Should your journal article review be a summary or an evaluation? Or maybe you need to include a little bit of both, and also add some critical thoughts of other people connected to the matter? Read about these and some more popular questions answered by our professional writers.
Q: How to do journal article review?
What is particularly good about writing article reviews is that you don’t need to conduct research like you do when it comes to essay writing. All the information you need is already given in the article, and your goal is to reflect on the matters stated there.
Many students think that summarizing the content of the text is the best way to write a journal article review. This misconception could cost your mark, since what you need to do in your review is evaluate the source. Though you don’t need to start full scale research as you are supposed to before writing an essay, you obviously need to gain some background information before you start writing.
Q: What do I need to prepare for a great article review?
First of all, an article review is not a summary. But the tricky part is that it needs to include a summary sometimes. If you are already confused, it’s okay. Read along to get a better understanding of how a descent review should look.
- Get a look at other article reviews, both related to the topic of your article and not.
First things first, you need to get a clear understanding of what this academic paper looks like, and what can work better than a good example? So look up some trusted websites, for example, of famous universities or research centers, and find samples of reviews to learn from. Be careful around those related to your topic, because they may influence your own opinion. If you know that
your are susceptible to influence from other people’s ideas, maybe it’s better to read example articles on your topic after you make a first draft of your work.
- Work with your article.
At this point you still may have quite a vague idea of how to make journal article review, but further reading of theories is pointless. Nothing is as effective as practice, so let’s start planning your future review. We recommend you to divide the preparation process into three stages:
1) Analyze the article.
2) Note strengths and weaknesses of the article.
3) Plan your review.
After you have done this, all you need is to sit down, shut all the distractions and start writing.
Q: What are some common mistakes during the writing process?
Do you know the most common mistake that students make while writing a review which makes them spend 50% more time? They don’t engage with the text while reading it for the first time. If you make notes, highlight the parts you like and mark words you don’t understand, and you will reduce the time you need to work on this assignment nearly by half.
The second problem most students face is the iconic “highlight the most important parts,” where you start with highlighting one sentence, but end up with the whole article painted like a kid’s coloring book. We know that it’s hard to cut the unnecessary parts, because you feel like everything is important, and if you miss something, this will affect your grade. To fight this obnoxious habit, try the following tips:
- Try to forget that this journal article review is an assignment, and treat it like a summary of an article for a friend who needs to get the general meaning, but cannot find or doesn’t have time to read the whole text.
- Get a limited space to write your article, and cut everything that goes out of the margins. Or ask your friend to cut off information that seems unnecessary if you cannot do this to your paper.
And finally, don’t forget to stick to your plan from the previous point, or else everything might go awry. It’s really hard to be logical and concise in your writings, because our brains are not designed to do so!
Some More Useless Useful Information
And finally, a bunch of general tips about journal article writing, writing at all, and living your best college life.
- Once you google “how to journal article review,” stop after reading one or two articles related to the topic, as this would suffice. But our brains trick us to continue reading because this is not enough just to procrastinate longer. There’s no way of writing something without actually writing!
- Next, forget about looking up questions like “how to write journal article review APA style” BEFORE you actually finish the article. The problem is the same as in the first point – this is just an attempt to delay the actual work. You can always read the APA rules and format your text afterward, as this takes less than 15 minutes. And there’s also something really satisfying about formatting a ready work and making it look academically perfect.
- And remember, academic papers are not the most important thing in your life. If you don’t get it right from the first time, you will have at least a hundred more to try, unless you are expelled from college. And if you are a smart student, you won’t be, because you know that there are services that can write your paper for money in an extreme situation.
Ask your questions in the comment section below, let us know what other struggles you have with academic writing and, of course, visit our website. Remember that a smart student is not someone who does everything, but someone who knows which assignments are crucial and which are less important.