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Home > Books > Higher Education - Reflections From the Field - Volume 2

Creative Writing in Higher Education: A Literature Review of the Marketplace Relationship

Reviewed: 09 December 2022 Published: 11 January 2023

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.109427

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Radical changes in digital technology represent a challenge to the marketplace-resistant discipline of creative writing. Prior to any research being conducted on this issue, one needs to obtain a solid understanding of the issues of those working, studying and teaching in the field. This literature review works within specific parameters to examine the relationship of creative writing in higher education to the marketplace as described in the current scholarship in the field. Although there have been no other studies on this subject, a significant body of research exists on the pedagogy and practices of the creative writer and creative writing in higher education. This examination considers stakeholders’ views, experiences, teaching goals and marketplace theories, along with some empirical investigations. The review draws from Australian, UK and US experiences and practices.

• creative writing
• marketplace
• digital age

Author Information

Susan taylor suchy *.

• University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

While a significant body of research exists on the pedagogy and practices of the creative writer and creative writing in higher education, this literature review is unique in focusing on the student’s relationship in creative writing to the marketplace as described in current scholarship by students and educators in the field of creative writing. These stakeholders’ views, experiences and teaching goals along with relevant empirical investigations are examined.

The importance of considering this specific context can be understood by considering the core debate of social science research and that is the struggle between agency and structure. Therefore, in the creative writing context, the student is not autonomous in their academic environment [ 1 ]. From this perspective, if context influences a student’s conception, the environment the student works within at the university therefore must inform the student’s relationship to the marketplace. This is of particular significance, as the digital world offers marketplace opportunities not previously available to the creative writer.

This review covers the past 30 years. The most significant reason for choosing this timeframe is that the digital age has had a visible effect on the field of creative writing during this period, and there has been a large amount of discussion around the issue of the marketplace. The establishment in 1996 of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses as an online resource demonstrates one case of the impact on the field. By 2013, Kohler [ 2 ], in the United States, provided a view of the field in relationship to digital developments and suggests categories for organising the digital component of the field. Covid has also had a radical impact on teaching as well as digital publishing. Conducting the review during this timeframe creates a snapshot of the shift in the discussion about the marketplace relationship.

The review begins with a description of the methodology used to locate relevant works. The relevant literature is then examined and discussed.

2. Methodology

To find the literature, I systematically searched OneSearch and EBSCO host for peer-reviewed articles, journals and books in the field. I also searched JSTOR and Project Muse. Journals that focused on pedagogy were most useful. TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses and New Writing : The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing yielded the most significant amounts of relevant information in single locations. In addition, searches were performed through Google and Google Scholar. The ‘snowball’ method was also used to locate pertinent articles by drawing from citations in recent works. The key to managing the large amount of material was to keep the focus on the research question (i.e. What is the relationship of the student in creative writing to the marketplace?). Slight variations of words and phrases produced relevant literature. The situation was complicated to examine. For example, there are different expectations for different study levels, different countries have different approaches, as do different institutions, individual educators and students. Therefore, some literature and studies may have been missed or were not included.

In addition, I drew from a discussion in a private Facebook group that focused on pedagogy in the field. Occasionally, news articles were used. This method of searching may demonstrate a bias towards open-source journals and may also create a bias towards a particular country. The cases that emerged focus on the Australian, UK and US contexts.

After gathering the literature, I coded and sorted to create a conceptual schema. For more on this method, see [ 3 ]. What emerged is an overview of the relationship from a range of voices in the field. I recognise that pedagogical approaches change over time, and I have attempted to organise ideas in a time-linear fashion. However, I have made exceptions to emphasise points and because some studies occur over a period of years.

3. Students’ views

Although there is not a large body of empirical research on student expectations about, and conceptions of, creative writing in higher education [ 4 , 5 ], there are reports and surveys that demonstrate some of the views of students and their experiences of the marketplace and their training. In 1998, a report by Evans and Deller-Evans [ 6 ], on their survey of Australian undergraduate and postgraduate creative writing students, showed a difference between undergraduate and postgraduate goals. Postgraduate students had ‘more specific, craft related hopes such as developing their skills and improving their prospects for publication’ [ 6 ]. Postgraduate (MA) students expected that they would be ‘stretching themselves to the maximum, publishing their work, completing first full-length work within the course, boosting confidence, continuing on to a PhD when possible’ [ 6 ]. In assessing the study, Kroll [ 7 ] determines that some students expect to be paid for their passion. To learn about their reasons for enrolment, Kroll [ 8 ] canvassed a small group of students. Her findings show a publishing and a market-focused interest.

Some express concern about postgraduate-level students achieving marketplace outcomes. Hayes [ 9 ] indicates there is little discussion or concrete preparation provided to students about the marketplace. In searching for a writing career and publication outcomes, Hayes travelled from Australia to America on a Churchill Fellowship to discover what practical preparation was being offered to students. She found that none of the faculty anticipated writing careers or publication outcomes for their students, and there was little professional guidance. However, Jeremijenko [ 10 ] reports that when a student is offered a marketplace-focused experience, the opportunity is appreciated. Jeremijenko travelled from Australia to the United States to examine the MFA experience. She found that the training she received in market preparation to be the most valuable lesson. Neave [ 11 ] provides another view of the US situation. In her 2002–2003 student experience as an MFA student, Neave reports relishing the literary market-focused experience. She argues that US programmes do focus towards the publishing industry, with efforts made to support the student in building relationships with agents, publishers and publishing writers. However, Neave concludes that a market focus for creative writing programmes may never happen because their forte is theory and practice. The relationship of marketplace outcomes to assessment is a concern to McKenzie [ 12 ], an Australian postgraduate student, who questions if success in the marketplace is being used to determine creative ability. While recognising the liminal nature of the relationship, McKenzie emphasises that assessment sways the outcomes of work being produced within programmes. In the UK context, an MA student in 2007 offered a student’s view on the likelihood of making a living in the marketplace as a published writer stating that while some are dreamers aiming for big-fame writing careers, he was not willing to quit his main job [ 13 ]. Perhaps some hold both views. Wright [ 13 ] concludes from the interviews with students that they want success but know it comes from hard work. They want support and contacts and will pay for quality service.

A large 2009 survey [ 14 ] of Australian undergraduates in creative writing programmes sought to learn the reasons for student interest in creative writing, literary writing and literary publishing and concluded there is a lot of interest in reading, publishing and obtaining advice about publishing, but this did not apply to all students. The interpretation of the findings was that students value training and skills gained through study, apart from their interest in literary writing. In further discussion, Brook [ 15 ] cautions that the study was small, and therefore, conclusions are hard to draw. Neave’s [ 16 ] assessment of the report recognises the limitations of the research but finds that some students’ views of creative writing programmes are in conflict with what researchers and those in the field value.

The UK-based National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) provides more insight from students in a collection of case studies that give students’ perspectives of their experiences and outcomes. The case studies are commissioned narratives by students of their experiences studying creative writing in the UK context. There are two components to the NAWE study: ‘Studying Writing’ [ 17 ] presents life as a creative writing student, while ‘Life after graduation’ [ 18 ] has the same contributors reflecting on the past and reporting on their post-graduation experiences. The students described a range of experiences. These graduates are now freelance writers, journalists and teachers. Some are pursuing advanced study. The advice from many of these graduates to aspiring writers is not to give up the day job and to be willing to make compromises. Others hold the belief that this is a realistic view of student experience that takes the focus off the star outcome that some universities and departments use for marketing and advertising publications [ 19 ].

In a qualitative study on student learning in creative writing courses in the United Kingdom, Light [ 5 ] examines both undergraduate and master’s level education. The study focused on 40 students’ perspectives of creative writing compared with other academic writing. Light refers to the work of Lea and Street [ 20 ] and concludes that student writing issues might be due to differences in academic versus student expectations. The final phase of Light’s study considers students’ general conceptions of their experience of writing in the higher education context. In addition to other questions, he asked for general views of creative writing, and some of the responses touched on marketplace and audience issues.

From these few studies and limited accounts, it seems that, regardless of other motivations for being in a creative writing programme, students at various levels do want to find a marketplace and publish. Some appear to become aware of the challenges to publish and adjust their expectations accordingly.

4. Teachers’ perspectives

The teachers’ perspectives of students’ views provide additional insight into the complex relationship. The teachers expressed concern that students had illusions regarding publishing and marketplace expectations. In 1994, Haake [ 21 ] argued that these marketplace misconceptions are encouraged by American creative writing programmes and are problematic, particularly at the postgraduate level. In 1998, in Australia, Kroll [ 8 ] expressed concern for students who want writing careers. She contends that, although most undergraduates do not expect to make money from writing, a few do expect to make money but have no plans on how to achieve this outcome.

Other researchers contend that students are undertaking creative writing courses for non-financial reasons. In a 2000 interview with Brien [ 22 ], Gutkind argued that students cannot explain why they are studying. In 2007, in the Australian context, Krauth and Webb [ 23 ] emphasised that more students are entering programmes to learn how to write, not to be published authors. Yet, in 2010, in the United Kingdom, Roe [ 24 ] contended that being published is the goal for students at the BA and MA level. They want to write and publish novels even if that outcome is a massive challenge. In the same year in the United States, Moxley [ 25 ] contended students want success, but most will fail to achieve that outcome.

The view of ambitious students fits with student expectations described by Chapman [ 26 ]. He argues that many students seek to publish and make money. However, Chapman does not conclude that the students will fail. Chapman claims that the relationship of creative writing in higher education and aiming for the mass market can work, and it’s what students want.

Chapman sees no reason why mass market and literary work cannot both be taught. This view challenges Haake’s [ 21 ] concern expressed 20 years earlier of false expectations. Chapman’s approach requires authors to examine their aesthetic and question their goals. He states that there still is no quick fix. Rather than perceiving the outcome as failure, this perspective has the student committing to the reality of a long journey to reach a marketplace outcome.

The only empirical study in which teachers’ views of students were included was conducted in the United Kingdom. Munden [ 27 ] investigates the changing nature of creative writing at 27 universities over the previous 10 years and considers the future of creative writing. Although the marketplace relationship is not the direct focus of his research, the study does offer some insights on this matter. For example, teachers report that student expectations do not align with what is being taught and what teachers can actually do offer to students. The study shows that publishing outcomes do ultimately matter to some in the university, but there is no clarification as to whether or in what way, students are supported to be entrepreneurial or supported in finding marketplace outcomes.

There are other findings in the report from which conclusions might be drawn. The view that students are keen for visiting and published writer interaction could indicate that students are seeking role models, both in creative and academic publishing. Additionally, the study reports that students believe a degree will lead to employment or a published work, but teachers say they do not imply such outcomes when they teach. This discrepancy raises the question as to whether it represents a failure of the programmes. However, it hardly seems a failure in that creative writing programmes continue to enrol and retain students. Alternatively, the issue may be that students’ expectations of reaching the marketplace (i.e. being published) are not the goals of the educators, as Munden’s [ 27 ] study might indicate. Arguably students should be more selective when choosing creative writing programmes. The issue of selectivity is significant enough to motivate Earnshaw [ 28 ] to develop The handbook of creative writing . Earnshaw argues that there is no one standard for creative writing programmes, and he aims to help students navigate the path. A few universities do offer publishing-focused programmes [ 29 ]. However, this is not common for most creative writing programmes.

