Week 4 skill · about 2.5 hours

The Theme Sort

Put your sources into piles by what they say. The piles become the sections of your literature review.

What it is

A theme sort is a list. At the top of each pile is a theme: a short sentence that several of your studies support. Under it, one line for each study that belongs there. That is all. When you are done, you have the outline of your literature review.

Why bother? Because a literature review that goes “Smith found this. Jones found that. Lee found something else” is just a list of summaries — the mistake Baumeister and Leary (1997) warn about most. A review that goes “Three studies found this, but the one with nursing students did not” is talking about studies together. Sorting your sources into themes is how you get from the first kind of writing to the second.

Theme, not topic

A topic is a word. A theme is a claim — something the studies say.

Topics versus themes
Topic (too vague)Theme (use this)
Self-compassionSelf-compassion goes with lower test anxiety.
Social mediaHeavy social media use goes with poorer sleep in teens.
InterventionsShort writing exercises can raise self-compassion, at least for a few days.

Three or four themes is right for ten sources. A study can sit under two themes.

A worked example

These studies are made up for teaching, which is why they are called Study A, B, C, and not by authors’ names. Your version uses real author names and years.

Theme 1. Self-compassion goes with lower test anxiety.

Study A (2019): 212 undergraduates; r = −.41.

Study C (2021): 340 first-year students; self-compassion predicted lower anxiety 4 months later.

Study D (2022): 150 nursing students before a licensing exam; no relationship (r = −.12).

Theme 2. A short exercise can lower anxiety, at least right away.

Study B (2020): 96 undergraduates; a 10-minute self-compassion writing task lowered anxiety before a practice quiz (d = 0.45).

Theme 3. Fear of failure may explain the link.

Study E (2023): 405 high school students in South Korea; fear of failure explained the relationship.

Look at what the sort shows you without any extra work: the only students facing a high-stakes exam (Study D) showed no relationship, and the only experiment (Study B) used a quiz that did not count. That is a gap — and it goes in your gap paragraph.

How to do it

  1. Open your ten sources (the PDFs in your references folder, plus your two dissections). No new sources this week.
  2. Write one line per source on scrap paper or in your Notes tab: author (year), who was studied, and the main finding with its number. If you cannot find a number, write what they found in a few words.
  3. Make piles. Which lines say similar things? Group them. Give each pile a theme sentence. Aim for 3–4 themes.
  4. Type the sort at the top of your First drafts tab, in the format of the example.
  5. Look for what is missing. A theme with only one study, a group of people nobody studied, a result that disagrees with the rest. Pick the most important one.
  6. Write your gap paragraph under the sort, using the Week 4 frame.

Two and a half hours is plenty. If you hit four, stop and bring what you have.

Source cards: how to add a new source from now on

From Week 5 on, each new article gets a three-line source card in your Notes tab — not a full dissection worksheet:

1. The APA 7 reference, with DOI.

2. The main finding with its number and page — e.g., “r = −.41 (p. 7).”

3. Which theme it goes under.

Then add its one line to your theme sort. The PDF goes in your references folder, named the usual way, and into your capstone notebook.

Where it goes next

Week 5: your theme sort becomes the middle of your outline. Week 6: you write the closing paragraphs of your introduction from your gap, and each theme starts becoming a section of your literature review. By Week 7, at least half of it is written; by Week 8, your outline has turned into Draft 1.

Week 4 assignment. Your theme sort (ten sources, 3–4 themes) and your gap paragraph, at the top of your First drafts tab, before your meeting the week of October 5.

Where this comes from

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews. Review of General Psychology, 1(3), 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.1.3.311