Write 3 reviews on scholarly articles to be used as sources in your research paper. Put all three reviews into one file.
The instructions below are for a standard format or outline which is acceptable in most academic disciplines and is not specific to this literature course. It can be adapted to use as a guide to writing academic reviews of scholarly articles, books or individual book chapters, websites, films, plays, musical performances, art, and most other types of media. Though I wrote this adaptation for a research project in a composition course, it is applicable for your work in this course. Just substitute “piece of literature” for “topic” in the instructions. For research on much of the literature in this course, you may find appropriate sources not only in literature databases but also in databases for other fields such as history, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, religion, cultural studies, and probably some I haven’t thought of.
Note: Chapters in scholarly books can be reviewed the same way journal articles are reviewed.
Instructions for Prep-Work and for Writing a Critical Review
A. Prep-work to do before you begin writing a critical review:
Find an academic (peer-reviewed) journal article on the topic you plan to use for your research paper.
Read the article all the way through.
Read the article again and make annotations (underline key words and ideas and write notes in the margins).
Write a summary of the article paying attention to the authors thesis and major supports for it.
Highlight passages in the text to which you plan to respond in your article review. From these selected passages, develop paraphrases and choose passages to quote verbatim in the article review.
Write out your response statements.
Write out your questions about the topic.
Write out your evaluation of the article.
B. Write a review of the article. Organize your review according to the following structure:
Publication information: Instead of giving your review a title, provide the authors name, title of the article, journal title, and publications information the same way you would in a bibliography, works-cited, or references list.
The first section of a critical review provides publication information instead of a title and an introductory paragraph. It contains:
Publication information in MLA style as for a bibliography entry.
Information about the author explaining his or her authority to write on the topic. (Ask a librarian for help if necessary)
Brief background on the topic to provide a context for the article.
Audience for whom the article was written
Purpose or thesis of the article
The second section of a critical review is an objective summary of the article. It contains:
A summary of the article focusing on the main points and highlights
Paraphrases of what the author said with page numbers in parentheses
Verbatim quotations of noteworthy or unique words, phrases, and sentences in quotation marks with page numbers in parentheses
Speech tags (attribution phrases) used liberally throughout the summary to remind the reader that the information is not your own. (Use the authors last name and appropriate pronouns with words like _A__ says, _A__ claims, in __A_s opinion, _A__ questions, according to _A__, _A__ implies,)
[Do not include any of your own ideas on the topic or responses to the author in this section.]
The third section of a critical review presents your own ideas, your own response to and evaluation of the article. It contains:
Your own evaluation of the article pointing out what was argued well or what was argued poorly (or what was effective or ineffective about it).
Point out what the author adds to the ongoing conversation.
Refer to specific evidence and support by quoting from the article or by referring to the article using summarized and paraphrased passages.
Your personal response to specific content in the article in relation to the topic.
The fourth section is a brief conclusion with your further questions on the article or the topic and thoughts about possible further research.
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