More questions were raised in 2016 about students’ views of the marketplace relationship in Creative Writing Pedagogy [ 30 ], a private group on Facebook comprised primarily of creative writing instructors in higher education. Anna Leahy and Stephanie Vanderslice, both leaders in the field in the United States, manage the forum. The conversations offer a useful insight into current views and approaches to pedagogy. In this discussion of the marketplace relationship, Leahy, after reading that creative writing students felt tricked by their programmes and training, asked how teachers can talk to students about the marketplace issues without disheartening them. As a teacher in the field of poetry, Leahy’s experience was that neither she nor her students think they will make money from their writing. Vanderslice tells her students that they will need another source of income. This raised two questions from Leahy: Did students believe this? And, what were other instructors telling their students? A handful of educators responded with their own experiences of trying to teach students to be pragmatic. Anecdotally, Leahy found that today’s students do not have the skills, experience or understanding about the realities of publishing outcomes. In addition, Leahy wondered if things had changed and if so why students did not now understand the uphill challenge. She wondered if the university model of what a degree means had changed how students viewed their experience.

Some of the terms used by the field offer further insight into the complex nature of the marketplace relationship and the resistances that students must negotiate.

5. What is ‘publishable’?

Interestingly, the idea that students should be creating publishable work is one that is deeply held in the field. However, exactly what publishable means is contested, as can be observed in Munden’s [ 27 ] study. A key term of assessment used by educators in the field is that the work created by a student should be of publishable quality. In the US context, the aim of the MFA is to produce students who can create a publishable book-length submission for their final academic assessment [ 31 ]. This view is not unique to the United States. In 2000, the AAWP initiated a programme of state-based seminars, the first of which were held in Adelaide and Melbourne. These seminars involved many of the writing teachers in each state, from the TAFE and University sectors. Topics discussed included ‘publishability’ and ‘publishable standard’ [ 32 ]. In the United Kingdom in 2013, Cusk [ 33 ] reported that work should be ‘of publishable standard’. As the ‘Subject Association for Creative Writing’ in the United Kingdom, the NAWE [ 34 ], rather than providing an overall guideline like the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), presents an outline of what various programmes offer. In this, some courses do state that they aim for publishing outcomes. Others do not indicate whether this is a focus.

Discussion about the term publishable often does not provide clarity as to whether the work will actually be published, and this is a concern to some in the field. In 1999, Dawson [ 35 ] argued that a creative component of publishable quality is a work that will withstand the same critical assessment applied to the cannon of literature. In 2005, Dawson [ 36 ] contended that the postgraduate student’s submission must hold to this standard. This approach does not indicate whether the work will be published. Bourke and Neilsen [ 37 ] expressed this concern about unpublished work being assessed and go on to demonstrate that few students at the time of submitting their final projects have achieved this standard or publication. Some seek to address the issue, but there is no one approach. Kroll [ 38 ] wrestled with what the term publishable means and challenges the resistance to marketplace preparation. She wants more transparency of the term and proposes either including an assessor from the industry (such as an editor or agent) on an examination committee or having a non-academic who looks for what sells to supply a report to examiners, particularly when the examiner is not well published. Harper [ 39 ] considers publishability an out-of-date standard for assessment.

The term continues to be the standard of evaluation, as Boyd [ 40 ] reveals when examining the issue of what publishable quality is in creative writing doctorate outcomes from 1993 to 2008 in Australia. Boyd concludes that publishable is still the main method used for evaluation. Her findings also reveal that universities focus on literary creative work that is not as publishable. This further demonstrates a resistance to commercial marketplace outcomes. Boyd seeks to negotiate an alternative in proposing that more popular genres should be given recognition within higher education, and this can be done by reframing the terms used. Krauth [ 41 ] notes that Boyd’s study demonstrates the publishable nature of creative work developed in programmes because nearly half of the creative works that Boyd assessed in her research did reach the marketplace in some fashion. This analysis indicates that publishing does matter.

Publishing is not just a measure of what students should aim for; publication is valued and is used as a measurement of programme success. Edmonds [ 42 ] considers a shelf of published books displayed at the University of Adelaide as a sign of a high standard of success. However, he is careful to point out that publishing is not the only outcome from the training and programme. Further, he advises, the current situation is very different to the 1970s when validation came from a few readers. Edmonds argues that in the modern marketplace validation may still be small and localised within academic publishing discourse. He does not want to see a shift to commercialisation for validation. Edmonds [ 43 ] also argues the importance of a certain type of narrow market print journal that can provide marketplace outcomes, but does not believe that outcome is necessary for every student. Negotiation of the marketplace can and does come in the form of developing and supporting outlets for publication such as small presses and literary journals and through efforts to recognise and value these publications in the field. Now that many journals are digitally published, this raises questions about the effect on a student’s relationship to the marketplace.

Some researchers demonstrate concern about focusing on the idea of publishing and valuing any commodity outcome over the creative act itself. Harper [ 44 ] proposes that whether the work is published or publishable is not more valuable than other undertakings in creative practice. Harper is not alone in this view. Others consider that despite the ‘publishable’ issue, creative writing education is about something else. There are more ways that the field demonstrates resistance to a focus on the marketplace, and these are found in other terms that are used.

6. What is ‘marketplace’ and what is ‘literature’?

Another term that requires consideration is marketplace. Related to this, the term economy often arises. First, what exactly is the marketplace to those working in higher education creative writing? A commonly held belief is that a creative writer in higher education will publish in the literary marketplace. The slippery nature of this term is recognised by Edmonds [ 43 ] when he examines ways to engage in the ‘so-called’ literary marketplace. According to Brier [ 45 ], who also recognises that the term is ‘elusive’, the literary marketplace produces literature and is the context for literature. When Brier [ 45 ] considers the term literature, he concludes that finding a definition for the term and a description of a discrete marketplace is difficult. He argues that one of the reasons the distinction arises is because of the post-World War II idea of a market economy which disseminates culture, an idea drawn from scholarly work including Bourdieu’s [ 46 ] ‘The field of cultural production, or: the economic world reversed’ and English’s [ 47 ] The economy of prestige . Both works position literature and cultural production in sociological accounts of marketplace and market economy at national and global levels. However, Brier [ 45 ] argues the discussion is ongoing. Bourdieu [ 46 ] offers a foundation for many theorists in creative writing, and the field also draws from the creative industries in its views of the relationship. Other theorists including the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi are considered useful in negotiating the relationship between author and audience [ 48 , 49 ]. There is recognition that engaging in the commercial or mass marketplace is a struggle for those in the field of creative writing, as Sheahan-Bright [ 50 ] finds when examining children’s literature. Mayers [ 51 ] refers to this contested relationship as the ‘tension between “literary” and “genre fiction”’ [ 50 ]. He argues that this issue has been increasing. Certainly, changes brought about by the digital marketplace must play a role in this.

Regarding practical pedagogical issues, Mayers [ 51 ] recognises that some programmes will still train MFA students for the literary marketplace to varying degrees, but he is opposed to training or producing writers for this end and argues that the aim should be ‘experience-based inquiry into the act of writing’ [ 51 ]. Hergenrader [ 52 ] also recognises the limitations in the digital age of the ‘literary marketplace lore’ [ 53 ], along with the issue of genre to which, he argues, students are often more alert than teachers.

Creative writing scholars have used other terms to explore the relationship to the marketplace. Hecq [ 54 ] in examining the relationship between the creative writer and ‘the creativity market’ positions creative work produced in the field within the global knowledge-based economy. Importantly, the concerns about being publishable while working within the university are closely examined [ 55 ]. In Hecq’s context of the ‘creativity market’, Webb [ 49 ] argues that the university can function in the same way as the Greek agora (a communal space for political, religious, economic, educational and social interaction) to balance marketplace and creative needs. Other terms used by the field include ‘the marketplace of ideas’ [ 56 ], ‘cultural capital’ [ 57 ] and the ‘public intellectual’ [ 36 ]. A more sustained discussion of the various terms is beyond the scope of this review. However, these examples demonstrate how it could be argued that the terms all represent an ongoing effort by the field to negotiate a relationship to a marketplace and a resistance to engagement with strictly commercial market outcomes.

7. Reasons for resistance

There appear to be good reasons for resistance in the contemporary context that include protecting students, teachers and the boundaries of the field from the vagaries of the marketplace and other external pressures. For example, the challenges of making an income as a writer in Australia due to a small population and a lack of grant support have been demonstrated [ 58 ] and discussed [ 59 ]. The discussion points to the need for grants; but many writers are unlikely to receive such funding [ 59 ]. The capricious marketplace’s influence on education and the limited amount of grants are not the only concerns. Government and political factors exert pressure on aesthetic practice [ 60 ]. There is a worry that government policy can apply unproductive influence upon academic outcomes. This useful warning is important when considering the publishing outcomes students should be prepared to achieve within the discipline and in ensuring that the terms of engagement are carefully negotiated. Perry [ 61 ] clarifies her preference for ‘creative ecologies’ over ‘creative economy’ to ensure that there is no confusion about economic imperative. To add to the complexity in this environment, over-extended educators must maintain their creative work as well as other demands [ 62 ]. Relating to and complicating this is the issue of the transient nature of being a part-time academic [ 63 ]. Another issue is that of maintaining disciplinary integrity [ 64 ]. In the US context, creative writing often seeks to differentiate itself from English literature and composition writing classes, although in many cases the development of creative writing as a field emerged from, or in relationship to, these areas [ 65 , 66 , 67 ]. The variable borders present challenges. As Kroll [ 64 ] argues, ongoing discussion is required ‘in the context of volatile institutional and research environments as well as variable student bodies’ [ 64 ].

Another example of the challenge of identifying where the boundaries lie is within the areas of creative writing and professional writing that are sometimes lumped into the one discipline. Williamson [ 68 ] argues that magazine study is an area that can bridge the gap between creative and professional if approached from a scholarly perspective, although it is a field that has traditionally been part of other disciplines. Not all would agree. Surma [ 69 ] explains the differences and warns of the danger of the marketplace to professional writing, seeking to locate professional writing away from any vocational or professional orientation and closer to her perspective of the unfettered relationship of creative writing. In addition to these resistances, the purposes of creative writing education demonstrate many goals that are not directly about marketplace preparation.

8. A variety of activities

The development of creative writing programmes in higher education has been well examined from an historical perspective [ 36 , 70 , 71 ]; and the goals for creative writing programmes and classes have been discussed extensively in the pedagogy and are identified by each university and instructor. In the contemporary context, as Myer [ 70 ] explains, creative writing in higher education in the United States reached maturity as a discipline in the late 1960s and early 1970s ‘when the purpose of its graduate programs (to produce serious writers) was uncoupled from the purpose of its undergraduate courses (to examine writing seriously from within)’ [ 70 ].

