Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

Designed for MSC/MBA Students

Compiled By: Amelaku Belay (PhD Candidate)

October, 2017

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

Table of Contents
1. What is a critical review? ................................................................................................................. 2

2. Purpose of a Critical Review ............................................................................................................. 2

3. Anomalies of critical review ............................................................................................................. 2

4. What does a critical review include? ................................................................................................ 3

5. Formats of a Critical Review............................................................................................................. 5

6. Steps to writing an effective critical review: ..................................................................................... 6

7. Academic Language for reporting and connecting ideas ................................................................... 8

8. Standard for a critical review ........................................................................................................... 9

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

1. What is a critical review?

The critical review is a writing task that asks you to summarize and evaluate a book, a chapter, or
a journal article. As its name implies, a critical review requires the use of critical reading and
critical thinking in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of a journal articles strengths and
weaknesses.

Writing a good critical review requires that you understand the material, and that you know how
to analyze and evaluate that material using appropriate criteria. To do this well, writing the
critical review usually requires you to read the selected area in detail, and to also read other
related texts so that you can present a fair and reasonable evaluation of the selected journal
articles strengths and weaknesses, it goes further than a personal opinion. Therefore, it helps you
to understand the topic from different perspectives (i.e. related texts) and in relation to the
theories, approaches and frameworks in your course.

2. Purpose of a Critical Review

The purpose of a critical article review is to provide a summary and evaluation of a piece of
writing. When a lecturer reads an article review written by a student, they want to see evidence
that the student has not to only understand the topic of the article, but is able to evaluate the
article in relation to their own knowledge of the topic and other relevant knowledge in the field.

3. Anomalies of critical review

A. Critical review is not just a summary of the contents.

You are expected to read, make judgments about the document and justify these judgments by
using theories, empirical evidences, and their own knowledge of the topic and other relevant
knowledge in the field.

The goal is twofold: one, identify and explain the argument that the author is making, and two,
provide your own argument about that argument. One of the key directions of good critical
review is often to avoid/minimize summary – you are not writing a summary report, but
evaluating the author’s argument.

B. To be critical does not mean to criticize in a negative manner.

The critique should be a balanced discussion and evaluation of the strengths, weakness and
notable features of the text. Good reviews also include other sources to support your evaluation
(remember to reference).

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

You can choose how to sequence your critique. Here are some examples to get you started:

• Most important to least important conclusions you make about the text.
• If your critique is more positive than negative, then present the negative points first and the
positive last.
• If your critique is more negative than positive, then present the positive points first and the
negative last.
• If there are both strengths and weakness for each criterion you use, you need to decide
overall what your judgment is. For example, you may want to comment on a key idea in the
text and have both positive and negative comments.
• You can also include recommendations for how the article can be improved in terms of
ideas, research approach; theories or frameworks used can also be included in the critique
section.

4. What does a critical review include?

Generally, a critical review should include a review of:

The main ideas or arguments in the article. Don’t feel you have to mention everything:
part of being an effective evaluator is being able to extract the most important ideas from
a source.
Your own evaluation of the article. Don’t just accept the author’s statements without
question. Ask yourself such questions as: How effective is the author’s argument? Is it
clearly presented and explained? Is it biased in any way?

Specifically, a critical review should include, at least, a review of the following elements:

Significance and contribution to the field

• What is the author’s aim?

• To what extent has this aim been achieved?
• Is this a problem? Is the research problem significant?
• What relationship does it bear to other works in the field?
• What is missing/not stated?
• What does this text add to the body of knowledge? (The study’s contribution to
knowledge, theory, or practice in a field.)

Methodology

• What approach was used for the research? (eg; quantitative or qualitative, analysis/review
of theory or current practice, comparative, case study, personal reflection etc…)
• How objective/biased is the approach?
• Does the methodology have any weaknesses?

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

• How does the design of the study address the hypothesis?

• What analytical framework is used to discuss the results?
• How does the method reflect or augment other studies of the same topic?
• What makes this method feasible? How realistic is it?
• Why will this method produce data that will answer the research question?
• How does the method address questions of validity?
• How does the researcher overcome the limitations of the method? Are there large
limitations or minor ones? How will these limitations affect your ability to use this data
to answer your research question?
• Was the research conducted ethically and following tri-council guidelines?
• Are the results valid and reliable?

