.

Students complete a short survey to establish their beliefs about technology. They compare their opinions to the ideas in a novel that depicts technology (such as 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 ).

In this activity, students read short stories and create presentations in multiple media to share in a Short Story Fair. At the fair, students explore and respond to the displays.

Students read an example of allegory, review literary concepts, complete literary elements maps and plot diagrams, create a pictorial allegory, and write diamante poems related to the theme of change.

Students will identify how Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of nonviolent conflict-resolution is reinterpreted in modern texts. Homework is differentiated to prompt discussion on how nonviolence is portrayed through characterization and conflict. Students will be formally assessed on a thesis essay that addresses the Six Kingian Principles of Nonviolence.

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Explore Resources by Grade

• Kindergarten K

• University of Oregon Libraries
• Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

• 6. Synthesize
• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it Describe a Literature Review?
• 1. Identify the Question
• 2. Review Discipline Styles
• Searching Article Databases
• Finding Full-Text of an Article
• Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching
• 4. Manage Your References
• 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate

Synthesis Visualization

Synthesis matrix example.

• 7. Write a Literature Review

• Synthesis Worksheet

About Synthesis

Approaches to Synthesis

You can sort the literature in various ways, for example:

How to Begin?

Read your sources carefully and find the main idea(s) of each source

Look for similarities in your sources – which sources are talking about the same main ideas? (for example, sources that discuss the historical background on your topic)

Use the worksheet (above) or synthesis matrix (below) to get organized

This work can be messy. Don't worry if you have to go through a few iterations of the worksheet or matrix as you work on your lit review!

Four Examples of Student Writing

In the four examples below, only ONE shows a good example of synthesis: the fourth column, or  Student D . For a web accessible version, click the link below the image.

Long description of "Four Examples of Student Writing" for web accessibility

• Download a copy of the "Four Examples of Student Writing" chart

Click on the example to view the pdf.

From Jennifer Lim

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• Next: 7. Write a Literature Review >>
• Last Updated: Aug 12, 2024 11:48 AM
• URL: https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/litreview

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A Systematic Review of Graphic Organizers Method in Reading Comprehension

Journal of English Language Teaching and Education (JELTE)

This research aimed to review previous relevant studies to see the contribution of graphic organizers method in reading comprehension. This research was conducted using a systematic review qualitative research method. The object in this study were five previous relevant studies that have been selected using inclusion and exclusion criteria. The method used to collect the data in this study were internet searching (Google Scholar), manual searching, and Zotero software. The data was analyzed by thematic analysis. The results of the review showed that overall the students’ achievement after applying graphic organizers had improved such as: (1) students more creative in make their own graphic organizers, (2) it help them to separate relevant details from what is fascinating but not necessary for instance, (3) store vocabulary, (4) summarize reading text, (5) students’ confidence had improved, (6) the knowledge of student’s text structure had improved and (7) deepen understanding. That...

Related Papers

Kristina Laora

Reading is one of the skills used to measure the level of academic success. There is a mutual relationship between reading skills and academic success. Students from a variety of backgrounds struggle with reading skill. The purpose of this study was to investigate how graphic organizers can be used in enhancing reading comprehension. Graphic organizers (GOs) facilitate the reading comprehension by providing clear visualizations of ideas and facilitating student reflection. This study constitutes an attempt to elaborate the research evidence regarding the usefulness of GOs on text learning and the various types of graphic organizers, which use different conventions to communicate information and are classified in various ways. It also summarizes research findings and issues on the use of GOs in text types namely narrative, descriptive, recount, procedure and report. The result showed that in using graphic organizers in reading comprehension, students were successful in identifying th...

Mehdi Bagheri

Introduction Literature Review Graphic organizers are visual, and spatial displays designed to facilitate the teaching and learning of textual materials through the “use of lines, arrows, and a spatial arrangement that describe text content, structure, and key conceptual relationship” (Darch & Eaves, 1986, p. 310). Gill (2007) defined graphic organizers as visual and spatial illustrations which show the relationships existing between concepts of a text and their effectiveness covers almost all kinds of subject areas. Graphic organizers are “visual displays teachers use to organize information in a manner that makes the information easier to understand and learn” (Meyen, Vergason, & Whellan, 1996, p. 132). Also, Jones, Pierce, and Hunter (1988/1989) stated that “a good graphic organizer can show the key parts of a whole and their relations, thereby allowing a holistic understanding that words alone can’t convey” (p. 21). In other studies, “graphic organizers have taken the form of an...

