How To Write A Captivating Article Review

At one point in time, freelance writers and students will face a task of writing an article review. However, the crucial thing to understand here is what article review means. It is a summary and at the same time, an evaluation of another article. These are common assignments that the students get from their teachers with the purpose of introducing them to the works of other authors in the field. Experts also review articles written by other professionals and if you understand the major arguments of the article under review, you will be able to have an accurate summation.

To write a good article review, you need the following guidelines:

1. Preparation

At this stage, you have to understand what is meant by article review. It is written for the audience who has enough knowledge on the subject as opposed to a general audience. Article review involves summarizing the main ideas, portions, arguments and findings and them analyzing the article’s contribution to the subject and its overall effectiveness.

When writing an article review, you present more than just an opinion and engage the readers by creating a response to the ideas of the scholarly writer. You have to create a response based on theories, ideas, and research from what you study. You have to provide enough proof and independent reasoning.

An article review is a response to an author’s research, and it does not provide any new research. However, you may present new data only if you are correcting misleading or incorrect information. You summarize and evaluate the article.

• Pay attention to the organization of your review article

You have to know how you are going to structure your article before you even begin reading. This is crucial to understanding how you are going to read the article to produce an effective article review. You have to summarize the article by focusing on the crucial points, information, and claims. Discuss all the positive points in the article. Pay attention to what the author does excellently well, his insightful observations, and the good point she makes. You can also identify contradicting gaps, inconsistencies in the arguments that he makes. Ascertain ifthere is adequate data or research to support his arguments. You have to find any unanswered questions he has left out.

• Preview the article

You can do this by looking at the title, abstract, introduction, headings, opening sentences of every paragraph.  Go through the first paragraphs and the look at the conclusion. These are important steps necessary to enable you in identifying the main points of the author. Note words or issues that you do not decipher and the questions that you have. Look up terms that are unfamiliar to fully understand the article. Engage in an in-depth reading of these concepts to understand their context in totality.

Read the article severally and use a marking pen to highlight crucial sections, main points, and supporting facts.

• Write the article in your own words.

Start by writing down a paragraph or a simple outline. You have to focus on the argument and research as well as the claims made in the article. Ensure you have all the major points and uphold accuracy.

• Write the outline of your evaluation

You have to review each article item in summary to ascertain the accuracy of the author. Every instance of effective writing are crucial, new contributions to the field as well as the areas that need improvement in the article. The strength of the article may lie on its summation of a particular issue. Its weakness may emanate from its inability to offer new information or solutions to the existing problem. As such, you have to use specific references and examples.

Find out what the article:

• Sets out to do
• If the central concept of the article is clearly defined
• If the evidence is enough
• How the article fits within the literature and the field at large
• If it advances the knowledge on the topic
• If the author is authoritative enough in his writing

Writing the article review

When writing your review

• Formulate a new title

This should show what you are going to focus on. Your article title can be declarative, descriptive or an interrogative title.

• Cite the article

You ought to cite the article especially under the title and use the right style.

• Identify the article

Commence your review by referring to the title and author of the article you are reviewing, the title of the journal and the year of publication; This should come in the first paragraph.

• Write the introduction
• Summarize the article
• Write your critique
• Conclude your review

Once you are done proofread and correct mistakes relating to grammar, mechanics, usage, and edit out any extra and unneeded information. Ensure that you have identified and discussed three to four issues in your article review.