Overview
Introduction: introduction of your topic, its relevance, and your research question. You may include less scholarly sources here, such as book or movie reviews, to contextualize your argument. Write about the importance of your selection and why you chose it. Explain why and how your paper is furthering the development of the theory and the communication field, or explain the significance of your artifact and why we need to understand it better. Just showing a correlation between a theory and an artifact isn’t that exciting. It usually works to either prioritize the theory (the paper is important because it is applying the theory in a nontraditional way) OR the artifact (the paper is important because this show is breaking norms and needs further study). Use nonacademic sources here if they help develop relevance. End this section with an RQ.
Chapter 2 reviews relevant literature.
Literature Review: this is a review of the research you have gathered to support your study. The literature review focuses on researched articles you selected. In this way, it is a creative process. In this section you should not be mentioning your artifact that you are analyzing at all. You are laying your theoretical ground work for your analysis. In your lit review, your first source should be the primary source of most importance to the theory you are working with. Use the primary text of the lead theorist first and foremost, and then back it up with scholarship that utilizes this theory.
Chapter 3 explains methodology: what criteria will you use, based on your theory section, on what artifact(s).