8.1 For undergraduates

In line with the ‘uncoupled’ approach that Myers [ 70 ] describes, the US-based AWP [ 72 ] differentiates undergraduate from graduate work and states that the graduate school’s goal is ‘to nurture and expedite the development of a literary artist’ [ 72 ]. Undergraduate programmes are ‘mainly to develop a well-rounded student in the liberal arts and humanities, a student who develops a general expertise in literature, in critical reading and in persuasive writing’ [ 72 ]. In a succinct summary of the developments, Bennett [ 73 ] clarifies that these were the goals of universities and governments, not of the students. In Australia and the United Kingdom, creative writing developed in different ways from the United States. However, in the current context, the idea that the undergraduate programme is not focused on training for a mass marketplace or even training serious literary writers has also been recognised and argued in many programmes in these three countries [ 74 ]. For example, for the UK undergraduate, the focus was on reading and writing, as well as developing communication skills for other jobs. The teaching is about learning to think and read [ 75 ].

That there is resistance to the marketplace in undergraduate training is clear. Freiman [ 76 ] argues that ‘Rather than claiming to teach students to write “publishable” writing (after all, published by whom?), we are teaching them about writing/reading and how language functions in its “worldly” contexts’ [ 76 ]. Krauth and Webb [ 23 ] note that writing course enrolment in Australia has increased, while the study of literature has decreased. They analyse this as a move away from a passive way of learning to an active way of learning, unique to creative writing classes. However, the idea of ‘learning to read as a writer’ [ 36 , 77 , 78 , 79 ] is also challenged. Jarvis [ 77 ] argues for a ‘more radical, liberated reading praxis, a “writerly reading” ’ [ 77 ]. He aims to help the field ‘transform from a place in which existing cultural codes are replicated and from which they are promulgated, to a space where the interrogation of cultural codes can take place and new, radical codes can be formed, a locus of dissent’ [ 77 ]. Regardless of the debates on approaches, the current strategy for undergraduate training seems to be fairly consistent in that the approach is about teaching reading and writing. According to Radia [ 80 ], training is not generally focused on the marketplace. However, at the advanced levels of education, what the training is about is more contested.

8.2 For postgraduates

In higher-level training, there are more expectations and discussion of writers becoming professional. There is concern that it is not possible to produce large numbers of professional writers and that there is a need for other jobs for these students. Hayes [ 9 ] considers the practicality of marketplace outcomes for students training as writers and believes that the Australian situation is similar to the US situation. She proposes publishing and journalism as alternatives and encourages student internships as being beneficial to the student, the university and potential employer organisations.

Although the discussion can turn to the idea of vocational training, this is carefully navigated. Edmonds [ 42 ] does not want to be trapped by publishing outcome expectations, but sees the teacher as ‘agent/editor’ [ 42 ]. He views the workshop as a mini version of the publishing market. Wandor [ 71 ] is also careful with the idea of vocational training, describing her approach as ‘professional’; yet she steers away from the Romantic muse [ 81 , 82 ] and the ideas of being a professional writer. Wander’s focus is on building knowledge through critical reading to learn about literary traditions and improve writing. Brook [ 83 ], in considering vocational outcomes in Australian creative writing programmes, argues that ‘Creative writing is not a failed form of vocational training for professional literary careers; rather, it is a form of general literary education in which the figure of “failure” has, at times, played a key pedagogic role in forming personalities’ [ 83 ]. Cowan [ 84 ] recognises the validity of Myers’ ideas about ‘examining literature from within’ [ 70 ], yet recognises a growing vocational focus towards creative industries and the training of research academics. The lack of clarity about the vocational nature complicates the environment the student must navigate.

Another purpose for creative writing arises with the idea of research in higher levels of study. By the end of the 1990s, there had been a move away from creative writing as training for writers and a move towards it being about ‘practice-oriented research’ [ 28 ]. In Australia in 2000, Krauth [ 85 ] argued for more higher degree research and creative writing PhDs. He wants to see creative writing working in the ‘higher echelons’ of academia where the focus is ‘on research excellence and which, to a significant extent, gives universities their “real” reason to exist’ [ 85 ]. Others recognise this direction and see the effort being made to acknowledge creative writing ‘as a form of research’ [ 86 ]. More recent discussion in Australia on training by Kroll and Brien [ 87 ] focuses on preparing students for ‘life’ in a way that may not be about making a living as a creative writer, even if writing and publishing are part of the outcome. They argue that practice-based research prepares graduates ‘to take part fully in the intellectual, creative, cultural and economic life of our nation’ [ 87 ]. The US context is different in this regard with the focus of the MFA being on the creative work, and there is rarely a research component, but there has been some change in this. Donnelly [ 88 ] argues that one of the more critical ambitions of creative writing studies is the training of its graduates in teacher preparation. Donnelly also sees the potential for creative writing studies to develop with a focus on research. The Creative Writing Studies Organisation held its first conference in 2016 and established The Journal of Creative Writing Studies to help fill this gap in the US context. Even with this new direction, there is a concern about publishing and the marketplace, about what constitutes research outcomes for the creative writer and about new challenges in publishing, both creative and critical [ 89 ].

The struggle between creative writing and scholarly expectations increases as more researchers in the field emerge. Programmes may need to recognise that students will piece together their careers. Williamson [ 90 ] introduces the idea of students in the creative arts as ‘future protean careerists’. She focuses on ‘the situated nature of writing’ and refers to Carter’s [ 91 ] ‘pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity’ in which students learn the ‘code of a community of practice new to them’. Williamson [ 90 ] also adopts Woods’ [ 92 ] framework for academic writing that does not differentiate between orientations (e.g. creative writing and professional writing). Williamson [ 90 ] argues this approach allows students to gain training that helps them make a cognisant transfer as writers to a workplace. A 2015 Curtin University final report [ 93 ] from a study of 4360 graduates that included creative writers cites Williamson’s work and argues for training across various areas of writing.

Many educators have contributed new literature and terms as writer-scholars of creative writing practice-led research. Some have focused on identifying new research methods to bring critical research and creative practice together [ 94 ]. The educators’ role is also discussed in this environment. Krauth [ 41 ] considers the role of supervisor as editor. The questions of whether this implies a preparation for the marketplace and, if so, what is that marketplace and what degree of editorial intervention is required are not easy to answer. Krauth [ 41 ] contends that for doctoral candidates, supervisors are the best editors. Manery’s [ 95 ] 2016 phenomenological study reveals five different pedagogical identities in educators in the field: ‘Expert Practitioner, Facilitator, Change Agent, Co-Constructor of Knowledge and Vocational Coach’. All these issues indicate the complex territory that the student negotiates if they are trying to write for the marketplace.

9. Other ideas about training

Additionally, there are many other ideas about what occurs in creative writing education, in which the focus shifts away from the marketplace. These include ideas about creativity, therapy and experience and other non–market-oriented outcomes. The creativity issue is widely debated. Pope [ 96 ] discusses creation v. production. Kuhl [ 97 ] is concerned about marketplace creativity and weighs up personal therapeutic writing v. literary writing. Freiman [ 98 ] discusses the ‘dangers of the myths of creativity’. Rodriguez [ 99 ] provides a summary of the many different approaches. Fenza [ 100 ] describes the wide range of approaches and goals creative writing covers—from the aesthetic, to the social and political roles the student takes and how students learn about ‘literature from inside their own work, rather than from outside a text; and this has motivated many to gain greater command of rhetoric and communication skills in general’ [ 99 ]. Fenza [ 100 ] also claims that students ‘analyse psychology and motives, the dynamics of social classes and individual, regional and national beliefs’ [ 100 ]. Additionally, students learn to ‘order their lives and their world’ while ‘advancing the art of literature’ and making stories and poems as ‘gifts for readers and listeners’ [ 100 ]. Importantly, this engagement is ‘a highly civilised and humane act; and appropriately, academe has accepted the practice and making of the literary arts along with study and scholarship in the literary arts’ [ 100 ]. This view is recognised by Harper and Kroll [ 100 ]. By including Fenza’s views in their work, they appear to value these goals and outcomes in Australia and the United Kingdom. However, the approaches do not have to preclude preparing for professional outcomes. Brophy [ 101 ] has broad experience as an educator and an AAWP attendee and is aware of the significance in Australia of ‘outcome-based education, of professional opportunities and the acquisition of transferable skills for students’ [ 101 ]. These, he argues, are ‘central imperatives’ in a large number of creative writing programmes [ 101 ]. However, the situation varies from programme to programme and from educator to educator and makes for a challenging space for the student to negotiate.

10. Educators in favour of being market-prepared

Despite these other focuses – or even resistances – there are educators who are concerned about students becoming market-prepared. Kroll [ 7 , 8 ] seeks to create a consciousness in her students about who will be their customers, about editing and publishing and about the economic concerns of the writer. Manhire [ 102 ] confronts the marketplace situation in the Australian context in an address to the 2001 AAWP Conference, in which he describes a course called ‘Creative Writing in the Marketplace’. He begins by giving apologies for his topic, providing an indication of the angst associated the marketplace discussion. Manhire [ 102 ] provides opportunities and methods for the discipline to help students become more market-prepared. Fisher [ 103 ] raises concerns about a lack of training for creative writers in a plenary address in 2005 at the AAWP 10th Annual Conference. Speaking on ‘The Professional Author; Researching Creativity and Reality’, Fisher argues that writer-artists will become ‘freaks’ without market engagement. He argues that there is more than the mass market to consider and that writing courses should ‘address fundamental issues related to writers making a living—contracts, copyright, legal issues’. Educators must help writers to envision themselves in the marketplace, as part of ‘an industry that survives on market forces’ [ 103 ]. Edmonds [ 43 ] warns of the dangers of a closed system and stresses the need to be talking about a broader marketplace.

In the United States, Vanderslice [ 104 ] is concerned about the concept of not training students to be teachers and publishing writers. Others also challenge those who do not recognise the professional writing outcome expectations of their students. In Australia, Fisher [ 105 ] provides insight on his perspective and that of Thebo [ 19 ] on the role of the university in preparing students for the marketplace. Fisher [ 105 ] finds Thebo’s position of not expecting undergraduate students to become professional writers erroneous. He questions the lack of ‘engagement with writing as a profession or publishing as the principal industry within which professional writers work’ [ 105 ]. Fisher [ 105 ] does not want to see universities turning out students unprepared to earn a living.

However, according to Vanderslice [ 104 ], Thebo has helped her students have more publishing know-how with the development of two courses at Bath Spa University. These are focused on undergraduates, and they initially met with resistance from both colleagues and students. The aim was to help students to develop a professional perspective. Vanderslice argues that such approaches are necessary.

A solution to these differences might be to provide more clarity about exactly what a programme does and where it fits in relationship to other programmes, as Cowan [ 106 ] proposes in his strategic plan for the peer review workshop. He argues for various models. One with a market focus might have ‘alternative axes’ that ‘calibrate the extent to which a program is publication- or research-oriented’ [ 106 ].

11. Digital future discussion: the effect of technology

Many in the field are aware that digital technology needs to be addressed. Krauth and Webb [ 23 ] signal their awareness of the effect of technological changes in making writing more public and expanding publication opportunities. In the United States, the AWP website now includes goals on new media technology and emphasises the need for research to enhance pedagogical understanding and improve practice [ 72 ].

