Article Review Assignment
PSY 201: Psychology Cornerstone
Task
Select an empirical article that has been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. Use PsychINFO to find an article about a topic that is interesting to you. The article must be at least four pages long and contain an abstract, Introduction, Method section, Results section, and Discussion. Save a copy of the article.
Write a review of the article. Reviews consist of two parts. One, the reviewer summarizes the content of the article in order to demonstrate comprehension. If the summary is not accurate, part two of the review is not likely to have much meaning because the reviewer did not understand the article. Two, the reviewer evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
Write the paper as if will be read by a professional psychology audience. Imagine that you are a peer reviewer for a psychology journal, and the Editor of the journal, other reviewers, and the researchers will read what you write.
Part one required content
Summarize the article. Using your own words, no quotations allowed, outline the content of each major section of the article (i.e., Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion).
You have not had a psychology research methods or statistics course; thus, it is entirely appropriate for you not to understand much of the jargon and numbers in the Method and Results sections. Like all new skills, reading articles starts off hard but gets easier with practice.
Part two required content
Evaluate the article. Describe what you think are the strengths and limitations of the article. Because the article is already published, there are unlikely to be many surface-level errors such as unprofessional language or major failures of logic. You will need to do some deeper thinking about the article. The review should answer most of the following questions.
Does the paper effectively communicate the main ideas?
Does the method effectively isolate and measure people’s mind and/or behavior?
Is the method meaningfully connected to mind and behavior as they actually occur in the real world?
Are the results convincing and supportive of the researcher’s main point?
Do the conclusions or implications stated in the Discussion match the Method and the Results?
Format and grading
Use APA format for the review. You should double space, use 12-point Times New Roman or Arial font, justify text to the left, and make margins one inch. Include citations and a reference page.
Paraphrase all material rather than quoting because science writing does not use quotations unless the words themselves are important.
The paper is worth 25 points. Grading will occur using a rubric available on Blackboard.
