The assignment is only an outline for the essay. Bullet points are fine.
Introduction
● What drew you to the topic (current social relevance, personal interest, importance of doing research in this area)? How might you frame this for your paper?
Summary
● Literature review/introduction
○ Why did the authors set out to conduct the study? Are they filling a gap in the literature, responding to some need, etc.?
○ What studies are they drawing from, and what do they say about these studies? You may want to summarize their explanation of individual studies and/or talk generally about what they conclude about the literature.
● Methods
○ What kind of methodology was used (e.g., an experiment, observation, interviews)?
○ What materials were used (questionnaires, medications, etc.) to measure the variables of interest?
○ Who were the participants? How did they sample them?
● Results
○ What did the researchers find? You should specifically reference groups of participants, if applicable, and the specific measures/materials used.
● Discussion
○ What do the researchers make of these findings (i.e., what do they say is the importance or implications of the research)?
○ What are the limitations of the study?
Critique
● List at least 3 points of critique. These could be areas the researchers could have improved the paper, ways in which the paper’s findings are inherently limited, and/or particular strengths of the methodology. These may include but are not limited to:
○ What perspectives do the authors seem to be coming from (e.g., evolutionary, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral)? What effect might this have on the types of questions they ask, how they test them, etc.?
○ Is the population sampled representative of the population they set out to study or answer a question about? What might the effects of this be?
○ What are the strengths and/or limitations of the methodology being used (e.g., self report/survey data, an experiment done in a lab, real-world observation, qualitative data)?
Conclusion and Suggestions for Further Research
● What are your key findings from your summary and critique?
● What do the authors suggest for future research? What do you have to add to what they suggest, and what would doing this additional research add or answer?