There are many ways that creative writers are engaging with the digital world, one example being digital poetics. Yet, that focus does not consider the sociology of the relationship to the space as a marketplace. There are those in digital poetics looking at the relationship with the creative writing classroom and digital storytelling, but there is not much consideration of the student trying to write for the digital marketplace and what effect that may have on the field. Andrew [ 107 ] discusses the possibilities of online teaching and is encouraged by Healey’s [ 108 ] argument that the ‘opposition between cultivated humanism and vulgar marketplace, between impractical creativity and practical profitability, is rapidly disappearing’ [109 cited in 108]. Further, Andrew [ 107 ] argues for the need to nurture the market for online delivery by ‘better understanding the theories and pedagogies of online delivery and its potential for community-building and for workshops’ [ 107 ]. Others are engaging in this research. Rein [ 109 ] explores ways to improve the online classroom situation. Some researchers are focusing on the opportunities afforded by digital publishing. Williams [ 110 ] considers the creative writing pedagogy of the future and argues that students should be taught to ‘think strategically and rhetorically about where to publish and how to be read’ [ 110 ]. Williams argues that finding an online audience should be a part of what is taught, whether that is weighing up the quality of online journals and sites or using social media to connect and draw readers. But what are the implications for a student trying to work in this space? Barnard [ 111 ] considers her existing skills from previous training in other forms of technology that could also have value in the future. Further, she believes that this approach can be taught to others.

12. Conclusion

The study has examined the complex nature of the creative writing student’s relationship to the marketplace as described in current scholarship. The findings indicate that there are students who do want to reach the marketplace and publish and that there are resistances to this outcome, as well as support for achieving this goal. Although there has been resistance to the marketplace relationship for valid reasons that honour the traditions and protect the boundaries of the discipline, there are ongoing negotiations as to what the relationship to the marketplace means. There are many ways to interact with and define the marketplace, and there are educators who do seek to challenge resistance and argue for engaging and preparing students.

Digital technology and new marketplace opportunities raise questions about whether the values, goals and terms used in relation to the marketplace are still valid and if the resistances and areas of engagement can or should be re-negotiated. Further research will provide insight into best practices for teaching about and engaging with the marketplace.

Acknowledgments

The research for this review was funded in part by an Australian Government Research Training Scholarship (RTP). Support was also provided by the UWA Graduate Research School, the UWA School of Humanities and the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies.

Additional information

Susan Taylor Suchy is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in the School of Humanities within Arts, Business, Law and Education.

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• 101. Brophy K. ‘Professing creative writing with a slice of passion’, a review of SM Vanderslice, rethinking creative writing in higher education: Programs and practices that work. TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses. 2012; 16 (1). Available from: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april12/brophy_rev.htm [Accessed: 24 October 2022]
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• 104. Vanderslice S. Rethinking Creative Writing in Higher Education: Programs and Practices That Work. Suffolk: The Professional and Higher Partnership Ltd; 2011. p. 43
• 105. Fisher J. Did anyone mention the marketplace’, review of key issues in creative writing. TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses. 2013; 17 (1). Available from: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april13/fisher_rev.htm [Accessed: 24 October 2022]
• 106. Cowan A. A live event, a life event: The workshop that works. TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses. 2012; 16 (1). Available from: http://www.textjournal.com.au/april12/cowan.htm [Accessed: 24 October 2022]
• 107. Andrew M. Forewarned is forearmed: The brave new world of (creative) writing online. TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses. 2012; 16 (2):5. Available from: http://www.textjournal.com.au/oct12/andrew.htm [Accessed: 24 October 2022]
• 108. Healey S. ‘The rise of creative writing and the new value of creativity’, the Writer’s. The Chronicle. 2009; 41 (4):30-39
• 109. Rein J. Lost in digital translation: Navigating the online creative writing classroom. In: Clark MD, Hergenrader T, Rein J, editors. Creative Writing in the Digital Age: Theory, Practice and Pedagogy. London: Bloomsbury Publishing; 2015. pp. 91-104
• 110. Williams BT. Digital technologies and creative writing pedagogy. In: Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century. Southern Illinois University; 2015. pp. 243-268
• 111. Barnard J. Testing possibilities: On negotiating writing practices in a “postdigital” age (tools and methods). New Writing: The International Journal of Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. 2017:275-289. DOI: 10.1080/14790726.2016.1278025 [Accessed: 24 October 2022]

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Teaching creative writing in primary schools: a systematic review of the literature through the lens of reflexivity

The Australian Educational Researcher

Teaching writing is complex and research related to approaches that support students’ understanding and outcomes in written assessment is prolific. Written aspects including text structure, purpose, and language conventions appear to be explicit elements teachers know how to teach. However, more qualitative and nuanced elements of writing such as authorial voice and creativity have received less attention. We conducted a systematic literature review on creativity and creative aspects of writing in primary classrooms by exploring research between 2011 and 2020. The review yielded 172 articles with 25 satisfying established criteria. Using Archer’s critical realist theory of reflexivity we report on personal, structural, and cultural emergent properties that surround the practice of creative writing. Implications and recommendations for improved practice are shared for school leaders, teachers, preservice teachers, students, and policy makers.

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The structure of a child's writing experience stems from the affect, embodiment and materiality of their immediate engagement with activities in the classroom. When a child's movements and emotions are restricted, so too is their writing. This engagement shapes the experiential landscape of classroom writing, and the way that children perceive, value and feel about writing affects their motivation which predicts their writing attainment. This paper reveals the structure of children's consciousness while expressing ideas through creative writing. It does so by presenting an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the writing experience in the classroom. In the study, eight Year 6 (11-12 years old) children from a school in Perth, Australia were interviewed and qualitative data were analysed to interpret the essential components of the writing experience. The results produced three main themes (sub-themes noted in brackets): The Writing World (Watching, Ideas from Elsewhere, Flowing); The Self (Concealing & Revealing, Agency, Adequacy); and Schooled Writing (Standards, Satisfying Task Requirements, Rules of Good Writing). The themes indicate a binary experience of writing where the child's consciousness shifts between their imagination (The Writing World) and the task before them (Schooled Writing), and each affects the way the experience of the self appears to the writer. When comparing the experience with that of authors, one notices that the experience of words as authorial tools is missing. The results imply that the writing environment, and the individual's response to it, may restrict the engagement and the phenomenality of writing.

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This two year case study explored the influence that creative thinking has on writing pedagogy within a primary school context. Whilst the fields of creative thinking and writing pedagogy have been researched extensively, there is a paucity of research that explores how they are inextricably connected. It is useful to consider this connection in the context of firstly, children's writing and thinking development and secondly the context of an English education system driven by high stakes testing that puts an emphasis on product not process. This testing arguably drives schools' pedagogic decisions towards a focus on attaining good marks in the test often at the expense of understanding and knowledge application. The study involved design and facilitation of writing workshops for six primary classes in one school over a two year period. Data were collected through observation, follow-up interviews and focus groups and documentation analysis. Data were analysed using a themat...

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Writing supports and extends learning across all disciplines, as well as promotes social, emotional and cognitive development. One of the challenges for teachers involves the interpretation of students’ ‘learning to write’ journeys in a way that provides them with the information they need for informed, focused and explicit instruction in writing, as well as for providing feedback to students and parents. This paper considers the importance of process and content when analysing student writing and creating a balance between the authorial and secretarial elements of writing.

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Learning to write is integral to literacy learning, while success with literacy is reported to lead to success at school and in life generally. How teachers respond to children’s early attempts at writing (often a mix of drawings and print) helps to form children’s attitudes towards writing and the paths their experimentations follow. The aim of the study discussed in this paper was to examine early years’ teachers’ responses to a sample of writing from a young literacy learner in the early stages of the first year of school. Many of the decisions teachers make, are based on teachers’, on the run analysis of, and responses to, children’s work samples. A teacher survey (N=228) provided three different forms of data: demographic information, responses to questions using a 5 point Likert scale and open ended responses to a sample of early ‘writing’. The findings suggest that some teachers are focusing on print conventions and accuracy when reviewing young children’s writing samples, and seemingly undervaluing their drawings. This may unintentionally, be making learning to write at school unnecessarily difficult for some children.

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More than words: applying the discipline of literary creative writing to the practice of reflective writing in health care education

Affiliation.

• 1 The Writing Center/Center for Academic Excellence, Medical University of South Carolina, 171 Ashley Avenue, Room 201, Charleston, SC 29401, USA. [email protected]
• PMID: 20635125
• DOI: 10.1007/s10912-010-9120-6

This paper examines definitions and uses of reflective and creative writing in health care education classrooms and professional development settings. A review of articles related to writing in health care reveals that when teaching narrative competence is the goal, creative writing may produce the best outcomes. Ultimately, the paper describes the importance of defining literary creative writing as a distinct form of writing and recommends scholars interested in using literary creative writing to teach narrative competence study pedagogy of the field.

Publication types

• Creativity*
• Educational Status
• Health Personnel / education*
• Literature*

British Council

• English, education and arts
• Creative play in the digital age

Defining creativity: Literature review, part 1 of 3

What is creativity? What theoretical frameworks exist to help us understand and assess it?

This first chapter in a literature review looking at the role of creative play in developing creativity in the digital age considers what creativity can mean in the 21st century. 

In the first chapter of the literature review we explore the nature and meaning of creativity and attempts to contextualise it in the 21st century. Creativity is often associated with artistic activity or - at its most extreme - with unique moments of genius changing how we understand and live our lives.  However, creativity as a skill can be expressed and leveraged by a variety of actors in a broad range of contexts. This concept of ‘everyday creativity’ was defined, assessed, and validated in the 1980s as expressions of originality and meaningfulness (Richards, 2019). 

Here, we will analyse creativity through the lens of one particular model, established by Mel Rhodes, called the 4 Ps of Creativity (Rhodes, 1961). The model has been regularly referenced since it was first published, with researchers continuing to draw on this framework today, and can also be applied to work that predates its publication. It positions creativity as an almost abstract outcome resulting from one or several of four constituent parts:

• Place , called Press in the original model, in reference to the environmental factors that ‘press’ on the individual. This references physical and social aspects of the environment that influence the capacity to be creative. This could be the layout of a room (Piscitelli & Penfold, 2015) or cultures within an organisation that affect personal autonomy, openness and access to resources and information sharing practices (Munro, 2017).
• Person includes individual traits including genetic dispositions (Runco, et al., 2011), types of intelligence (Gardner, 1993), emotional openness (Ivcevic & Hoffman, 2019) and knowledge or skill level (Amabile, 1996)
• Process relates to behavioural factors such as modes of divergent and convergent thinking (Guilford, 1957), and collaborative engagement (Sawyer K. , 2018).
• Product references the outcome of the creative process and involves notions of assessment (Hennessey, Amabile, & Mueller, 2018)

Table 1 - Rhodes' 4Ps of Creativity

Although these categories often overlap, they offer a useful way to think about how we can understand creativity.

In addition to the 4 Ps model we will use other models to illuminate the nature of creativity. We will consider how creativity is assessed, and how the nature and expression of creativity is challenged and changed by recent digital and technological innovations.  Alongside this, we will introduce other models and frameworks to explore the nature of creativity. 

A definition of creative products 

If creativity occurs across all disciplines and sectors, how can we define a creative output?

