An article critique is important to learn to develop your literature review and to understand the content in a journal article. You learn how to understand the authors points as related to the study as you evaluate the study. When you critique a study, the following is required:

1. Name(s) of the author(s)

2. Title of article

3. Title of journal, volume number, date, month and page numbers

4. Statement of the problem or issue discussed

5. The author’s purpose, approach or methods, hypothesis, and major conclusions.  

Include the following as appropriate: (this is your commentary on the study)

• Is the title of the article appropriate and clear?
• Is the abstract specific, representative of the article, and in the correct form?
• Is the purpose of the article made clear in the introduction?
• Do you find errors of fact and interpretation? (This is a good one! You won’t believe how often authors misinterpret or misrepresent the work of others. You can check on this by looking up for yourself the references the author cites.)
• Is all of the discussion relevant?
• Has the author cited the pertinent, and only the pertinent, literature? If the author has included inconsequential references, or references that are not pertinent, suggest deleting them.
• Have any ideas been overemphasized or underemphasized? Suggest specific revisions.
• Should some sections of the manuscript be expanded, condensed or omitted?
• Are the author’s statements clear? Challenge ambiguous statements. Suggest by examples how clarity can be achieved, but do not merely substitute your style for the author’s.
• What underlying assumptions does the author have?
• Has the author been objective in his or her discussion of the topic?