HOW TO CRITIQUE A JOURNAL ARTICLE

So your assignment is to critique a journal article. This handout will give you a few
guidelines to

follow as you go. But wait, what kind of a journal article is it: an empirical/research
article, or a

review of literature? Some of the guidelines offered here will apply to critiques of all
kinds of

articles, but each type of article may provoke questions that are especially pertinent to
that type

and no other. Read on.

First of all, for any type of journal article your critique should include some basic
information:

1. Name(s) of the author(s)

2. Title of article

3. Title of journal, volume number, date, month and page numbers

4. Statement of the problem or issue discussed

5. The author’s purpose, approach or methods, hypothesis, and major conclusions.

The bulk of your critique, however, should consist of your qualified opinion of the
article.

Read the article you are to critique once to get an overview. Then read it again, critically.
At this

point you may want to make some notes to yourself on your copy (not the library’s copy,
please).

The following are some questions you may want to address in your critique no matter
what type

of article you are critiquing. (Use your discretion. These points don’t have to be discussed
in

this order, and some may not be pertinent to your particular article.)
1. Is the title of the article appropriate and clear?

2. Is the abstract specific, representative of the article, and in the correct form?

3. Is the purpose of the article made clear in the introduction?

4. Do you find errors of fact and interpretation? (This is a good one! You won’t believe
how

often authors misinterpret or misrepresent the work of others. You can check on this by

looking up for yourself the references the author cites.)

5. Is all of the discussion relevant?

6. Has the author cited the pertinent, and only the pertinent, literature? If the author has

included inconsequential references, or references that are not pertinent, suggest deleting

them.

7. Have any ideas been overemphasized or underemphasized? Suggest specific revisions.

8. Should some sections of the manuscript be expanded, condensed or omitted?

9. Are the author’s statements clear? Challenge ambiguous statements. Suggest by

examples how clarity can be achieved, but do not merely substitute your style for the

author’s.

10. What underlying assumptions does the author have?

11. Has the author been objective in his or her discussion of the topic?

In addition, here are some questions that are more specific to empirical/research articles.
(Again,

use your discretion.)

1. Is the objective of the experiment or of the observations important for the field?

2. Are the experimental methods described adequately?

3. Are the study design and methods appropriate for the purposes of the study?

4. Have the procedures been presented in enough detail to enable a reader to duplicate
them?

(Another good one! You’d be surprised at the respectable researchers who cut corners in

their writing on this point.)

5. Scan and spot-check calculations. Are the statistical methods appropriate?

6. Do you find any content repeated or duplicated? A common fault is repetition in the
text

of data in tables or figures. Suggest that tabular data be interpreted of summarized, nor

merely repeated, in the text.

A word about your style: let your presentation be well-reasoned and objective. If you

passionately disagree (or agree) with the author, let your passion inspire you to new
heights of

thorough research and reasoned argument.

First of all, in looking for an instructional website on how to write a critique of a journal
article, I found nothing online giving the steps to take to structure a critique of a journal
article.  So, here goes; what I'm going to do is give you the elements of putting together a
journal article critique below from an old instructional course book for political science
writers.  The following steps are taken from The Political Science Student Writer's
Manual, 4th Edition, by Gregory M. Scott and Stephen M. Garrison:

1. The first step is to select an appropriate journal article; the best articles are taken
from scholarly journals.
2. Browse journals until you find a topic that interests you; this makes for a better
critique.
3. Select an article that fits your current level of knowledge.  Do not include
statistics unless you are versed in those statistics.
4. Try to select articles that are current; pick an article written within the preceding
12 months.
5. Writing the critique will cover five areas, after you have read the article
thoroughly:  thesis, methods, evidence of thesis support, contribution to the
literature, recommendations.
6. Tips on the five elements: (1) Clearly state the thesis.  (2) Under methods, answer
the following questions.  "What methods did the author use to investigate the
topic?  Were the appropriate methods used?  Did the author's approach to
 supporting the thesis make sense?  Did the author employ the methods correctly? 
Did you discover any errors in the way the research was conducted?"  (3) 
Evidence of Thesis Support:  "What evidence did the author present in support of
the thesis?  What are the strengths of the evidence?  What are the weaknesses? 
How did the author support the thesis?"  (4)  Contribution to the literature: 
"Conduct your own research and include at least five other authors on the subject. 
Evaluate the contribution that your selected article makes to a better
understanding of the subject."  (5) Recommendation:  "Summarize your
evaluation of the article.  Who will benefit from reading this article?  What will
the benefit be?  How important and extensive is that benefit?  Clearly state your
evaluation of the article in the form of a thesis for your own critique."
7. Find yourself a paper format in which to put your critique and follow assigned or
selected citing methods, as well, when giving support for your thesis or quoting
your source materials. 

