tips for article reviews

hey guys,

so the TAs have noticed a consistent pattern around a few types of mistakes that are being made on the article reviews. so we collaborated together with Dr. Clements and came up with a list of things, broken down by the section of assignment, that you guys should watch for when you do the rest of your article reviews. hope this helps.

Major Findings:
-Make sure you specify what kind of statistical analysis was used. Because this is a stats class, attending to the analysis used is important. Notice that for future use (not for grading purposes), you will also want to know how people have analyzed these kinds of questions. You will also want to note, for your own use (as well as for inclusion in the flaws and limitation section) whether or not the analysis was the right one to use for the types of data the researchers were analyzing.

Population:
-Make sure you include number of participants, age, ethnicity, and gender. If the authors omitted that information, note that it was not provided. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing that they made the mistake (not you).

Relevance:
-Make sure you tie in how the study relates to your specific research interest. Part of the task of these assignments is to explore a research area so that you will be well positioned to write your masters or dissertation. If you do not read articles that relate to your scholarly interests, this goal cannot be fulfilled. You are not being asked to commit to a particular topic, but your exploration does need to be serious and scholarly, and you must include evidence that you have considered how this work is connected to work you might want to do.

Other things to note:
-Don't bold headings. Italicize them. The only proper use of bold type in APA style is reporting vectors (see p. 140 of the APA Publication Manual).
-Indent paragraphs.
-Margins should be 1 inch all around.
-Don't start sentences with numerals. (e.g. “23 people were studied...” = BAD :( ; “Twenty-three people were studied...” = GOOD :)) See pp. 122-130 of the Publication Manual for the appropriate use of numerals versus written out numbers.