English 12 Demo

Now that you’ve finished reading, consider your personal reaction to it. First impressions are often superficial: “I liked it,” or “It was hard to read.” First impressions are usually opinions and not particularly reasoned. They can be useful in that those opinions can be a starting point, but remember that they are your own, personal, reactions to the effort of the task of reading the article. Rarely are your first impressions the best evaluation you can give of the article or title. Dense or technically complex is not necessarily bad and easy-to-read is not necessarily anything more than a nice summary.

Second thoughts should probe quite a bit more deeply. Thinking about what the author is trying to say, considering who he or she was addressing in the first place, identifying the gap the article has been written to fill and asking other such questions is the foundation for the critical evaluation of the article. Even if you didn’t know anything about the topic before you read the article, you can make some judgements about it and how well the author made her or his case.

Evaluation is a bit harder. In academic circles, evaluation means to judge the worth, usually by comparing a thing to some kind of standard. In the case of evaluating an article, that standard would be other articles in the same discipline or journal as the one you’re reading. If you are not familiar with those other articles it may be hard to evaluate well. You can, however, do a fairly good job of it by considering the stylistic and structural conventions of other, similar articles. Does this one fit the pattern? Does it measure up to the academic standards of writing, presentation, organization, source citation and such? Sometimes even those questions can be hard to answer but they should be attempted. The answers will give you some ammunition for your critique.

Some questions to guide you in critiquing and evaluating the article:

Was there anything that was left unfinished? Did the author raise questions or make points that were left orphaned in the paper?

These questions are to make you think about what was in the article and what was left out. Since, by looking at the thesis statement, you should have a good idea of what the author is going to say, you should also be able to tell if any of the points weren’t explored as fully as others. In addition, in the course of the paper, the author might have raised other points to support the argument. Were all of those worked out thoroughly?

Did it make its case?

Even if you were not a member of the intended audience for the article, did the article clearly present its case? If the author crafted the paper well, even if you don’t have the disciplinary background, you should be able to get a sense of the argument. If you didn’t, was it your reading or the author’s craft that caused problems?

What does the point made by the argument mean in or to the larger context of the discipline and of contemporary society?

This is a question that directs you to think about the implications of the article. Academic articles are intended to advance knowledge, a little bit at a time. They are never (or hardly ever) written just to summarize what we know now. Even the summary articles tend to argue that there are holes in the fabric of knowledge and someone ought to do studies to plug those gaps. So, where does this particular article fit in? Can real people improve their lives with this information? Does this increase the stock of information for other scholars? These sorts of questions are important for appreciating the article you’re looking at and for fitting it into your own knowledge of the subject.

Is the organization of the article clear? Does it reflect the organization of the thesis statement?

It should be and it should. Go back and check if you’re not sure.

Does the author’s disciplinary focus lead her or him to ignore other ideas?

This sort of thing may be hard to determine on the face, but ask if the author has adequately supported his or her interpretation of the evidence? Are there any other explanations that you can think of? Have you read anything else on the same subject that contradicts or supports with this author is saying?

Were there any problems with grammar, sentence structure, or word usage?

Even if you’re not very good at writing or grammar, did you notice errors in the paper? Errors may not necessarily be the author’s fault. Editors prepare the text for publication; they should have worked with the author to fix any errors. Some spelling problems may well be typos. Word usage problems typically originate with the author and persist through the editing process. Sloppy editing can suggest possibly hurried peer review, a worrying inattention to detail, and even hasty publication. These are very serious flaws in an academic work; the type of work needs to be clearly established for just this sort of reason.

What did you learn? What are you going to do with this information?

Most of this document is about the author and how you might suck every last nuance out of a published academic work. The point of the whole academic writing enterprise is to put information out into the environment to advance scholarship. The goal of authors is to have you read their work and find something useful, interesting, intriguing or even controversial in their ideas, interpretations or findings. Will you change your mind about anything as a result of reading this article? Does it improve your understanding of something you’re studying? What does this information mean to you?