International Journal of Language Teaching and Education

Dewi Rochsantiningsih

This research aimed to describe the process of improving students’ reading comprehension of narrative text through graphic organizer strategy in SMP Regina Pacis Surakarta. It was conducted to the ninth year students, especially class VIII A as the subject of research. The researcher conducted a classroom action research. Achievement test, observation checklist and field note used as the tools of data collecting. The research findings showed that graphic organizer strategy was appropriate for teaching reading comprehension. Students’ mean score increased from 63 to 78. The students were able to map out basic components of the story such as setting, problem, goals, action, and outcomes. Graphic organizerprovides structure and organization so students were able to comprehend the story more effective.

LARAIB RAHAT , Shahab Ullah

The present study deals with the impact of graphic organizers (GOs) on reading comprehension of intermediate level English learners. The study specifically focused on the teaching of English drama through graphic organizers. The study also explored participants' perceptions about using these graphic organizers. A quasi-experimental design was used in this study. Forty intermediate level students participated in this study. The twenty students of the experimental group received the GOs treatment, while the twenty participants of the control group were taught through the traditional method. A pre-test and post-test were conducted from both groups to test the impact of participants' reading comprehension with five weeks' treatment. The collected data were analyzed through a t-test. A significant difference was observed in the mean score of both groups and results revealed that the use of GOs had a positive impact on the comprehension of the students. The semi-structured interviews analyzed qualitatively through themes and subthemes showed a positive perception towards the use of GOs. The graphic GOs could help in increasing reading comprehension as well in understanding the text structure with a positive perception of their use.

This study is an experimental research with a factorial design addressed to investigate the effectiveness of graphic organizers and GIST strategy to enhance reading comprehension of students with good and poor reading habits. The samples of this study were the twelfth graders of MA Sholahuddin Demak in the academic year of 2016/2017. There were two classes that became the samples of the study. Graphic organizers strategy was used in the first experimental group, and GIST strategy was used in the second experimental group. To answer research questions number one up to four, T-test was used; meanwhile, two-ways ANOVA with F-test at the 5% (0.05) level of significance was used to answer the fifth up to seventh question. The result of this study showed that graphic organizers and GIST strategy were effective to enhance reading comprehension of students with good and poor reading habits. In addition, there is no significant difference of the use of graphic organizers and GIST strategies ...

Journal Health Education and Welfare

Vianey Castelán Flores

Foreign language learners have difficulties understanding texts because they try to code and decode in their mother tongue; then, the necessity of looking for a strategy to help them is crucial. The objective of this research is to show how digital graphic organizers (DGOs) help students develop reading comprehension, especially in understanding the evolution of the English language. The review of different theories about DGOs guided to identify a proto-typed model of analysis and design digital activities to represent students&#39; understanding of a text. Methodologically, an experimental design consisting of pre and post-treatment tests were applied in the control and experimental group, during fall 2019 in the English Language Teaching Bachelor at BUAP, on a sample of 60 subjects. A treatment phase (didactic intervention) to prove the suitability of the proposal took place by using DGOs as a tool to promote reading comprehension of texts and knowledge representation. The most ou...

Martha E Youman, Ph.D.

Syaifudin Darmawan

This action research is carried out to (1) identify whether graphic organizers can improve students’ reading comprehension; and (2) to describe the classroom situation when graphic organizers are employed in instructional process of reading comprehension. The research is conducted in two cycles from March to May 2010 in the second grade of SMA N.6 Surakarta. The procedure of the research consists of identifying the problem, planning the action, implementing the action, observing the action, and reflecting the result of the research. Qualitative data are collected through interview, observation, questionnaire, and research diary. Quantitative data are collected through test. To analyze qualitative data, the researcher used constant comparative method. It consists of four steps: (1) comparing incidents applicable to each category; (2) Integrating categories and their properties; (3) delimiting the theory; (4) Writing the theory. Meanwhile, to analyze quantitative data, the researcher ...

