Article/Journal Reviews

The main focus of article and journal reviews is the text you are reviewing. You might be asked to review a whole article or journal or specific parts of one. To do well, you will need to go beyond just describing or summarizing the work and add an evaluative component, discussing strengths, weaknesses and limitations. Depending on what is stated in the assignment instructions, you may need to bring in outside sources that discuss the same piece of work.

Your review should also help others to develop a deeper understanding of that piece of work. This is where your voice and ideas demonstrate how you interpret and integrate other sources as they relate to the text being examined. This type of assignment demonstrates your depth of understanding and analysis.

The style of writing for these assignments is similar to that of essays. You summarize, analyze, make an argument, and support your argument with details from the article(s) or journal(s).

For more information on how to write a critical review, read the Critical Review Tip Sheet.