Assignment: Article Critique

Access the article, "Reflecting on Practice: Using Learning Journals in Higher and Continuing Education" from the Doc Sharing area.

Supplemental documents in Doc Sharing provide guidance, in complementary but slightly different ways. The ‘Suggestions for Writing Organized Papers' document emphasizes how to organize and write an article critique. The 'Writing a Critique' handout emphasizes the purpose for writing an article critique, naming and describing the 5 elements that make up most research articles. The third piece is a sample introductory paragraph, where the author's purpose for writing an article critique and a map that clearly identifies the 5 basic parts of a research article, are clearly shown. Your purpose statement is specific to the Langer (2002) article, so it will, of course, have different content. You might state your purpose somewhat like this: "The purpose of this article critique is to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Langer (2002) article." This could be followed by naming the 5 parts of a research article, and then you would have also created a map.
You can download all these documents, as well as the Scoring Rubric for this assignment, to Microsoft Word. Print copies and refer to them not just for this journal critique but for other assignments throughout this course.

Suggestions for Writing Organized Papers identifies the 3 basic parts: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion of all the assignments you will do [and all effective writing]. These 3 parts may contain somewhat different material depending upon the assignment. The details of how to apply the parts specifically to a research article critique are bolded.

Writing a Critique of a Journal Article states the basic purpose for writing a research article critique: to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each of the 5 elements, also giving you questions to guide your understanding.

Sample Introductory Paragraph with purpose statement and map

Note: Your analysis of the 5 elements form the Body of your paper, while your purpose, to critique the article, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses, is stated in the Introduction.

All research articles contain these 5 elements, in this order, generally:

Research Question/Problem-and, generally, the author's Purpose for writing the article

Literature Review and/or a Theoretical/Conceptual Foundation

Methodology-data collection and data analysis section

Results or Findings

Discussion or Implications.

Download the assigned article. Look for the elements and mark them, if that is helpful, reflect on what you read, thinking of how you would analyze each part's strengths and weaknesses. What is unclear? What is unanswered? What more would you have liked to know?

Because reading and analyzing journal articles may be new territory for you, a few points about this article might be helpful:

The Research Question and Purpose are located early in the Introduction. [note: while all articles have an introduction, it is not usually labeled, as such];

While not called Conceptual Framework, the section titled 'The Concept of Reflection in Learning' actually is that, while the Literature Review is called 'The Uses of Learning Journals.'

What is usually called 'Methodology' is called 'Research Methods', while the Results or Findings in this article are quite long and contains a number of sub headings;

The Discussion/Implications is broken into 2 parts in this article called 'Implications and Conclusions,' though you could put them in a single, heading.

Assignment Directions:

Submit a double-spaced, three-four-page paper in Microsoft Word with the following parts:

An Introductory paragraph that states the author's last name, date, and the central focus of the article. Then in this same paragraph: write a purpose or thesis statement-that is your purpose or intent in writing this critique [WHAT] and a brief 'map' or 'preview' statement of the 5 elements you intend to develop in the body, to support your purpose. Do not title the section as the Introduction.

A Body that breaks the 5 elements of a research article into Level Two headers, starting the first sentence of each paragraph with a topic sentence that focuses on the strengths and/or weaknesses of that element. Be sure to support each point with evidence from the article-quotes, paraphrases [See Citations, APA, Ch 6 to check how to do this].

A Conclusion that restates your purpose and summarizes the article's overall strengths and weaknesses. You might also discuss briefly what you learned from this article and in what ways you found it interesting or useful to do this first article critique.

Other requirements:

Include a Title page that contains your critique's title and related information. Page 2, at the top, should contain the centered paper title again centered.

Include a Reference page, fully citing the article, using APA Guidelines and other chapters as needed for editorial style, expression of ideas and format of text.

Then, finally, consider these points:

Use direct quotes sparingly-cite accurately, with quotation marks, etc.

For any paraphrases, be sure to give credit to the author.

Use correct grammar, spellcheck and proofread your paper.