JOURNAL OF TEACHING AND LEARNING IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (JTLEE)

Eva Astuti Mulyani 8813190018

Reading comprehension is a substantial skill in elementary school. If childrenhave the skill to read, facing other lesson would be easy. This study employs aquantitative descriptive method that aims at explaining numbers in words. Theresult showed that the average of students&#39; reading skill after being exposed tographic organizer-based reading comprehension teaching materials indetermining the basic thoughts was of 63.75, and students&#39; skill in explaininginformation was 71.04. At this stage, their skill was considered good enough, sothat an improvement to design teaching materials and trainings should befacilitated for the teachers.

Bushra Al Jamaliah

" A picture is worth a thousand words. " In a modern-day classroom, students are surrounded by visual imagery through textbooks, notice boards, television, videos, or computers. Many middle school classrooms are filled with colorful pictures and photographs. However, it is unclear how – or if-these images impact the middle school ESL students who are developing reading comprehension. The focus of this article is on ESL middle school language learners' use of these graphics as information organizers while comprehending a passage for main ideas, supporting details, facts, opinions, comparisons and contradictions. This article also examines and proposes different forms of graphic organizers for achieving better understanding of texts. Differences in performance between the students who are exposed to the use of graphic organizers and the students who are not similarly exposed have been analyzed in this article. The experimental and control groups of this research are middle school students in ESL classes. The analytical method, ANOVA, is used to project the performance difference between the controlled and experimental groups. The result of the post-test suggested that the experimental group students have improved in all the five types of reading questions compared to controlled group students. Therefore, using graphic organizers is effective in reading questions like (1) identifying the main idea, (2) finding the supporting details, (3) dealing with vocabulary and (4) fact and opinion & (5) making inferences. Furthermore, the pedagogical implication here is the use graphic organizers during reading comprehension sessions indirectly motivates the students to create their own graphic organizer for the passages they read and comprehend. This improves their creativity.

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Graphic Organizers 101: Why and How To Use Them

• EdTech & Innovation

Introduction:

Visual learning has gained significant attention over the past few years, especially in the education sector. One such visual learning tool is a “graphic organizer.” This article will explore what graphic organizers are, why they are an essential learning tool, and how to use them effectively.

What are Graphic Organizers?

Simply put, graphic organizers are visual aids that help learners organize and present information visibly. They make use of diagrams, charts, mind maps, or other graphical elements to represent concepts and ideas in a structured manner. By doing so, graphic organizers enable learners to gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter by uncovering connections and relationships between various pieces of information.

Why Use Graphic Organizers?

1. Enhance Understanding: The human brain can process visual content more efficiently than textual data. Graphic organizers capitalize on this by visually representing complex ideas or concepts that might be difficult to understand through text alone.

2. Foster Critical Thinking: By breaking down complex ideas into smaller components, graphic organizers encourage learners to analyze each aspect individually and identify connections between them.

3. Improve Memory Retention: Studies show that information presented visually is retained better than verbal-only material. Thus, using graphic organizers can significantly improve memory retention and recall.

4. Aid in Organization and Planning: Graphic organizers offer an excellent way for students to structure their thoughts and ideas as they plan out essays, projects, or presentations.

5. Facilitate Differentiated Instruction: Since students learn at different paces and with varied styles, graphic organizers serve as a versatile learning tool that can be adapted to suit individual needs.

How To Use Graphic Organizers:

1. Choose the Right Organizer: Begin by selecting a graphic organizer suitable for your specific learning objectives. Some common types include Venn diagrams for comparing/contrasting ideas, timelines for chronological events, or flowcharts for processes.

2. Gather Your Material: Collect the necessary information related to your topic. This might include relevant facts, figures, quotes, or other critical pieces of data.

3. Break Down the Information: Analyze the gathered material and divide it into smaller components or subtopics. These will correspond to individual sections or elements of your graphic organizer.

4. Organize and Represent: Start building your graphic organizer by placing key ideas within their designated sections or boxes. Next, create connections and relationships using arrows, lines, or other visual aids.

5. Simplify and Refine: Finally, review your graphic organizer and simplify or refine the content wherever possible. Ensure that your final result is visually appealing and easy to read.

Conclusion:

Graphic organizers are a powerful tool that can enhance both teaching and learning. By incorporating these aids into classrooms, students can efficiently process information, improve critical thinking skills, memory retention, organizational skills, and cater to different learning styles. Start harnessing the power of these versatile tools today, and witness the positive impact they can have on your educational journey.

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