LYNN SANTELMANN

Assistant Professor, Applied Linguistics
Portland State University
santelmannl@pdx.edu

Guidelines for article critiques

First: Summary
Summary of article. Try to be clear but concise. This should not be much more than 2 pages. This summary should include the following points, assuming they are relevant to the article under discussion.

1) The author's purpose in writing the article and/or the question(s) this article was intended to address. This should include the general questions that inspired the article as well as the specific questions the author seeks to answer.

2) The major points of background, including information on context, theoretical assumptions or definitions the author is using. This might include: background of speakers, theoretical perspective, theoretical constructs (e.g., social networks, priming), definitions of technical terms used.

3) A summary of the kind data that the author is using. Possible things to note: language, range of data, example sentences and where these examples come from. Try to focus on the general nature of the data. Is this a meta-analysis of several studies or details of a set of the authors' own research studies?

4) The major arguments of the article. Most articles will have two - three points that they are making, and several sub-arguments to support those points. Try to focus on the general structure of the arguments, not the details of the examples used to support those points.

5) The major conclusions of the article.
 

Next: Analysis

This section should display your own critical reading of the paper. Think about and discuss as many of the following questions as you can. Note that only some of these questions may be relevant to the article you are reading.

1) Does the author achieve his/her stated purpose? Does the data support the author's conclusions?

2) Are there any major flaws in argumentation? Are there any counterarguments? (Does the author deal with existing counterarguments? Can you come up with new ones?)

3) Are there any issues that the author has left unadddressed?

4) Can the arguments be modified to make it more explanatory? Extended to account for other data/languages?

5) What contribution does this article make (despite any potential flaws) to the field?

6) How does this article fit in with the larger issues in the field?

© Lynn Santelmann, 2001