MKT 4620 Marketing Research: Research Matrix

Visit tinyurl.com/MatrixCopy to make a copy of a blank research matrix.

Use the matrix to identify common themes and organize them in a way to help you write your literature review.

• Include an APA citation
• After reading multiple articles, identify major themes
• As you fill out the matrix, there may be some blanks.  This is ok, not all sources will discuss every theme.

Synthesizing vs Summarizing

Your matrix will help you to organize your literature review into major themes.

Your literature review should be more than a summary of the resources you found.  It will:

• Integrate information from multiple sources to show you have done research
• Analyze and combine multiple sources in a meaningful way
• Identify how resources relate to your topic and to each other
• Focus on ideas and themes not just on summaries or quotations
   

What do you notice about each of these writing examples?  Which is a good example of synthesis?

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

Activity source.