what is an article review

what is an article review

The Importance of Writing an Effective Article Review

1. Understanding the Purpose of an Article Review

There are some reasons for writing ineffective articles. The purpose is to promote the level of reader’s understanding. It is certain that readers can understand the main ideas and arguments in the article being reviewed. A well-done review is categorized as such if the reader can utilize the information obtained from it as a base for other articles that they may read. An article review is not just a list of the main points, but rather an attempt to convince the reader why the article is important. It is often a good thing to read an article which is crucial to one’s professional practice and try to continue this cycle of journal reading with current practices. A good review will help the reader find articles that are similar to what they are reading, leading them to thought a comparative analysis of two or more articles. An article review provides a summary of an article without hoping to persuade the reader that the article is better off read. A reviewer may often be required to read articles other than their interest with the intention to summarize it for other researchers. This is the case of a student who must hand in a review on a certain article in hopes of projecting it to their peers. It is only that a proficient review is done with an article since it is not a complex task for one to summarize an article. A complex task for one to do is to critique an article and it is often the most needed part. For novice researchers, it’s often difficult to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses in an article. By doing a critique, a researcher may learn what makes a good article and what an article should not be. This can save a vast amount of reading time for academic researchers who, before doing a critique on what they read, often read every article they come across. A good critique can give some insight to the reader on what article to look for. However, it should be remembered that a critique is only the opinion of the reviewer and for certain narrow-minded individuals, it can lead to a debate or argument. Finally, what is important from doing an article review is the obtained skill from reading and writing. This task is certainly not an easy one and it does take time. However, after some practice, one will find that their reading comprehension and writing skills have improved. This is the ultimate goal of a review, an improvement at the student and professional level. An article reviewed is not to be taken lightly and often should be taken into terms with the one who is doing it.

2. Key Components of a Well-Written Article Review

Writing an article review isn’t merely about expressing your opinion on the work in question. You must delve deeper and answer the following questions: What are your reactions? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the work? How is the work accomplished in comparison to others similar to it? What does the work contribute to the current understanding of the subject? Is the work effective? These questions also apply when you try to review an experienced article by creating one of your own, you are allowing the expertise of the author to guide you through your own article. In this sense, the article review is often used to determine if someone may be in need of improvement or changes in a certain area of their work as well as a positive check-up to make sure the same person is on the right track in the case of an article.

3. Tips for Conducting a Thorough Article Analysis

5. Look at the article’s structure. Is the line of argument clear? Is there a set of linked sections with their own sub-arguments, or is it more in the style of the classic 5-paragraph essay? Is the structure rhetorically effective, given the nature of the topic and the intended audience?

4. Consider the overall cogency of the paper. How well does the author address the questions, solve the problems, or exploit the opportunities identified in (2)? How clearly and effectively is the evidence used to move the reader from the questions to the answers? How well are any counter-arguments or alternative solutions to the problems addressed, and how conclusive is the author in rejecting them.

3. What sort of evidence is used? Is it clear and unambiguous, or open to interpretation? Does the author rely on personal experience, anecdote and interview, or a wide range of data? Is the evidence internal to the article (i.e., the author’s stated observations or the results of the paper’s own empirical or theoretical work) or external (i.e., other people’s results or descriptions)?

2. Consider the questions, issues and problems which the paper addresses. Are they well formulated? Are they interesting and important? How does the author draw the reader in and make clear the relevance of the topic?

1. Identify the major claim and the evidence used to support it. Where in the article is the major claim stated? Is it explicit or implicit? Are there a number of distinct (perhaps even conflicting) claims which might be considered the main one?

The following is a series of questions to be used when analysing and critiquing an article. These questions might also be applied to other kinds of review. The purpose of asking questions is to generate more complete understanding and hence more effective evaluation.

4. Structuring Your Article Review for Maximum Impact

1. Firstly, select the most important points of the article or those which you feel are of most interest to you. These will be the points that you will summarize and critique within the review. 2. Define the global purpose of the article. What is the author trying to achieve? The author may express his purpose at any one point in the article, so this should be quoted and explained in the review. 3. Agreement or disagreement on the author’s points. This is an evaluation of the author’s point and how well he has expressed it. A specific example from the article is usually the best way to show this. 4. The last point should be a summary of your feelings toward the article. A negative or positive evaluation does not have to be biased, and it should be supported by evidence from the article. As a piece of writing, this is the author’s chance to summatively evaluate his own review. What more could he add to this sucker? Wink

Structuring the article review A student must know that structure is vital when it comes to writing an article review. Just like an essay, the writer is required to set out his points in a systematic manner. This will give the review a much better flow and make it easier for the reader to understand. There are various ways to format the review. The most effective way to present the article’s ideas is to offer an opinion about each one, summarizing and critiquing each point according to its relative importance. If the student feels this is too repetitive and time consuming, it might also be effective to summarize the article into key points using a set criteria. An example to this might be using a compare and contrast method, considering the article’s strengths and weaknesses. The review should still maintain a high level of analysis, this is not an opportunity to simply list the points in the article. Whichever method is used, a paragraph should be used for each different point in the article and should be broken up by the writer’s opinion or the author’s methodology. This will ensure that the review has a well-structured argument which is supported by the evidence from the article. This is a key factor in ensuring that the review has a powerful impact on the reader. An alternative and very effective way to structure the review is to use a point by point method, which is usually a sequential summary of the article followed by a critical global commentary. This method is detailed in a list below and has been taken from the UCSP Handout 4 and Leech, B.A. 1989, A linguistic Guide to English Poetry. Oxford and New York: Longman pg. 84.

5. The Art of Persuasion: Writing a Convincing Article Review

Whether you have to write an academic article review for any purpose, how to create an article review that will persuade your reader that you have read the article in question with care and that your critique of the article is justified. If you have been asked to write an article review, chances are that your guidance counselor or an online tutor has specified a particular article that you are required to review. How you proceed with writing your article review or article critique will depend on the instructions you receive from your tutor. Regardless of the instructor’s specifications, there are a few general rules that will help you decide how to write a persuasive essay on an article review, and these will be discussed in this section of the article review guide. The most important rule in writing an article review or article critique to remember is that writing this type of paper is an argument essay. Most article review assignments will ask you to avoid merely summarizing the article and rather make and defend a claim about whether the article’s particular argument is convincing. Any article critique argument essay must be well reasoned as you will need to argue why the article’s argument is a strong one. There are a number of questions that you should ask in order to determine whether the argument presented in an article is persuasive.