The easiest aspects of creativity to visualise are the products and solutions it generates. A creative solution can be a completely new invention, or the reuse of an existing practice  (Guilford, 1950). What matters is that the contribution is both novel and appropriate (Boden, 2004). Novelty emphasises the originality of construction in any given context. Appropriateness emphasises that the construction is considered fit for purpose and valued by a relevant community (Amabile, 2018). However, there are some concerns about using appropriateness to identify creative products.

Culture and communities have different notions of appropriateness (Amabile, 2018). This can lead to domain-specific criteria for evaluating potentially creative contributions (Baer, 2018). In artistic disciplines, a creative performance may require a dynamic expression of an idea that is so individual it cannot be replicated (Amabile, 2018). In contrast, creative developments in physical science will have replicability as a core criterion of appropriateness (Amabile, 2018). A creative development in social science may reveal new relationships between the environment and group behaviour, whereas in business, creativity may involve using these social science perspectives in new ways to create economic growth. 

Furthermore, appropriateness is culturally dependent, with Western societies placing higher value on horizontal creativity, and Asian societies placing greater value on vertical creativity (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018; Niu, 2019).  Horizontal creativity privileges individual interpretations and the novelty and divergence of creative expression and thinking.  In contrast, vertical creativity privileges innovation within an existing practice and the contextual relevance of new ideas (Niu 2019). Ultimately, although there is an essential commonality in definition, interpretations and evaluations of creativity are dependent on cultural, social and disciplinary contexts (Amabile, 2018).

Using systems models to help us understand creativity

What are systems models, and how can they help us understand creativity? 

Systems models illuminate the relationship between an individual or group with specific traits and expertise, the cultural resources these individuals draw on, and the group of individuals who consider the contributors and act as gatekeepers (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999) (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018). 

Systems models of creativity are useful when we try to understand creative productivity within a specific domain of activity.  Systems models highlight the interdependent relationship between individual insights and domain-relevant knowledge  (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999) (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018). This relationship can be understood as a conversation between an individual or group with specific traits and expertise, a domain of cultural resources and a field of knowledgeable individuals who evaluate the contributions and act as domain gatekeepers (Figure 1). Domain-relevant knowledge is a resource individuals can draw on to innovate. If members of the field judge the innovation novel and appropriate, it will be retained by the community, sometimes becoming an essential component of domain-relevant knowledge (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). If the innovation has a large impact in the field, it has the potential to transform the domain, or create a new domain. These models are particularly useful in contexts where a product is created for a specific audience, such as research and development settings or start-up businesses.

The ‘Four Cs’ of creativity 

Within or outside of a systems model, creativity can clearly generate a broad range of products and solutions. These different types of products are best illustrated by the ‘4 Cs’ of creativity model, developed by Beghetto and Kaufman, which uses a four-tiered hierarchy to map a continuum of creative products from everyday learning and local problem solving, to field-defining artistry and invention (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2016). 

Mini-c creativity refers to the everyday little ‘Eureka’ moments of developmental learning. In this model, ‘Mini-c’ insights are based on Vygotsky’s (1976) conception of learning as a dynamic process of knowledge construction.  Hence, personal insights are creative acts in the mind of the learner as they construct, i.e. the “novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences” (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2016). If ‘Mini-c’ insights are explored and developed, they can lead to Little-c creativity. ‘Little-c’ creativity describes innovations in everyday life that solve localised problems and are considered new and valuable by a local community.

As ‘Mini-c’ and ‘Little-c’ are personally and locally meaningful creative acts, by contrast, Pro-c and Big-C creativity focus on the domain-specific knowledge generation and wider social impact of creative action (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2016). ‘Pro-c’ creativity are solutions that require professional-level knowledge and are valued by a community of experts. Although ‘Pro-c’ insights have an impact within a professional community, they do not dramatically transform the field of professional expertise. In contrast, ‘Big-C’ creativity is the work of pioneers and eminent thinkers, like Picasso or Einstein, who transform an existing field of study, or develop a completely new one. ‘Big-C’ creativity normally reflects a body of work, often over a lifetime (Gardner, 1993).

Table 2 - Beghetto & Kaufman's 4 Cs of Creativity

‘Mini-c’ and ‘Little-c’ are especially useful ways of thinking about creativity in educational and community contexts where the emphasis is often on developing personal expression, personal growth and localised solutions. ‘Pro-c’ and ‘Big-C’ are more suitable ways of thinking about creative impact in professional domains, such as the performing arts, business and research. Reflecting the previously mentioned overlap between the ‘Four Ps’, analysis of ‘Big-C’ creative products are likely to focus more on the unique aspects of the creator (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018), whereas analysis of everyday creative products may well focus on the creative process and more conventional aspects of the social and learning environment from which the creativity arose (Simonton, 2019). 

Creative processes

In order to facilitate creative production, it is necessary to consider the nature of the creative process. The creative process can be considered as a set of iterative behaviours that enable people to explore conceptual space, identify new opportunities and problems, and generate novel and appropriate solutions (Boden, 2004). 

In the creative process, imaginative and critical skills are complementary and follow patterns of divergent and convergent thinking (Guilford, 1957). Divergent thinking is the use of imagination and experimentation to open up conceptual space and generate new pathways and perspectives. Whereas convergent thinking is the application of contextualised observations, logical thought and systemised approaches to choose a suitable solution and make it fit for purpose. The iteration of divergent and convergent thinking in relation to a problem allows innovative and valued solutions to be generated. Furthermore, the goal-oriented and open-ended nature of creative processes combined with a strong sense of competence and control can facilitate ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)  (Sawyer K. , 2012) and other positive psychological states (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Hence, the creative process is not only desirable for the products and social competence it generates but also for its positive impact on psychological well-being.

Creative collaboration

One type of creative process that merits further examination is the nature of creative collaboration. In the analysis of Creative Products, the value of partnership was already suggested: systems models are essentially collaborative, as people work with the ideas of others, using tools and materials created by others, and address a specific audience. However, there is also a clear body of literature that specifically examines the value of collaboration for the creative process.

Research that compares postgraduate studies on creativity from the Wehner et al. 1991 study (Wehner, Csikszentmihalyi, & I.Magyari-Beck, 1991) with data from 2005-2007 studies reveals an increasing focus on product and group creativity (C.H. Kahl, 2009). These findings are consistent with the view that modern creativity research has moved from a focus on the personality traits of Big-C thinkers to creativity emerging from more everyday interactions (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018).

Collaboration in small groups is a well-known method used in organisations to create highly progressive innovation (Bennis & Biederman, 1998). Creative teams can disperse the cognitive load required to think creatively about complex problems and build on each other’s ideas to create something greater than they could achieve on their own (Sawyer K. , 2007). Creative collaboration takes the social and dialogic nature of creative action to a higher level. 

A key component of effective creative collaboration is the ability to be reflexive and take up the perspectives of others  (Kaufman & Glaveneau, 2019). Remaining open to new ideas and perspectives throughout the creative process is important to facilitate collaboration. Social-emotional imagination facilitates group creativity by expanding imaginative potential. Reflexive modes of thinking create conceptual space and mental flexibility that allows ideas to flow (Gotlieb, Hyde, Immordino-Yang, & Kaufman, 2019). For example, flexible identity construction is the ability to maintain a clear sense of self whilst moving between different aspects of identity. This flexibility enables people to find a shared aspect of identity and connect with a diverse range of people.  Constructive internal reflection is a form of imaginative sense-making in which an individual can think reflexively about their own values and sense of purpose, then apply this understanding to imagine the perspectives of others (Immordino-Yang, Christodoulou, & Singh, 2012).

These reflexive modes of thinking are supported by polycultural thinking, informed by different cultural frames of references. Polycultural thinking can improve problem solving, complex thinking and democratic outcomes of group engagement (Hurtado, 2005). The combination of these reflexive and cultural modes of thinking enables us to suspend judgement, imagine a broader spectrum of possibilities and collaborate flexibly in democratic and socio-culturally sensitive ways (Gotlieb, Hyde, Immordino-Yang, & Kaufman, 2019). 

When creativity is viewed as an emergent property of group interaction, it begins to share some similarities with the concept of improvisation and group play. The three key aspects of effective collaboration are an egalitarian ethos, a lack of specificity, and moment-to-moment contingency (Sawyer K. , 2018). An egalitarian ethos means all members can participate freely, which maximises the pool of ideas and inspiration. A lack of specificity is a strategic ambiguity that leaves space open to interpretation. Moment-to-moment contingency is utilising the lack of specificity to create divergent spaces. The combination of these elements enables the layering of ideas and the growth of complexity from which sense and innovative thinking emerge (Sawyer K. , 2018). Complex systems behaviour emerges from unpredictability and inter-subjectivity and cannot be explained by reference to reductive psychology that concentrates analysis solely at the level of the individual (Sawyer K. , 2018). This highlights the social and interpersonal nature of creativity, and points to the importance of interaction, flexibility of identity and creative play in the development of creative potential.

The role of place and person

As per Rhodes’ (1961) model, place and person sit alongside product and process. Place and person address how aspects of the environment and personality influence creativity. Creative environments are social spaces (analogue and digital) that enable the creative process and lead to the generation of novel and contextually valuable forms of learning, expression, or production.  How individuals engage with their environment during the creative process is not incidental to the nature of the products they create (Rhodes, 1961).

One key ‘place’ that could be considered here are education environments. Educational learning environments cover a wide variety of life course contexts from preschool to PhD research, and a wide variety of domains from sandpit play to astrophysics. The focus of creative behaviour within learning also changes a great deal (Hui, He, & Wong, 2019) shifting from original and personal insights in preschool as children make sense of the world around them, to higher quality insights during compulsory and undergraduate education, through to generating novel and useful insights that hold societal significance in post-graduate and PhD research work where theoretical creativity is required (Lovitts, 2005). 

Assessing the four Ps

There are a number of specific tools that have been used to measure creative output. Increases in creative productivity can be measured by assessing the quality and quantity of products or ideas generated. Tools that measure the creative process assess occurrences of divergent thinking, originality, flexibility and elaboration within individuals and groups. Personality traits and past behaviours have been measured to identify the creative characteristics of a person or group, often through self-assessment. Measuring creative environments is a less focused area of research, reflected in the limited number of specific tools identified.

One of the most widespread models used for measuring creative products is the Creative Assessment Technique (CAT) created by Amabile (1982). This is a domain-specific method of evaluation in which experts in the field are required to use their expert and informed opinion to rate the creativity of a new product or proposal.  One of the key benefits of analyses that measure the product is that they avoid the measurement problems of psychometric testing.  Furthermore, they are domain-specific and so combine both the novel aspect of creativity and the notion of appropriateness. CAT has been shown to be reliable across a wide range of applications and contexts (Plucker, Makel, & Qian, 2019), however there is still the question of who constitutes a suitable expert.  Research suggests that the level of expertise required for suitable evaluation and the inter-rater reliability will differ with the domain-specificity of the product in question.