Journal Critique Assignment

 
Assignment: Critique 3 journal articles each with a different research design to make
explicit how they are or are not examples of the use of feminist methodologies. One of
the 3 selections may be a literature review chapter from a dissertation. Most selections
will probably come from research journals. Check with me if you are unsure about your
selections. Click here to find feminist research.

Guiding questions for your critique:

 
1. Examine how knowledge is constructed and deployed.
 
2. Examine how interdisciplinary feminist perspectives inform research methods.
 
3. Examine how feminist analysis redefines traditional categories and disciplinary
concepts through its attention to gender and other social categories social as race,
class, culture, sexual orientation, and age.
 
4. Explore practical guidelines for feminist interventions for social change and
policy revision.
 
5. How is the research article/text/ video an example of the use of feminist
methodologies? Or is it?
 
6. What counts as evidence in the study? What sources did the feminist scholars
look to for information?
 
7. How were the objects/subject/ interpreters of the research treated in the study?
 
8. What questions guided the feminist research?
 
 9. What is the relationship between the object of research and the researcher?

Also refer to the course presentations and our discussions concerning what is feminist
research methodologies.

Due: April 11. (Worth 20% of the course grade)

Purpose: To critically read and evaluate published feminist research.
 
Preparation: We will continue to study different research designs to prepare you to do
this assignment. However, I thought that you might want the assignment now so that you
could select 3 articles to critique between now and April 11. My experience has been that
students increase in their ability to read and critique published research as the course
progresses. I have provided tradtional formats to critique research articles described in
the "Standards" section below.
 
Standards: I have provided "Standards of Adequacy" as links so that you use them to
critique your selection of 3 research articles comparing the study to what is expected for
each type of study. Use these guidelines or standards to evaluate the research within the
traditions to help you see how the feminist research adheres or differs from these
standards:
(link 1) an introduction on how to read research (read this first)
 
(link 2) how to read quantitative research
 
(link 3) standards of adequacy for true experimental designs, quasi-
experimental designs, and single-subject designs
 
(link 4) standards of adequacy for descriptive research, correlational research,
survey research, and ex post facto research
 
(link 5) standards of adequacy for a narrative literature review (use these
criteria to critique a literature review chapter in a dissertation)
 
(link 6) standards of adequacy for qualitative designs--case studies
 
(link 7) standards of adequacy for ethnographic methodology
 
(link 8) credibility standards for analytical research such as historical and legal
studies
 
(link 9) guidelines for a research proposal (these guidelines will be used to
constructively critique your research proposal due on May 7, 2002)
 
Each link has the type of research methodology written on the top and the page
numbers from the McMillian, J. and Schumacher, S. (1997). Research in
education: A conceptual introduction (4th edition) textbook so that you may refer
 to it for further clarification. Definition of terms may be found in the chapter or in
the glossary of this textbook.
 
Connections: You may chose articles that relate to your problem statement and/or that
utilize the research methodologies that you are most interested. For example, you could
select an article that reported survey findings, another that analyzed policies, and a third
that reported a case study design. If so you would use: (a) link 4 with its 7 criteria listed
for survey research; (b) link 8 in with its criteria for credibility for analytical research;
and (c) link 6 on the standards of adequacy of a case study. Or you might choose a
literature review, an analytical study, and a qualitative study. Or you might choose three
qualitative studies that use different theoretical frameworks, data collection processes,
and different analysis strategies. Another option could be to choose a survey research
study, a literature review, and an ex post facto study. These are some examples of the
range of combinations. You select the combination that is most useful to you