Much of the writing you have done in the past based on finding and summarizing scholarly sources has been called research. That kind of library research is more formally called a literature review. In this class you will be doing hands-on research, and using the literature you find to help you formulate your project and compare your results to the results of others.
A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic. For futher information, please see UCSC's guide to writing a literature review