Reasons/Evidence/Arguments

• What sources does the author use (interviews, peer-reviewed journals, government
reports, journal entries, newspaper accounts, etc.)?
• What types of reasoning are employed (inductive, deductive, abductive)?
• Is there a clear problem, statement or hypothesis?
• What claims are made?
• What kinds of evidence does the text rely on (empirical, statistical, logical, etc.)?
• How valid and reliable is the evidence?
• How effective is the evidence in supporting the argument?
• What assumptions does the author make?
• Does the author account for all of the data, or are portions left out?
• What alternative perspectives remain unconsidered?
• Are there any logical flaws in the construction of the argument?

Conclusions

• What conclusions are drawn?

• Are these conclusions justified?
• Does the data adequately support the conclusion drawn by the researcher(s)?
• Are other interpretations plausible?
• Are the conclusions dependent on a particular theoretical formulation?

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

5. Formats of a Critical Review

There’s no specific format for critical reviews (for instance, you might choose to summarize and
then evaluate, or you might choose to combine these two aspects), but your critical review paper
should include the following components:

1. Title: Name(s) of the author(s), Title of article, Title of journal, volume number, date, month
and page numbers
2. Introduction: Your first paragraph should familiarize your reader with the article you will
discuss, as well as with your own evaluation of the article. Include a few opening sentences
that announce the author(s) and the title, and briefly present the aim of the text and
summarize the main finding or key argument. Conclude the introduction with a brief
statement of your evaluation of the text. This can be a positive or negative evaluation or, as is
usually the case, a mixed response.
Be specific – give the main reasons for your evaluation of the article. The length of an
introduction is usually two or three paragraphs for a journal article review.
3. Summary: Main purpose of the summary is to provide the reader with adequate information
necessary to understand the critical commentary that follows.

The summary should be objective and should not include any personal interpretation or
discussion. In a research based article, summarize each section of the article.

• What was done?

• Is the research qualitative or quantitative?
• Why the research was carried out?
• What idea is the author proposing?
• What facts does the author rely on to support their hypotheses?
• How were the experiment/research done?
• What was found and what does it mean?
• Do recommendations follow from the results?
• Are there suggestions for further research?
• What was the conclusion of the research/study?
4. Evaluation (Critique) of the Article: This is the most important section of your essay.

Remember, you’re not writing about whether you agree with the author or not; rather, it’s your
job to decide how effective the author’s argument is. Here are some criteria you can use to
decide:

i. Is the writing clear? Does the author’s writing style make his or her argument clear, or
does it create unnecessary confusion?
ii. How strong is the author’s argument? Do the author’s main points back up the argument
effectively? Is the argument logically organized?

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

iii. Are there indications of bias? Does the author mention all sides of an issue, or does he or
she leave out important counter-arguments? What do you know about the author? Is
there anything in the author’s background that might have caused bias?
iv. What are the author’s sources? Are they reliable? Does he or she use predominantly one
type of source? Are the author’s sources appropriate to his or her argument?
v. Which aspects of the author’s argument do you find most convincing? Least convincing?

*Remember to be specific. For instance, if you feel the author’s writing is unclear, explain why.

You might give an example to demonstrate your point to the reader. If you feel the author’s
argument is not convincing, provide reasons for your evaluation.

The critique should be a balanced discussion and evaluation of the strengths, weakness and
notable features of the text. Good reviews also include other sources to support your evaluation
(remember to reference).

5. Conclusion: In your conclusion, you will restate the main points of your evaluation (you
don’t need to restate your summary of the article). The conclusion is also an opportunity to
give your overall evaluation of the article. You could also offer final comments on such
aspects as the book’s contribution to the field, or possibilities for further research.
6. References:

If you have used other sources in you review you should also include a list of references at the
end of the review.

6. Steps to writing an effective critical review:

1. Understand what you are reviewing and formulate questions to answer

Before you can critically review something you need to understand what you are reviewing. First
prepare yourself for reading the document by:

• Formulating some questions to answer (see questions to be formulated and asked below).

General questions you should formulate to answer

• What is the author’s purpose? Make a short statement in one or two sentences about the
author’s purpose. If you cannot do this it might mean that you have not read the article
carefully enough or it might mean that the author’s purpose is not clear or well developed.
• How has the author developed his/her thesis and ideas? Are there paragraphs to support the
author’s purpose? Are there paragraphs that don’t support the author’s purpose? Are there
any ideas that are unclear?

