Page Literature Review: Doable Weeks Back

Bottom‑line answer: yes, you can finish a 12‑page literature review in two weeks, but you’ll need about 30‑45 hours of focused work

The realistic workload for a 12‑page APA‑style review in an introductory psychology class sits roughly between thirty and forty‑five hours. That translates to about two to three hours of reading and note‑taking for each finished page, plus extra time for outlining, drafting, polishing, and double‑checking citations. If you spread those hours across fourteen days you’re looking at an average of two and a half hours a day. That cadence is doable even if you’re juggling a part‑time job, family duties, or other classes—provided you lock in a schedule, keep distractions low, and give yourself a buffer for the inevitable rewrite.

Stage‑by‑stage timeline with concrete time estimates

Common reasons the timeline stretches beyond the estimate

Returning students often underestimate the research phase. The first keyword list feels complete until you discover that seminal studies use different terminology—“cognitive bias” instead of “thinking error,” for example. That forces a second round of searches, which can add another one to two hours of reading and note‑taking per round.

Rewriting from scratch is another hidden cost. The initial draft rarely meets the clarity standards of a psychology professor; you’ll likely need to reorganize sections, replace vague summaries with precise data, and tighten the argument. Each major re‑structure can consume an extra two to three hours.

Formatting issues also eat time. APA has specific rules for headings, tables, and reference entries. If you try to apply the style on the fly, you’ll spend time back‑tracking to fix inconsistencies. Setting up a template before you start can shave an hour or two, but creating that template itself takes about thirty minutes.

Plagiarism worries add a layer of caution. Many students spend extra time paraphrasing because they’re afraid of accidental similarity. Running a plagiarism checker early—after the first draft—helps you spot problem areas before you invest time in a full revision.

Concrete example: a returning student’s two‑week timeline

Consider a student who left academia ten years ago, now enrolled part‑time in an introductory psychology course. The professor announced the literature review on a Monday, with a deadline the following Monday. Here’s how the student paced the work:

• Day 1 (Monday): Read the assignment prompt, write a one‑sentence research question, and list inclusion criteria (peer‑reviewed, 2010‑2024, experimental studies). Set a timer for two hours and finish the “Clarify the assignment” stage.
• Days 2‑3 (Tuesday‑Wednesday): Conduct preliminary searches in PsycINFO and Google Scholar, collect 25 relevant abstracts, and narrow them to 15 articles. Allocate four hours total.
• Day 4 (Thursday): Download PDFs, rename files (Author_Year_Title.pdf), and create a folder hierarchy (/LitReview/Articles, /LitReview/Notes). Spend three hours.
• Days 5‑7 (Friday‑Sunday): Read each article, highlight key methods and results, and fill a spreadsheet with citation details and a one‑sentence summary. This intensive reading consumes ten hours, broken into three‑hour blocks each day.
• Day 8 (Monday): Draft a thematic outline: “1. Cognitive biases in decision making; 2. Emotional influences; 3. Intervention studies.” Spend three hours refining the flow.
• Days 9‑10 (Tuesday‑Wednesday): Write the first draft, aiming for 600 words per hour. After eight hours the draft reaches roughly 12 pages, still rough around the edges.
• Day 11 (Thursday): Apply APA formatting using a pre‑made template, create the reference list, and double‑check headings. Three hours later the document looks polished.
• Day 12 (Friday): Run a plagiarism scanner, find two passages that need re‑phrasing, and rewrite them. Four hours of revision and coherence checks.
• Day 13 (Saturday): Final proofread, verify page count, and submit before the midnight deadline. Two hours.

The total adds up to about thirty‑nine hours, fitting comfortably within the two‑week window. The student’s biggest surprise was the amount of time spent on note‑taking; that step alone accounted for a third of the total workload.

When the workload is genuinely heavy and how to acknowledge it

There are scenarios where the estimate of thirty‑to‑forty‑five hours simply isn’t enough. If the professor expects a comprehensive synthesis of twenty‑plus peer‑reviewed studies, or if you have limited access to the university’s databases, the research phase can balloon to fifteen or twenty hours. Likewise, if you’re simultaneously writing a lab report, studying for a midterm, and working 30 hours a week, the daily two‑and‑a‑half‑hour cadence may be unrealistic.

In those cases it’s honest to recognize that the project will feel “heavy.” The key is not to pretend the workload is light, but to plan for realistic trade‑offs. Accept that you may need to narrow the scope of your review—focus on a tighter set of themes or a shorter time span—rather than trying to cover everything the professor might have in mind.

Minimum‑viable plan for a student short on time

If you find yourself with only ten hours left before the deadline, cut to the essentials without sacrificing the core academic standards:

1. Limit the source pool to eight high‑impact articles that directly address your research question. Quality beats quantity.
2. Use a pre‑made APA template (many university writing centers provide one). This eliminates the need to format headings and references from scratch.
3. Write a concise “methods of literature selection” paragraph instead of a full methodological discussion. Explain that you searched PsycINFO with three keywords and selected articles based on relevance and recency.
4. Skip a separate plagiarism scan if you’ve paraphrased each source in your own words and cited properly; instead, run a quick “find” for any long verbatim strings.
5. Allocate the final hour to a focused proofread: read aloud, catch missing citations, and verify the page count.

Even with these shortcuts the final product will meet the professor’s expectations for an introductory course, because the assignment values clear synthesis and correct APA style more than exhaustive coverage.