demonstrate proficiency in critically analyzing research evidence

LITERATURE REVIEW AND ANALYSIS ASSIGNMENT
FORMATTING
APA formatted (double-spaced, 12-pt Times New Roman font or 11-point Calibri font ONLY, section headers, page numbers, title page, reference page, 1-inch margins (all), 6-page maximum, excluding the title page and reference page. You should have, at the minimum, 5 references (3 articles that you are synthesizing and 2 additional scholarly sources). More resources may be used, if necessary. Every reference listed must have a corresponding in-text citation. Each article should be cited in your paper. Do not include an abstract and do not include additional section headers. Submit your assignment as a WORD document ONLY. No PDFs will be accepted for the final publish of this assignment; however, your three articles may be submitted in the form of a PDF. They must be full-text articles that were published within the last 5 years. DO NOT SUBMIT MORE THAN THE REQUIRED 3 ARTICLES AND YOUR PAPER. SHOULD YOU DO THIS, POINTS WILL BE DEDUCTED. Should you submit your final Literature Review and Analysis as a PDF, it will not be graded. You will be required to resubmit it and appropriate point deductions will apply.
The goals for completing this assignment are to:

demonstrate proficiency in critically analyzing research evidence
demonstrate the ability to synthesize the literature
distinguish quality evidence
discuss the characteristics of research articles
integrate multiple pieces of evidence into a literature review format
identify gaps in areas of scientific investigations

Literature reviews in published studies provide what is known, what is not known, and what the possible contribution is of a study. The review of the literature for a quantitative study is done to identify the research problem, understand previous research, and plan the study. During the interpretation of the findings, the researcher may review the literature again to determine if additional relevant studies have been published. Reviews of the literature in published studies can be critically appraised for current, quality sources; relevant content; and synthesis of relevant content (see the critical appraisal guidelines box in textbook Chapter 6). A checklist for reviewing the literature includes preparing, conducting the search, processing the information, and writing the review. A written review of literature should be grammatically correct with a logical flow and a reference list that is accurate and complete.

Assignment Overview
You will write a limited literature review to identify studies published on your assigned topic. Your assigned topic is “Effective Hand Hygiene Practices”. In this assignment, you will review scientific literature in relation to your assigned topic. You are required to review and synthesize three research articles. The three articles are to be (1) peer-reviewed, (2) primary research, and (3) quantitative studies only. They must be articles that were published within the last 5 years. Throughout the semester, you have been searching for evidence that pertains to this topic. This is evidence that you may use to complete this assignment to support your literature review.

Step 1: Reviewing the Literature
A literature review is used to direct the planning and execution of a study. The primary purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate why a study is necessary. As you compose your literature review, you must establish the necessity for a research study on the assigned topic. One of the key tasks is to establish where gaps in the current research lie. You must show what has been overlooked, understudied, or misjudged by previous studies in order to create space for new research within the assigned topic area of academic or scientific inquiry. When reading the papers, keep in mind that you do not need to understand every last detail in order to get the main messages and a clear overview of what was done and its implications and limitations.
Step 2: Writing your Literature Review
Your final literature review and analysis paper will not be akin to a traditional literature review, which is usually presented as an often-lengthy text document. You are to provide your literature review in the format outlined within the rubric. Refer to your Literature Summary table/map from HW E. This table will help you synthesize the information about your 3 articles. You are required to electronically submit the ONLY the three articles that you used to conduct the review, along with your final publish of the assignment. The articles may be submitted in PDF format. If you have already submitted the articles for a previous assignment, you are still required to submit them again with this final assignment. Your paper should be explicitly organized into sections that are listed on the Literature Review and Analysis Rubric with clear section headings using the proper section heading levels as outlined in your APA manual (p. 47 -49). Only title your section headings using the section titles that are listed on the rubric. DO NOT include additional section headings.

NOTE: You must be very careful not to simply use the abstracts of your articles or text in the articles themselves for your summary. This exercise is meant for you to summarize things IN YOUR OWN WORDS! I am looking for YOUR summary of each source. Academic misconduct is a serious offense, thus TURNITIN ( less than or equal to 30% matching with no verbatim passages and no quotations) will be enabled. Papers with a TURNITIN score greater than 30% will not be accepted and will receive a grade of “0”. Resubmission is solely up to your instructor. Please view the Academic Honesty Policy in your student handbook and/or the syllabus. You are required to submit FULL-TEXT copies of your evidence (research articles). URL links, abstracts, sign-ins, copying, and pasting are not acceptable forms of submission for your articles. Should this be the case, you will receive a “0” for this portion of the graded rubric.
ATTACHED IS A SAMPLE PAPER AND THE RUBRIC