To assess creative development, creative responses during the creative process, or the creativity of the final product generated, can be measured.  There are a variety of tools that aim to measure the creative process in terms of divergent thinking, i.e. the novelty and number of ideas generated. Divergent thinking as a domain general skill is measured by tests such as the Torrance’s (1974) Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and Guilford’s (1967) Structure of the Intellect (SOI) test. These tests rely on using visual and verbal prompts and measure the fluency of ideas, i.e. the number of divergent responses individuals make. Guilford’s test uses sub-categories such as originality, how unique an idea is; flexibility, how many different categories of response an individual makes; and elaboration, the depth and detail of the explanation provided (Plucker, Makel, & Qian, 2019). The TTCT uses verbal and figural prompts and similar methods of scoring to the SOI. Test question categories include Product Improvement, Guessing Causes and Just Suppose. For example, “Suppose you were invisible for a day.  What problems would that cause and what benefits would it generate?”  Such tests are often used in pre- and post-test evaluation in research interventions designed to improve creative responses (Berrueco & Garaigordobil, 2011).  Although there is a general acceptance of the reliability of scoring and results, this is dependent on the level of training of the scorers (Plucker, Makel, & Qian, 2019). Furthermore, as these tests only measure the novelty of an idea, it is questionable whether they are suitable for modern domain specific conceptions of creativity (Baer, 2011) (Kim, 2011).

Personality scales measure aspects of personality or past behaviour and are often used to compare groups. These tests are generally based on self-assessment, though some models involve external assessment. Examples of the tests include the Creative Personality Scale (Kaufman & Baer, 2004), the Creativity Achievement Questionnaire (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2005) and the Big Five Personality Traits (Karwowski & Lebuda, 2016). These tests show certain characteristics as common among creative people such as being open to experience, autonomous, introverted dominant and impulsive (Plucker, Makel, & Qian, 2019). Although these tests do not measure creative development, they can be used to assess creative tendencies in individuals across different times.  However, not all qualities that make a creative person are necessarily conducive to group creativity.  For example, being open-minded, curious and having a sense of humour would be conducive to group creativity (Davis, 1992). However, being driven, hostile, dominant and impulsive may be problematic when trying to negotiate conflict or generating psychologically safe environments in which people feel they can take risks (Feist G. , 1998) (Reiter-Palmon, Mitchell, & Royston, 2019). If collaborative creativity is to be measured, it will require a non-reductive method of analysis that takes into account socio-cultural and emergent aspects of the creative process. 

Although there are many models for assessing how working environments affect productivity, there are very few that focus solely on creativity (Plucker, Makel, & Qian, 2019). However, Amabile and colleagues (Amabile, 1996) developed the KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity self-assessment instrument to review the relationship between working environment and creativity in teams. The tool assesses aspects of the environment that stimulate and inhibit creative responses. The KEYS scale involves detailed self-analysis and measures management practices, motivation and interaction among team members. Results have shown the scales can discriminate between team working environments that will generate high and low creativity rates.

Concluding how to define creativity in the digital age: part 1

The digital age, however, appears to challenge much of this existing work on the nature of creativity: it is clear that online creativity and audiences are affecting the meaning, expression and impact of creativity (Literat & Glaveneau, 2018), and distinct new ‘creator’ groups are emerging, such as of produsers (Bruns, 2008), people who simultaneously produce and consume a product.  

New digital media (NDM) and Web 2.0 technologies have changed how communication takes place and provided new opportunities for artistic expression, co-creation and the dissemination of creative works online (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018) and the networked and participatory nature of online engagement brings into question the separation between creative act, performance, and communication with an audience (Literat & Glaveneau, 2018). For example, affinity groups enable ‘Mini-c’ creativity by allowing individuals with similar interests to mentor and support each other in the development of their creative skills. Sites such as Behance and Dribbble allow professional artists and designers to share their work, receive constructive feedback and inspiration (Hemsley & Tanupabrungsun, 2018). As comments are a common aspect of social networking services’ (SNS) interactions, the notion of evaluation and field are inherent aspects of SNS based creativity. On SNS sites such as Instagram, professionals, produsers and amateurs post creative performances, and outcomes are likely to range from ‘mini-c’ inspiration to ‘Pro-c’ influence. However, the notion of field and the relationship between producer and audience is difficult to define (Literat & Glaveneau, 2018). Therefore, in online contexts, where the nature of the audience is networked and highly distributed, there is likely to be a more fluid notion of field and a less well defined and regulated notion of domain (Literat & Glaveneau, 2018). This networked notion of creativity also brings out the dialogic and collaborative nature of online creativity and its close association with personal identity online (Literat & Glaveneau, 2018). 

However, sharing creativity and posting is not always regarded in a positive light. It has been argued NDM’s role in the attention economy has created higher levels of distraction (Turkle, 2015). For example, SNS users often create posts for short-term amusement, to cause alarm or elicit controversy. SNS memes become viral and are shared across huge networks. These memes and jokes are expressive, but they are forgotten as quickly as they are generated (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018). The remixing and rapid dissemination of these personal works in NDM have problematised traditional notions of appropriateness and authorship (Gardner & Weinstein, 2018).

More seriously, technology designers, executives and researchers have recently expressed concern about the implications of attention economy based business models for the design of digital tools. The goal of maximising users’ time online can result in intentional hijacking of the mind, via monetisation of thoughts, emotions, and actions, with potentially serious consequences for mental health, relationships and democracy (Lewis, 2017) (Center for Humane Technology, 2019). The suggestion that digital tools can and do exploit human vulnerability and reduce autonomy via addiction by design has significant implications for creativity. Hence, the digital realm offers new arenas for group engagement from which creativity can emerge, but also new dilemmas about the value and purpose of creative work and how to distribute it respectfully.  

In part 2 of the literature review, we will explore creative play in greater depth, and in part three analyse the relationship between creativity and creative play in the digital age. 

Bibliography

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Amabile, T. (2018). Creativity and the Labour of Love. In R. Sternberg, & J. Kaufman, The Nature of Human Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Baer, J. (2011). How divergent thinking tests mislead us: Are the Torrance Tests still relevant in the 21st century. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts (5), 309-313.

Baer, J. (2018). The Trouble with 'Creativity'. In R. Sternberg, & J. Kaufman, The Nature of Human Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Barbot, B., & Eff, H. (2019). The Genetic Basis of Creativity: a Multivariate Approach. In J. C. Kaufman, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York.

Beghetto, R., & Kaufman, J. (2016). Ever broadening conceptions of creativity in the classroom. In R. Beghetto, & J. Kaufman, Cambridge Companion to Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Bennis, W., & Biederman, P. (1998). Organizing Genius: The secrets to creative collaboration. New York: Basic Books.

Berrueco, M., & Garaigordobil, L. (2011). Effects of a Play Program on Creative Thinking of Preschool Children. The Spanish Journal of Psychology 14 (2), 608-618.

Boden, M. (2004). The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. London: Routledge.

C.H. Kahl, L. D. (2009). Revisiting Creativity Research: An investigation of contemporary approaches. Creativity Research Journal 21 (1), 1-5.

Carson, S., Peterson, J., & Higgins, D. (2005). Reliability, Validity and Factor Structure of the Creative Achievement Questionnaire. Creativity Research Journal 17 (1), 37-50.

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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.

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Davis, G. (1989). Testing for Creative Potential. Contemporary Education Psychology 14, 257-274.

Feist, G. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personal and Social Psychology Review 2(4), 290-309.

Feist, G. (2019). The Function of Personality in Creativity: Updates on the Creative Personality. In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds: An anatomy of Creativity seen through the lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H., & Weinstein, E. (2018). Creativity: The View from the Big C and the Introduction of Tiny c. In R. Sternberg, & J. Kaufman, The Nature of Human Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press .

Gotlieb, R., Hyde, E., Immordino-Yang, M., & Kaufman, S. (2019). Imagination is the seed of creativity. In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Guilford, J. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5, 444-454.

Guilford, J. (1957). Creative abilities in the arts. Psychological Review 64 (2), 110-118.

Guilford, J. (1967). The Nature of Human Intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hemsley, J., & Tanupabrungsun, S. (2018). Dribble: Exploring the Concept of Viral Events on an Art World Social Networking Site. Transforming Digital Worlds 13th International Conference Proceedings. Sheffield: iConference 2018.

Hennessey, B., Amabile, T., & Mueller, J. (2018). Consensual Assessment. In M. Runco, & S. Pritzker, Encyclopedia of Creativity (pp. 253-260). San Diego, CA: San Diego: Academic Press.

Hui, A., He, M., & Wong, W. (2019). Understanding the Development of Creativity Across the Life Span. In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Hurtado, S. (2005). The next generation of diversity and intergroup relations research. Journal of Social Issues 61 (3), 595-610.

Immordino-Yang, M., Christodoulou, J., & Singh, V. (2012). Rest is not idleness: Implications of the brain's default mode for human development and education. Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (4), 352-364.

Ivcevic, Z., & Hoffman, J. (2019). Emotions and Creativity: From Process to Person to Product. In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity . New York: Cambridge University Press .

Karwowski, M., & Lebuda, I. (2016). The big five, the huge two and creative self-beliefs:A meta-analysis. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Art 10 (2), 214-232.

Kaufman, J., & Baer, J. (2004). Sure, I'm creative -- but not in mathematics! Self reported creativity in diverse domains. Empirical Studies of the Arts 22, 143-155.

Kaufman, J., & Glaveneau, V. (2019). A review of creativity theories: what questions are we trying to answer? In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kim, K. (2011). The APA 2009 Division 10 debate: Are the Torrance Tests still relevant in the 21st centry? . Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts 5 , 302-308.

Lewis, P. (2017, October 5th). Our minds can be hijacked: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-...

Literat, I., & Glaveneau, V. (2018). Distributed Creativity on the Internet: A Theoretical FOundation for OnlineCreative Participation. International Journal of Communication 12, 893-908.

Lovitts, B. (2005). Being a good course taker is not enough: A theoretical perspective on the transition to independent research. Studies in Higher Education.

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Piscitelli, B., & Penfold, L. (2015). Child-centred Practice in Museums: Experiential Learning through Creative Play at the Ipswich Art Gallery. Curator The Museum Journal, 58 (3).

Plucker, J., Makel, M., & Qian, M. (2019). Assessment of Creativity. In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Reiter-Palmon, R., Mitchell, K., & Royston, R. (2019). Improving Creativity in Organisational Settings: Applying Research on Creativity to Organizations. In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rhodes, M. (1961). An Analysis of Creativity. The Phi Delta Kappan, 42, 305-310.

Richards, R. (2019). Everyday Creativity: Process and Way of Life -- Four Key Issues. In J. Kaufman, & R. Sternberg, The Cambridge handbook of Creativity (pp. 189-215). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Runco, M., Noble, E., Reiter-Palmon, R., Acar, S., Ritchie, T., & Yurkovich, J. (2011). The genetic basis of creativity and ideational fluency. Creativity Research Journal 23 (4), 376-380.

Sawyer, K. (2007). Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Sawyer, K. (2018). An Interdisciplinary Study of Group Creativity. In R. Sternberg, & J. Kaufman, The Nature of Human Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Torrance, E. (1974). The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking- Norms-Technical Manual-Research Edition-Verbal Tests, Forms And B - Figural Tests, Forms A and B. Princeton: Personnel Press.

Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. Penguin.

Vygotsky, L. (1976). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. In J. Bruner, A. Jolly, & K. Sylvia, Play: Its Role in Development and Evolution (p. 537554). New York: Basic Books.