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

• Are the ideas supported (or not supported) by other research? What do you think about the
evidence that has been used to substantiate the author’s claims? For example, is it relevant,
reliable and recent?
• Is there a particular focus/bias? If so, is this because of the author’s purpose, or because
assumptions have been made, or because a particular perspective has been taken? Is this a
limitation?
• What is my overall evaluation i.e. what is the document’s worth or value? Does the author
achieve his/her purpose?
• What are the particular strengths and weaknesses of the document e.g. in the way the
information is presented, in the way the argument has been structured and/or in the evidence
used?
• How does the document contribute to knowledge in this field and to your understanding of
this knowledge?
2. Reading

Skim the whole text to determine the overall thesis, structure and methodology. This will help
you better understand how the different elements fit together once you begin reading carefully.

Read critically. It is not enough to simply understand what the author is saying; it is essential to
challenge it. Examine how the article is structured, the types of reasons or evidence used to
support the conclusions, and whether the author is reliant on underlying assumptions or
theoretical frameworks. Take copious notes that reflect what the text means AND what you think
about it.

3. Analyzing

Examine all elements. All aspects of the text—the structure, the methods, the reasons and evidence, the
conclusions, and, especially, the logical connections between all of these-should be considered.

4. Summarizing and paraphrasing for the critical review

Summarizing and paraphrasing are essential skills for academic writing and in particular, the
critical review.

To summarize means to reduce a text to its main points and it’s most important ideas. The
length of your summary for a critical review should only be about one quarter to one third of the
whole critical review. The best way to summarize is to:

a. Scan the text. Look for information that can be deduced from the introduction, conclusion
and the title and headings. What do these tell you about the main points of the article?
b. Locate the topic sentences and highlight the main points as you read.
c. Reread the text and make separate notes of the main points. Examples and evidence do
not need to be included at this stage. Usually they are used selectively in your critique.

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

Paraphrasing means putting it into your own words. Paraphrasing offers an alternative to
using direct quotations in your summary (and the critique) and can be an efficient way to
integrate your summary notes. The best way to paraphrase is to:

A. Review your summary notes

B. Rewrite them in your own words and in complete sentences
C. Use reporting verbs and phrases (eg; The author describes…, Smith argues that …).
D. If you include unique or specialist phrases from the text, use quotation marks.
5. Researching some related literature
Writing the critical review usually requires you to read the selected area in detail, and to also
read other related texts so that you can present a fair and reasonable evaluation of the selected
journal articles strengths and weaknesses, it goes further than a personal opinion. Therefore, it
helps you to understand the topic from different perspectives (i.e. related texts) and in relation to
the theories, approaches and frameworks in your course. So you can make comparisons between
the assignment document and the related literature.
6. Write a final critically reviewed paper
Restates the most important comments from the introduction and sums up the main critical points
from your Critique and write a reviewed paper on the basis of the standards and formats.

7. Academic Language for reporting and connecting ideas

• To introduce an additional idea

In addition, another reason/ aspect/example, furthermore, moreover, besides, also

• To introduce an opposite idea or contrast

On the other hand, in contrast, in spite of, Although, still, nonetheless, instead, compare this
with, alternatively, otherwise, on the contrary, rather

• To give an example

For example, for instance, an example of this is, a further instance of this is,

• To list ideas in order of time

First, first of all, first and foremost, second, more important, most important, more significantly,
above all, most of all, concurrently, an additional

• To introduce an explanation or make a stronger statement

In fact, indeed

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

• To introduce a result

Accordingly, as a result, as a consequence, consequently, for these reasons, hence, therefore, thus

• To point to evidence

It can be seen that, the evidence is that, in support of this

• To make a tentative statement

Studies suggest that, perhaps, it would seem that, it tends to be the case that, studies indicate

• Hedging Expressions

It should be the case that….. Viewed in this way……

It might be suggested that…. There is every hope that…

It may be possible to obtain…. It is important to develop….

It is useful to study……….. It is not known whether

One cannot exclude from……. It is/it is not difficult to conclude from…

8. Standard for a critical review

The following would be an acceptable allocation of words for a review of about 1000 words.

Introduction (100 words)

Summary (300-400 words)

Evaluation (400-500 words)

Conclusion (100 words)

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 Guideline for WRITING A Critical Article Review

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