journal article review example

journal article review example

The Importance of Journal Article Reviews

1. Introduction

Academia plays a special role in the world today. It is a necessity for almost every type of career or profession, and in many fields it is the only way for advancement. Because of the great importance the academic community has placed on published works, it is essential that information which is out in the academic environment be correct. Due to human error, it is likely that some of this information may be incorrect, and it is essential that the mistakes be found. This is one of the primary reasons for reviewing journal articles. This is because review articles should inform the reader what is known and what is not known, and also what has been proven and what has not been proven. This is only possible to do if the article has a firm grasp of the subject it is reviewing. Finally, review articles are often used to provide background information for a given topic. It would therefore be useful for the reader if there was some indication as to the trustworthiness of an article. High-quality and scientific articles will provide references to back up statements. Often, these articles are targeted in reviews as the references provided can also be used in collating information for the review. High-quality articles are essential when research into newer sub-disciplines is done. This is because often people from outside of the specific discipline will carry out investigations into the elementary processes of a given topic. This research will usually provide vital information, but if conveyed to the wider scientific community incorrectly, misconceptions may arise. This could lead to false information being taught in academic institutions, and it would be very hard to displace the incorrect information at a future date.

2. Methodology

For this review, a comprehensive literature search was conducted across multiple academic databases. The preferred database of choice was the PubMed database, as it provides articles on mainly healthcare related topics, previously established prevention programs, and feasible recommendations for health care teams. Other various databases utilized in this review include CINAHL, MEDLINE, Business Source Complete, and ERIC. Key search terms include: diabetes, patient education, prevention, control, lifestyle intervention programs, health care teams. Each database was accessed and searched independently by both reviewers to ensure that no pertinent articles were missed. Upon entering a keyword or phrase in the search engine, the reviewers limited the search to only articles published in a scholarly journal. The publication date was limited to the past five years in order to obtain the most recent evidence-based practice guidelines. This date restriction was implemented on March 25, 2012. This left time to account for the peer review process and publication lag. Additional sources included studies the reviewers were aware of prior to conducting the search. These sources were included because the reviewers recognized them as key articles in the field. The search returned a vast amount of articles. The reviewers then reviewed article titles and if necessary, abstracts, in order to obtain articles that were strictly research studies. A great deal of evidence-based practice studies are posted in journals, but are also found on organizational websites, or databases such as the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews or the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality database. Though these articles are sometimes more beneficial to practice, our desire was to analyze research methods conducted in primary research studies published in scholarly journals. While conducting the search, the reviewers also hand searched online journals such as “The Diabetes Educator.” All articles were compiled in a folder and duplicates were removed.

3. Analysis and Findings

Because the primary goal of my study was to investigate students’ use of peer feedback in an advanced writing course, the analysis and findings occupy a central role in this article. The nature of the research question, the complexity of the data set, and the intricacy of the readers’ experience with the articles resulted in intertwining the presentation of the findings with their interpretation. I began by examining whether the students actually engaged in the types of written and oral commentary that I advocated in the instructional materials. During the period of peer response instruction, I had asked students to exchange drafts and written commentaries on their compositions, to hold tutorials using a guided lesson plan, and to audio record their dialogues during the tutorial sessions. In the reality of the classroom, students took the assignment seriously, but were not fully compliant with all aspects of it. Approximately half of the students exchanged drafts and commentaries, and a similar number engaged in tutorials. Among those who tutored, one third did their tutorials according to the prescribed lesson plan, and none of the thirty engagements were audio recorded. These findings are seen in hindsight to constitute a separate phase of the study, the results of which became an unexpected frame of reference for later investigations. In light of the evidence suggesting that many students had either failed to implement the peer feedback strategies or had made an incomplete attempt at them, I developed two distinct case studies of students who had fully engaged in a given type of peer feedback. In Case 1, two ESL students had exchanged drafts and commentaries on their papers with the aim of identifying and addressing persistent errors in grammar and word choice. In Case 2, an undergraduate sociology major and a biology student aspiring to transfer into a five-year nursing program held a tutorial.

4. Discussion and Implications

Our statistically significant results only allow us to conclude that students who studied using the online tutorials did finish the exam faster. The result does not allow us to conclude that online tutorial students will always take less time to complete exams such as this. There may be some exams where the time difference is not significant. In order to conclude that online tutorial students will finish exams faster, we would have to conduct an experiment to determine if online tutorial students consistently spend less time completing exams. If this is true, then every time in the future that an exam is taken, online students will finish faster. This hypothetical situation illustrated on a broader scale, reveals the importance of practical significance. Practical significance concerns whether or not the results of your tests have real effect on the situation you are studying. Whether or not a result is practical is a judgment call. In order to assess practical significance, one must use judgment to determine the importance of an effect. A measure of an effect’s practical significance is called an effect size. Usually, the larger an effect size, the easier it is to make a judgment.

To our previous example, the results of our first hypothesis test were statistically significant. A statistically significant result can be interpreted as a result that is not likely to have occurred by chance. In other words, the results are reliable. However, just because our results were statistically significant, this does not necessarily mean that our hypothesis was supported. In our example, let’s assume that we had gathered data on the time it takes for students to complete a statistics exam. Our hypothesis was Ha: Students who study using the online tutorials will finish the exam faster than students who study from the textbook.

5. Conclusion

Mentioned medical field is the most fast-growing field, due to this growth development of new techniques and new surgeries as well. Because of these newer developments, diagnosed and complications of diseases are also changing. Therefore, a doctor should always go through new literature and researches. Many times because of newer diagnosed criteria and methods, treatment of the disease gets changed. In an era of information where the internet, libraries, and databases have made access to information for healthcare easy, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish whether the information found is of high quality and reliable. In these circumstances, the role of a good article review is important. Another important point that we all are most often aware of in the field of medicine states “To err is human”. And all new techniques and surgical processes are mostly tried on human beings only. The human body is the most complex structure and different persons react differently to different processes. Therefore, absolute assumptions cannot be made in the field of medicine and surgery. Therefore, health professionals often need to be kept informed about the newest evidence that can affect our practice. So that we can serve best to our patient. Then it is up to health professional to make a decision for a change in our practice in the best interest of our patient. But in order to be informed about the newest evidence, they need resources that can give them synthesized information about recent research and studies, and here comes the importance of journal and article reviews.