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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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Open Access

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France, Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

• Marco Pautasso

Published: July 18, 2013

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149
• Reader Comments

Citation: Pautasso M (2013) Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review. PLoS Comput Biol 9(7): e1003149. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149

Editor: Philip E. Bourne, University of California San Diego, United States of America

Copyright: © 2013 Marco Pautasso. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

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The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149.g001

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

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Creative Writing, Literature, Storytelling and Mental Health Practice

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture ((PASCC))

This chapter draws on the author’s own experience of writing and of facilitating a creative writing group for service users. It provides an overview of therapeutic uses of creative writing, including Pennebaker’s work on expressive writing. It reviews evidence for the use of literature, creative writing and poetry in mental health care, exploring bibliotherapy, therapeutic writing and poetry therapy as well as narrative biography. Creative writing is examined as a tool for promoting both the recovery of service users and the professional development of mental health practitioners, including a discussion of the value of storytelling in mental health nursing. The chapter concludes by considering the role of journaling and blogging and the overlapping areas of therapeutic writing, literary writing, autobiography and writing for publication.

• Facilitating creative writing groups
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• Pennebaker and expressive writing
• Literature, creative writing and poetry in mental health
• Bibliotherapy
• Therapeutic writing
• Poetry therapy
• Narrative biography
• Professional development
• Storytelling in mental health nursing
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“Écrire, c’est une façon de parler sans être interrompu.” (Jules Renard , 1895.)

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The Creative Writing and Literature Major is open to ALL LSA students.

Creative Writing and Literature Majors write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction under the close guidance of faculty mentors, and may workshop their writing with other student writers in small writing seminars. Majors also study the art of writing through the study of literature. Majors specialize in fiction, poetry, or nonfiction early in their studies.

Creative Writing graduates pursue successful careers as writers, editors, educators, advertising professionals, and many other writing related-fields.  Every year our graduates are admitted to competitive graduate school programs in the fine arts, education, law, business, public policy, social work, and other courses of professional study that demand proficient writing skills and creative approaches to problem solving.

RC Creative Writing students have demonstrated unparalled success in the esteemed U of M Hopwood Awards , winning over 100 awards since the 1994-95 school year.

Students meet with the creative writing major advisor when declaring, making course substitutions, discussing transfer/study abroad credit evaluations, internships, preparing major release forms, and information on graduate school study and career paths. 

Although students may pursue study in multiple genres, most specialize in a single genre:

Fiction / Creative Nonfiction

Digital Storytelling

Advising appointments can be made here or by calling RC Academic Services at 763-0032.

Minimum Credits: 28

The major is structured into four genre tracks. In addition to the Fiction / Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, and Digital Storytelling tracks, students may elect a multi-genre track in consultation with their principal writing instructors and the major advisor.

Each track consists of:

Four elective creative writing courses

Five elective upper level literature courses

Fiction / Creative Nonfiction Track

Students complete a minimum of four creative writing courses, at least three of which must be at the 300 level or above and at least three of which must be taken in the RC. A usual track is an introductory course (Narration) and three upper-level courses. Students may count one non-RC creative writing course towards the writing requirement.

Creative Writing Courses: Students may elect any combination of seminars and tutorials from the following:

RCHUMS 220 Narration: Intro to Fiction Writing

RCHUMS 325, 326, 425, 426 Tutorials: Permission of instructor required

RCHUMS 320 Narration: Advanced Fiction Writing

RCHUMS 334 (Section 005) Memoir: Writing from Within

Other departmental offerings listed under RCHUMS 334 or RCCORE 334. Details here.

Literature Electives: Students complete five literature courses, at the 300-level or above. One literature course must focus on either ancient literature or medieval literature (pre-1600). The ancient / medieval requirement may focus on non-Western or Western literature, but must pre-date Shakespeare if a Western literature course is elected. English 367 – Shakespeare’s Plays does not fulfill this requirement, although the course can count towards the literature requirement.

Students are encouraged to take literature courses in the RC Arts and Ideas Major, the  Department of English  or the  Comparative Literature Program . Students majoring in a second language may count one upper-level literature course in that language, or one upper-level literature course completed during a full semester studying abroad in a non-English speaking country. Upper-level literature courses taken abroad also may be counted. All literature courses counted toward the Creative Writing and Literature Major must be at least three (3) credits.

Courses that have been used to meet the requirement in the past include:

RCHUMS 354 Race and Identity in Music

RCHUMS 344 Reason and Passion in the 18th Century

RCHUMS 342 Representing the Holocaust in Literature, Film and the Visual Arts

Other RCHUMS courses listed in the Arts and Ideas in the Humanities major

English 350 Literature in English to 1660 (for ancient/medieval requirement)

English 328 Writing and the Environment

English 379 Literature in Afro-American Culture

Other English Department courses with a literature focus

CLCIV 385 Greek Mythology (for ancient/medieval requirement)  

Asian 314 Strange Ways: Literature of the Supernatural in Pre-modern Japan and China

MEMS 386 Medieval Literature, History and Culture 

Poetry Track

Students complete a minimum of four creative writing courses, at least three of which must be at the 300 level or above and at least three of which must be taken in the RC. A usual track is an introductory course (Writing Poetry) and three upper-level courses. Students may count one non-RC creative writing course towards the writing requirement.

RCHUMS 221 Writing Poetry

RCHUMS 321 Advanced Poetry Writing

RCHUMS 334 Workshop with Incarcerated Poets and Artists

Literature courses listed above under Fiction / Creative Nonfiction

English 340 Studies in Poetry

English 440 Modern Poetry

English 442 Studies in Poetry

Digital Storytelling Track

The digital storytelling track studies the ways story interacts with technology and the effect of digital media on writing and the creative process. Students electing this track pair writing practice with the study of the theory, ethics, and history of digital media.

Creative Writing Courses: At least 4 courses required over two categories 

Creative Writing Courses: choose a minimum of two Residential College creative writing courses that focus on writing fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. Only one course in a student’s major plan should be at the 200-level:

Introductory Courses (may elect 1 to count towards major):

Upper-level Courses:

RCHUMS 320 Advanced Narration 

RCHUMS 321 Advanced Poetry Writing 

RCHUMS 325, 326, 425, 426 Creative Writing Tutorials 

Digital Writing / Skills Courses: choose a minimum of two digital storytelling / writing courses at the 300-level or above that focus on digital media and/or electronic literature writing and practice. Courses that have been used to meet the requirement in the past include:

RCCORE 334 (Section 004) Digital Storytelling

English 420 Tech and the Humanities / Electronic Literature

RCSCI 360 (Section 001) Documentary Photography

RCHUMS 325, 326, 425, 426 Creative Writing Tutorials with a focus on writing for, and/or creating, electronic literature or digital media content (permission of instructor required)

Digital Studies Requirement: At least 2 courses required 

Choose a minimum of two digital studies theory courses at the 300-level or above that focus on the theory of digital culture and/or the digital humanities. Courses that have been used to meet the requirement in the past include:

AmCult 358 Topics in Digital Studies

AmCult 360 Radical Digital Media

FTVM 368 Topics in Digital Media Studies

English 405 Theories of Writing

Literature Requirement: At least 3 courses required 

Literature courses must be taken at the 300-level or above. Literature courses should not focus on digital studies but should offer complementary skills and additional context in the art and craft of literature. One course must focus on ancient/medieval literature. For more information on specific literature requirements, please see the Literature section listed under Fiction / Creative Nonfiction.

A student deemed eligible to attempt Honors typically completes the following process:

A student whose overall academic record meets the eligibility criteria for honors and whose creative work models originality and the promise of mastery in their chosen genre may apply for an honors thesis. Honors theses are typically 75-100 pages of polished fiction or creative nonfiction, or a collection of 25 or more poems. The student and their faculty advisor will determine the exact length and content of the final thesis. 

To be eligible to apply for honors, a student must demonstrate exceptional skill in the art and craft of prose, poetry, or creative nonfiction. The student must have completed a minimum of two Residential College creative writing classes, although honors students typically complete three or more by the start of their thesis sequence. The student also must hold a GPA of at least 3.4 overall. 

Students who meet the above criteria are eligible to apply for the honors thesis project in the winter term of their junior year, typically by late March. To apply, students shall submit:

A writing sample (10 pages of prose or 5 poems) that represents the student’s best, most polished work.

A brief statement (1-2 pages) describing the honors project. Applicants should also include the name of a faculty member they wish to request as their thesis advisor.

Questions about the submittal process can be directed to the creative writing major advisor  here

The Honors Committee, consisting of faculty in the Creative Writing program, will judge the student’s work on its quality, originality, and promise of mastery in their chosen genre. The Committee reviews all honors applications after the submission deadline. Students are notified of the Committee’s decision in late March or early April. If the planned project is accepted for honors, the Committee will assign a faculty thesis advisor to the student. 

Honors Theses require a two-semester commitment. Students enroll in RCCORE 490 for the fall term and RCHUMS 426 for the winter term. A passing grade in RCCORE 490 earns a Y grade, indicating that the thesis work will continue into the next semester. At the end of the second term, the Y grade converts to the grade earned in RCHUMS 426. Exceptions to the two-semester requirement are rare but may be discussed with the thesis advisor.

When the honors thesis project is complete (typically the last week of March or the first week of April of the senior year), the student’s honors thesis advisor and one other member of the Residential College’s Creative Writing faculty will determine if the project qualifies for honors and (if so) what level of honors the student receives. Honors thesis students also participate in a public reading with fellow thesis students at the end of the winter term (typically the second week of April).

To download the honors information, click here.

Creative Writing faculty

Laura Kasischke Poetry; Fiction

Christopher Matthews Fiction; Poetry

Sarah Messer Poetry; Creative Nonfiction; Prison Creative Arts Program

Susan Rosegrant Creative Nonfiction; Journalism; Fiction

Laura Thomas Fiction; Creative Nonfiction

A. Van Jordan Poetry, Film Studies

Aisha Sloan Creative Nonfiction, Digital Storytelling

Open to All

You don’t need to be a dedicated major to participate in workshops, tutorials, and classes taught by Creative Writing faculty, which are open to enrollment from all students. If even only for a semester, you wish to explore your interest in writing, consider taking a RC Creative Writing course !

For RC students, creative writing courses fulfill the RC Arts Practicum requirement. For RC and LSA students, RCHUMS 220, RCHUMS 221, and RCHUMS 325 satisfy Creative Expression distribution.

You can participate in the RC Review , our annual student-run journal featuring student poetry, fiction, and visual art. RC students can get a credit for participating in the RC Review.

Or consider joining the RC Creative Writing Forum , which like RC Review, offers RC students a credit, but is open to all for participation.

RC Writers website

Check out the  RC Writers Website,  for the Residential College writing community.

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• PLoS Comput Biol
• v.9(7); 2013 Jul

Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review

Marco pautasso.

1 Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), CNRS, Montpellier, France

2 Centre for Biodiversity Synthesis and Analysis (CESAB), FRB, Aix-en-Provence, France

Literature reviews are in great demand in most scientific fields. Their need stems from the ever-increasing output of scientific publications [1] . For example, compared to 1991, in 2008 three, eight, and forty times more papers were indexed in Web of Science on malaria, obesity, and biodiversity, respectively [2] . Given such mountains of papers, scientists cannot be expected to examine in detail every single new paper relevant to their interests [3] . Thus, it is both advantageous and necessary to rely on regular summaries of the recent literature. Although recognition for scientists mainly comes from primary research, timely literature reviews can lead to new synthetic insights and are often widely read [4] . For such summaries to be useful, however, they need to be compiled in a professional way [5] .

