The Literature Review

So I did my final project on the literature review.  Perhaps one of the most difficult projects I have encountered, but it's worth it.  As a psychology major, I felt that learning how to write a literature review was very important because I know I'll be writing these in my future.  I chose to write a review on the psychological effects of correctional insititutions.  My aim here was to find out which was a larger factor, cognition or behavior, as they have been opposing theories for some time. 
I think the hardest part of writing a literature review is coming up with the question.  I started off not knowing what to do since I changed topics from my mini lit. review to my final lit review.  Then, once I knew in what realm I wanted to write about, narrowing the topics was difficult.  Luckily, Prof. Hicks is a great help.  I went to her office hours and she helped me tremendously in narrowing down into a managable topic.  After that, it's all about finding books and articles.  I  know some people have probably never checked out a book since almost everything is online, but I decided to hit the library for some foundational studies and develop from there.  One source that I found helpful in creating my foundation was a book that I have at home.  It's a textbook that I bought at used book store by Philip Zimbardo, a famous social psychologist.  The book had the foundations of the behavioral and cognitive theories and approaches which the later studies and experiments used and have developed from.
This project wasn't easy, but it did help me a lot to prepare what my psychology classes have for me in the future.  Advice for the students who take this class later, DON'T procrastinate. You'll only hurt yourself.  And second, if you need help, see Prof. Hicks, she doesn't have office hours for nothing.  She's a great help. Good Luck.