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Literature Review
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What is Literature Review?

A literature review is a structured survey of existing research on a given subject, designed to map what is already known, identify gaps, and establish context for new inquiry. It appears across virtually every academic discipline — from medicine and social science to education and business — because nearly every field requires writers to situate their arguments within an ongoing scholarly conversation. What makes the form academically demanding is that it requires critical synthesis rather than simple summary: writers must evaluate sources, trace patterns across findings, and build a coherent understanding of how a topic has developed over time.

The papers archived here reflect the breadth of subjects that a literature review can address. Some take a clinical or scientific orientation, examining topics such as kidney transplantation, stem cell treatment of leukemia, and maggot debridement therapy for necrotic tissue. Others focus on social and policy concerns, including teen pregnancy risk factors, fatherless homes and child development, affordable housing for low-income families, and special education referral processes for Haitian students. Still others address organizational and research methodology questions, such as pay-for-performance models, scenario planning, and international research methods. Across all these angles, the core task remains the same: synthesizing journal-based evidence to support a focused argument.

A strong literature review establishes a clearly scoped research question and organizes sources thematically or conceptually rather than listing them one by one. Evidence drawn from peer-reviewed journals carries the most weight, and writers should prioritize recent, field-specific studies. The most common pitfall is letting the review become purely descriptive — strong papers consistently evaluate the quality, limitations, and implications of the sources they discuss.

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Paper Undergraduate
History and Legacy of the Rosicrucian Order Explained
As a thesis-length investigation of the history of the Rosicrucian Order, this essay investigates the origins of the order within the political and religious context of seventeenth century Germany. Arising at a time when England and Germany were uniting against the power of the Roman Catholic Church, the Rosicrucian Order taught a radical form of progressive social justice geared towards the betterment of society. Although the legacy of Rosicrucianism is not all positive, in the end the movement's contributions to politics, art, literature, and metaphysics outweigh any negative consequences of its teachings.
Essay Doctorate
Succession Planning in Multi-Faceted Small Business Enterprises
This descriptive research study explored the succession planning in small business entrepreneur of a multi-faceted entity. The purpose was to ensure the continued success and sustainability of small business entities despite their complexity and diversity. Review of the literature discussed indicated that small business enterprises are lagging behind other businesses and organizations in their succession planning endeavors. In assessing the efforts in these entities, Questionnaires, interviews played a larger role in collecting data about succession planning and management programs within Nadia La Russa organization, the roles played by the administrative and HR personnel in embracing opportunities and dealing with future challenges during critical incidents in the process of succession planning.
Case Study Undergraduate
Lifelong Learning and Ecological Thinking: A Convergence
Two profound fields of human opportunity are evolving of their natural accord toward what each believes to be more viable understandings of what it means to learn and to care about our enviroment. This piece reviews the trends in lifelong learning and those in the emergence of an ecological mindset to demonstrate their commonalities and how their similaries (along with the technological communication revolution) may make it more likely that both efforts will achieve their goals with a much happier outcome for us all.
Research Paper Masters
Product Life Cycle Design Decisions in Manufacturing
How product design is applied in decision-making of that organization?
Paper Doctorate
Extroverted Intuition Personality and Workplace Management
In this paper we are looking at the impact of the extroverted intuition personality on the work environment. This is accomplished by conducting a literature review, creating a self-assessment tool for identifying these individuals and answering questions as to how this can be applied to a specific firm. Once this occurs, is when we can see how testing can help all companies find the right managers that will assist them in reaching their long term objectives.
Research Paper Doctorate
Aggression and Behavior: Gender Differences Examined
An Examination of the Relationship Between Aggression and Behavior
Research Paper Doctorate
Mental Health of Child Refugees: Interventions and Outreach
It is estimated that over one billion people of all ages worldwide are affected by mass violence. They suffer from the experience of war, ethnic conflict, torture and terrorism, and, in a large number of cases, are…
Essay Doctorate
Compaq–DEC Merger: IT Culture and Integration Strategy
Both Compaq and DEC need to find a unified strategy direction to pursue, not keep fighting to see which programs or software platforms by business unit will survive or not. The case study is a classic example of what happens when IT infrastructure becomes more important than the strategic growth of a merged organization. The case also illustrates how powerful IT infrastructure and information flows are in creating an effective culture or not as well. If the management team had focused =more on IT initiatives that would unify and capture the best of both companies, there is a good chance they would still be independent today. Second, the lack of strategic vision and insight into just how profitable the B2O and mass customization strategies could have been is remarkable. Compaq and Dell could have integrated their supply chain, sourcing, manufacturing, product planning, product management and services strategies under a consolidated ERP system and attained higher growth that the fractionalized, disconnected organization they grew into did. The fact it took nearly 20 days to complete even a basic quote for enterprise systems within Compaq during this time period shows just how disconnected, disparate the IT architectures had become (Columbus, 2003). Compaq and DEC needed to use IT architectures to create a unified corporate culture supporting by strongly integrating product, marketing, service and long-term customer relationship strategies.
Research Paper Doctorate
NIOSH Lifting Equation: Ergonomics Guidelines for Safe Manual Lifting
Reasons for development of NIOSH guidelines
Paper Undergraduate
Effective PTSD Treatment: Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy
Two authoritative sources were reviewed on the topic of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One source was a textbook authored by numerous experts and provided details of their clinical experiences treating PTSD in conjunction with their knowledge of relevant empirical research. That source also covered the full range of treatments available. The second source was a literature review detailing the relative effectiveness of different selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of PTSD. That source was limited in scope to one class of pharmacotherapy but still identified an important gap in the empirical literature currently available: namely, the absence of studies considering the relative effectiveness of combined modalities in treating PTSD. It also concluded that SSRI-based treatments are more effective in the long term than when limited to the shorter term.