Assessment 1 Instructions: DBA Literature Matrix

Instructions

Submit your most recently updated Capstone Literature Matrix that includes the literature used to date and the potential literature related to your topic that may be utilized in a literature review. Be sure to have as much detail as possible in each of the columns, as those details may be helpful in writing your literature review.

As you complete your assessment, be sure your submission meets the following guidelines:

• Written communication: Use error-free doctoral-level writing, with original (nonplagiarized) content, logical phrasing, and accurate word choices.
• APA formatting: Format all references and citations according to current APA style and formatting guidelines. Visit Evidence and APA for help with APA or refer to your APA manual.
• Font and font size: Use a consistent, APA-compliant font, 12 points.

Introduction

When writing a literature review, scholarly paper, article for a journal, or even a report, organizing the literature that provides evidence or support for your ideas is critical. This activity introduces you to the Literature Matrix tool, which you will be required to update throughout your program of study.

Automated tools can mimic this literature matrix and store, organize, and provide reports for the literature you have reviewed. Some of the more commonly used tools include RefWorks, EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley. However, if you choose to use those tools, you will need to ensure you can organize your literature in a matrix that provides the same detail as the Literature Matrix.

The literature matrix is a tool you will carry from course to course. In many courses, a new column will be added, which will include more information about your chosen literature. At the end of this activity, you will be able to download an Excel spreadsheet with those columns in it for each of the courses.

Why a Literature Matrix?

Organizing the literature for your study is a daunting task. Further, becoming knowledgeable in a field requires reading hundreds or thousands of articles, reports, books, white papers, conference papers, and research studies. Having a place where you catalog, organize, and document the basic information found in your reading can be helpful. The pieces of information collected will assist you when writing papers, providing cited support for ideas, showcasing your knowledge in an annotated bibliography or literature review, or creating a presentation for a knowledgeable audience.

How to Fill in the Matrix

Before starting with the matrix, let us look at some of the columns which appear on it, and talk about what each column requires. Many of the items are simple copy and paste material; the information you include here will feed a literature review and a reference list. Utilizing a literature matrix will also get you started thinking about literature in a more reflective way. Use the Definitions Tab in the Literature Matrix template to help you with including items in your matrix. Some of the information will be used in this course and many of your courses going forward. You will be asked to add additional information for your references as you move forward in your program.

Deconstructing Literature

As you start filling in the template, you will essentially deconstruct the literature into pieces and parts. Throughout the program, you will learn more techniques and ways to do this. As you do so, you will make it simpler to find ways to use the articles you read in various ways. For example, if you include the word “Delphi” in the Design column of articles using Delphi as a study method, you can easily find it if you want to review information about the Delphi technique later. If you have an article which includes the theory of planned behavior and later want to find articles about that theory, you will easily be able to find each article in your matrix which discuss that theory. Consider, as you create your matrix, standard ways of filling out the form. You can create your own abbreviations, standardized ways of writing things, or phrases, which will make the Find (control-F) command work well.

The Literature Matrix is an Excel spreadsheet, so you will need to use Excel to use it. A recommendation is that you upload this now into your ePortfolio, to make it easier to keep track of and update your Literature Matrix. Remember that you can use version control to look back at older versions if you need to.

The first line of your matrix has been filled out for you with one of the first readings assigned in the course. Note that our subject matter expert who filled that out for you has already filled in some of the columns, which you will use in other courses. They stopped at the “reference list” entry (which you will learn more about in the next course). Note that you should use reference lists now, but we will not be as picky about your formatting in this course as we will be in future courses.