Instructions for Qualitative Article Critique: Summary
Make sure your chosen article has been approved before you begin this assignment. Critiques of unapproved articles will receive zero points(absolutely no exceptions). Students are responsible for making sure they have met this requirement.
The article critique should meet the following criteria:
Length and Formatting
- Summary 2.5 – 3.5 pages
- APA format (you do not need an Abstract)
- Easiest to download and use this template: Qualitative Article Critique Template in APA 7th Format_Summary & Evaluation.docxDownload Qualitative Article Critique Template in APA 7th Format_Summary & Evaluation.docx
Content
The Summary should summarize the journal article section-by-section:
- The summary of the Introduction should include details on the research questions or objectives, the important empirical and theoretical background information the authors included, and the rationale they gave for the study.
- The summary of the Methods section should include how the study was done, who was studied, and what the main variables were. Be sure to include the research design (e.g., phenomenology, ethnography, case study, etc.), the sampling procedures, and the type(s) of data collected. Without duplicating or quoting the article, explain what the researchers actually did in the study.
- In summarizing the Results section, pretend that you are the author reporting the results to students who have not read the article. Present the main findings (e.g., major themes, coding frequencies, etc.), and help the reader interpret them.
- In summarizing the Conclusions and Implications, detail each conclusion presented by the authors. These should correspond to their research questions. What inferences did they draw from their findings? Then summarize any implications they discussed based on these conclusions, including recommendations for policy or practice. Be sure to also list any limitations they included.
- If the authors did not include some of the information above, explicitly state that they did not. (Be sure though! Sometimes things are mentioned in other sections of the article.)
Rely first and foremost on the assignment instructions and grading rubric(included below), but you might also find these questions helpful as you read and think about your article: Questions to Think About When Critiquing Journal Articles.pdfDownload Questions to Think About When Critiquing Journal Articles.pdf
Similarity Check and Submission
You MUST submit your critique of the article through the appropriate “Turn It In” link included below. Turn It In is a reference check system that evaluates the similarity between your work and other works to help monitor and avoid plagiarism. Your submission MUST have a similarly index of no more than 25% in order to receive credit for the assignment. (Note: The higher the percentage, the more your work is similar to and potentially copied from other works.) It is up to you to check and make sure that your similarity index does not exceed this threshold. You may edit and resubmit multiple times prior to the due date .If your final submission has a similarity index of greater than 25%, a grade of 0 will be automatically assigned.
Example
An example qualitative critique (both Summary and Evaluation portions) is included below. It is not perfect, and it was not originally written for this assignment. Thus, it might not include everything you need to include for your assignment and/or it might include things you do not need to include. And, note that they are not in the current APA format. Please do not over-rely on it.