When starting from scratch, reviewing the literature can require a titanic amount of work. That is why researchers who have spent their career working on a certain research issue are in a perfect position to review that literature. Some graduate schools are now offering courses in reviewing the literature, given that most research students start their project by producing an overview of what has already been done on their research issue [6] . However, it is likely that most scientists have not thought in detail about how to approach and carry out a literature review.

Reviewing the literature requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesising information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills [7] . In this contribution, I share ten simple rules I learned working on about 25 literature reviews as a PhD and postdoctoral student. Ideas and insights also come from discussions with coauthors and colleagues, as well as feedback from reviewers and editors.

Rule 1: Define a Topic and Audience

How to choose which topic to review? There are so many issues in contemporary science that you could spend a lifetime of attending conferences and reading the literature just pondering what to review. On the one hand, if you take several years to choose, several other people may have had the same idea in the meantime. On the other hand, only a well-considered topic is likely to lead to a brilliant literature review [8] . The topic must at least be:

• interesting to you (ideally, you should have come across a series of recent papers related to your line of work that call for a critical summary),
• an important aspect of the field (so that many readers will be interested in the review and there will be enough material to write it), and
• a well-defined issue (otherwise you could potentially include thousands of publications, which would make the review unhelpful).

Ideas for potential reviews may come from papers providing lists of key research questions to be answered [9] , but also from serendipitous moments during desultory reading and discussions. In addition to choosing your topic, you should also select a target audience. In many cases, the topic (e.g., web services in computational biology) will automatically define an audience (e.g., computational biologists), but that same topic may also be of interest to neighbouring fields (e.g., computer science, biology, etc.).

Rule 2: Search and Re-search the Literature

After having chosen your topic and audience, start by checking the literature and downloading relevant papers. Five pieces of advice here:

• keep track of the search items you use (so that your search can be replicated [10] ),
• keep a list of papers whose pdfs you cannot access immediately (so as to retrieve them later with alternative strategies),
• use a paper management system (e.g., Mendeley, Papers, Qiqqa, Sente),
• define early in the process some criteria for exclusion of irrelevant papers (these criteria can then be described in the review to help define its scope), and
• do not just look for research papers in the area you wish to review, but also seek previous reviews.

The chances are high that someone will already have published a literature review ( Figure 1 ), if not exactly on the issue you are planning to tackle, at least on a related topic. If there are already a few or several reviews of the literature on your issue, my advice is not to give up, but to carry on with your own literature review,

The bottom-right situation (many literature reviews but few research papers) is not just a theoretical situation; it applies, for example, to the study of the impacts of climate change on plant diseases, where there appear to be more literature reviews than research studies [33] .

• discussing in your review the approaches, limitations, and conclusions of past reviews,
• trying to find a new angle that has not been covered adequately in the previous reviews, and
• incorporating new material that has inevitably accumulated since their appearance.

When searching the literature for pertinent papers and reviews, the usual rules apply:

• be thorough,
• use different keywords and database sources (e.g., DBLP, Google Scholar, ISI Proceedings, JSTOR Search, Medline, Scopus, Web of Science), and
• look at who has cited past relevant papers and book chapters.

Rule 3: Take Notes While Reading

If you read the papers first, and only afterwards start writing the review, you will need a very good memory to remember who wrote what, and what your impressions and associations were while reading each single paper. My advice is, while reading, to start writing down interesting pieces of information, insights about how to organize the review, and thoughts on what to write. This way, by the time you have read the literature you selected, you will already have a rough draft of the review.

Of course, this draft will still need much rewriting, restructuring, and rethinking to obtain a text with a coherent argument [11] , but you will have avoided the danger posed by staring at a blank document. Be careful when taking notes to use quotation marks if you are provisionally copying verbatim from the literature. It is advisable then to reformulate such quotes with your own words in the final draft. It is important to be careful in noting the references already at this stage, so as to avoid misattributions. Using referencing software from the very beginning of your endeavour will save you time.

Rule 4: Choose the Type of Review You Wish to Write

After having taken notes while reading the literature, you will have a rough idea of the amount of material available for the review. This is probably a good time to decide whether to go for a mini- or a full review. Some journals are now favouring the publication of rather short reviews focusing on the last few years, with a limit on the number of words and citations. A mini-review is not necessarily a minor review: it may well attract more attention from busy readers, although it will inevitably simplify some issues and leave out some relevant material due to space limitations. A full review will have the advantage of more freedom to cover in detail the complexities of a particular scientific development, but may then be left in the pile of the very important papers “to be read” by readers with little time to spare for major monographs.

There is probably a continuum between mini- and full reviews. The same point applies to the dichotomy of descriptive vs. integrative reviews. While descriptive reviews focus on the methodology, findings, and interpretation of each reviewed study, integrative reviews attempt to find common ideas and concepts from the reviewed material [12] . A similar distinction exists between narrative and systematic reviews: while narrative reviews are qualitative, systematic reviews attempt to test a hypothesis based on the published evidence, which is gathered using a predefined protocol to reduce bias [13] , [14] . When systematic reviews analyse quantitative results in a quantitative way, they become meta-analyses. The choice between different review types will have to be made on a case-by-case basis, depending not just on the nature of the material found and the preferences of the target journal(s), but also on the time available to write the review and the number of coauthors [15] .

Rule 5: Keep the Review Focused, but Make It of Broad Interest

Whether your plan is to write a mini- or a full review, it is good advice to keep it focused 16 , 17 . Including material just for the sake of it can easily lead to reviews that are trying to do too many things at once. The need to keep a review focused can be problematic for interdisciplinary reviews, where the aim is to bridge the gap between fields [18] . If you are writing a review on, for example, how epidemiological approaches are used in modelling the spread of ideas, you may be inclined to include material from both parent fields, epidemiology and the study of cultural diffusion. This may be necessary to some extent, but in this case a focused review would only deal in detail with those studies at the interface between epidemiology and the spread of ideas.

While focus is an important feature of a successful review, this requirement has to be balanced with the need to make the review relevant to a broad audience. This square may be circled by discussing the wider implications of the reviewed topic for other disciplines.

Rule 6: Be Critical and Consistent

Reviewing the literature is not stamp collecting. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but discusses it critically, identifies methodological problems, and points out research gaps [19] . After having read a review of the literature, a reader should have a rough idea of:

• the major achievements in the reviewed field,
• the main areas of debate, and
• the outstanding research questions.

It is challenging to achieve a successful review on all these fronts. A solution can be to involve a set of complementary coauthors: some people are excellent at mapping what has been achieved, some others are very good at identifying dark clouds on the horizon, and some have instead a knack at predicting where solutions are going to come from. If your journal club has exactly this sort of team, then you should definitely write a review of the literature! In addition to critical thinking, a literature review needs consistency, for example in the choice of passive vs. active voice and present vs. past tense.

Rule 7: Find a Logical Structure

Like a well-baked cake, a good review has a number of telling features: it is worth the reader's time, timely, systematic, well written, focused, and critical. It also needs a good structure. With reviews, the usual subdivision of research papers into introduction, methods, results, and discussion does not work or is rarely used. However, a general introduction of the context and, toward the end, a recapitulation of the main points covered and take-home messages make sense also in the case of reviews. For systematic reviews, there is a trend towards including information about how the literature was searched (database, keywords, time limits) [20] .

How can you organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it? It is generally helpful to draw a conceptual scheme of the review, e.g., with mind-mapping techniques. Such diagrams can help recognize a logical way to order and link the various sections of a review [21] . This is the case not just at the writing stage, but also for readers if the diagram is included in the review as a figure. A careful selection of diagrams and figures relevant to the reviewed topic can be very helpful to structure the text too [22] .

Rule 8: Make Use of Feedback

Reviews of the literature are normally peer-reviewed in the same way as research papers, and rightly so [23] . As a rule, incorporating feedback from reviewers greatly helps improve a review draft. Having read the review with a fresh mind, reviewers may spot inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that had not been noticed by the writers due to rereading the typescript too many times. It is however advisable to reread the draft one more time before submission, as a last-minute correction of typos, leaps, and muddled sentences may enable the reviewers to focus on providing advice on the content rather than the form.

Feedback is vital to writing a good review, and should be sought from a variety of colleagues, so as to obtain a diversity of views on the draft. This may lead in some cases to conflicting views on the merits of the paper, and on how to improve it, but such a situation is better than the absence of feedback. A diversity of feedback perspectives on a literature review can help identify where the consensus view stands in the landscape of the current scientific understanding of an issue [24] .

Rule 9: Include Your Own Relevant Research, but Be Objective

In many cases, reviewers of the literature will have published studies relevant to the review they are writing. This could create a conflict of interest: how can reviewers report objectively on their own work [25] ? Some scientists may be overly enthusiastic about what they have published, and thus risk giving too much importance to their own findings in the review. However, bias could also occur in the other direction: some scientists may be unduly dismissive of their own achievements, so that they will tend to downplay their contribution (if any) to a field when reviewing it.

In general, a review of the literature should neither be a public relations brochure nor an exercise in competitive self-denial. If a reviewer is up to the job of producing a well-organized and methodical review, which flows well and provides a service to the readership, then it should be possible to be objective in reviewing one's own relevant findings. In reviews written by multiple authors, this may be achieved by assigning the review of the results of a coauthor to different coauthors.

Rule 10: Be Up-to-Date, but Do Not Forget Older Studies

Given the progressive acceleration in the publication of scientific papers, today's reviews of the literature need awareness not just of the overall direction and achievements of a field of inquiry, but also of the latest studies, so as not to become out-of-date before they have been published. Ideally, a literature review should not identify as a major research gap an issue that has just been addressed in a series of papers in press (the same applies, of course, to older, overlooked studies (“sleeping beauties” [26] )). This implies that literature reviewers would do well to keep an eye on electronic lists of papers in press, given that it can take months before these appear in scientific databases. Some reviews declare that they have scanned the literature up to a certain point in time, but given that peer review can be a rather lengthy process, a full search for newly appeared literature at the revision stage may be worthwhile. Assessing the contribution of papers that have just appeared is particularly challenging, because there is little perspective with which to gauge their significance and impact on further research and society.

Inevitably, new papers on the reviewed topic (including independently written literature reviews) will appear from all quarters after the review has been published, so that there may soon be the need for an updated review. But this is the nature of science [27] – [32] . I wish everybody good luck with writing a review of the literature.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to M. Barbosa, K. Dehnen-Schmutz, T. Döring, D. Fontaneto, M. Garbelotto, O. Holdenrieder, M. Jeger, D. Lonsdale, A. MacLeod, P. Mills, M. Moslonka-Lefebvre, G. Stancanelli, P. Weisberg, and X. Xu for insights and discussions, and to P. Bourne, T. Matoni, and D. Smith for helpful comments on a previous draft.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) through its Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB), as part of the NETSEED research project. The funders had no role in the preparation of the manuscript.