Can't figure out how to tackle this (literature review)

I'm a freshman and I've been assigned to do an essay that is to be a mininum of 25 pages. We were asked to submit our topic proposals a few weeks ago and I believe I unintentionally have screwed myself over. The more research I do on my topic the worse it gets, there is too much to sift through! There are literally thousands of journals articles on the topic and each one I read just adds another layer of complexity. I feel like no one single author agrees with the author, they just grab bits of each others work and try and propose some new model or theory that slightly varies from the dozen that already exist in hopes of making a career for themselves as an academic!

How in the hell do you put together a literature review in a reasonable amount of time? How does this process not literally take hundreds of hours? You have to read hundreds of articles each of which are about as long as the paper you intend to write. Evaluate which ones are relevent to your topic, then pick those apart so you're not plagarizing and take in depth notes on them, and then finally write the damn thing! Or do you just randomely grab 25-30 articles that vaguely complement the others and put together some worthless paper that ultimately contributes nothing of value to you, are the field you're interested in, and hope for the best in terms of a grade? There is a draft of this damn thing due at the end of the week, there is just too much information!

Greetings!

Believe me, I feel your pain! While I don't know a way to make the process completely painless, I can give you some tips which may help.

First of all, you are correct: you cannot possibly read and analyze all the available articles on whatever the subject is, if there are hundreds or thousands. Narrow the focus of your topic as much as possible, using key words to search the document for the terms that are most relevant to you. If you can find articles which have abstracts at the beginning that condense the information down into a paragraph or two, use those abstracts to decide whether the article is worth reading a little more in depth. Don't randomly grab articles, but don't drive yourself crazy trying to find the "perfect" ones, either. Ultimately, at some point (and it sounds like you've reached that point), you just have to choose.

When I'm writing something that requires a lot of sources, I like, if possible, to paste the most relevant ones into a Word document so that I can highlight the most important parts in red, to find them more easily when I want to quote from them. Depending on what database you are using, you may or may not be allowed to "copy" from the article, but it will make your life much easier if you can.

Somtimes, the criteria I use to choose sources has less to do with content and more to do with ease of use or understanding, especially if I am writing on a tight deadline. If an article uses difficult-to-decipher, esoteric language, put it aside and go on to one that is more "user-friendly." At this point, with a draft due at the end of the week, you may not be able to write the paper as brilliantly as you might like, but at least you can get it done, and polish it later when you do your final draft.

Our "Free Essays and Articles" section has information which may be helpful, if you can bear to read any more articles! Just remember this, as far as your research goes: you can't read it all. Give yourself permission to just do what you are able to do, and let the rest of it go.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

Sarah, EssayForum.com