Article Review The purpose of an article review is to provide a summary and evaluation of a piece of writing. When a lecturer reads an article review written by a student, they want to see evidence that the student has not only understood the topic of the article, but is able to evaluate the article in relation to their own knowledge of the topic and other relevant knowledge in the field. The annotated example below provides useful guidance on how to organise information within your article review and how to select and use language strategies which help make your writing more evaluative. Annotated Example of an Article Review This is an authentic example of student writing. Therefore you should not view this as a model – while it contains many attributes of a successful article review, it is not a perfect piece of writing. The comments on the right hand‐side draw your attention to both strengths and weaknesses in the review, but are not comprehensive and as such you should not assume that sections of the article review which do not have comments are without problems. Please not that the language in this article review is not without grammatical errors. Functional elements Article Review: Introduction Citation: tells the reader which article you are reviewing and provides referencing details Overview: summarises for the reader the main points and goals of the article (this is important – your marker wants to see that you are able to identify these things) Overview of critical assessment: tells the reader about your overall assessment of Fabricius (2002), in her article ‘Ongoing change in Modern RP: Evidence for the disappearing stigma of t‐
glottalling’, focuses on the replacement of the /t/ at the end of words/syllables with the glottal stop / / in ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP), a prestigious sociolect in Britain typically ascribed to the royal family and the BBC. This feature is traditionally associated with more localised varieties of British English (e.g. Scots, Cockney). The author aims to highlight the changing nature of both RP itself and also attitudes towards whether the inclusion of phonetic variations such as t‐glottalling can still entail ‘acceptable’ RP. This article is significant given that studies of sociolects Language resources Reporting verb carefully selected to add more specific meaning (compare ‘focuses on’ with ‘discusses’ in this sentence) Verb group carefully selected to signpost the student’s identification of the goals of the article Semi­technical terminology shows familiarity with Page 1 of 1 the article (here the student evaluates the article in terms of ‘significance’ and ‘accessibility’) deemed to be of a ‘higher’ status than others (predominantly as a result of speakers’ higher socioeconomic profile) are 1 However relatively rare. relatively
as a result of the highly technical nature of its analysis and somewhat abstract implications, the article would perhaps only be of perhaps
interest to relevant experts well versed in sociolinguistic theory and statistical processes. important concepts within the discipline Contrastive conjunction used to link the positive and negative aspects of the assessment M odal term odal term
used to reduce the strength of the reviewer’s assessment of the article 1Your marker wants to see that you can relate the content of the article to other knowledge within the discipline — in this case the student’s negative evaluation is too general to demonstrate this type of understanding. Functional elements Article Review: Body Language resources Summary of an aspect: summarises for the reader an aspect of the article (the methodological approach) 2 After a detailed background Evaluative vocabulary conveys the reviewer’s positive assessment of the rigour and originality of the approach Implicit positive evaluation of the credibility/rigour of the methodological approach is conveyed through mention of the Cambridge Scale/professional phoneticians Evaluation of this aspect: evaluates this aspect of the article (here the student evaluates the originality, rigour and credibility of the methodological approach) review of both RP itself and the numerous studies of it, the author turns her attention to the main focus of the study: an original quantitative analysis of glottalling in RP. The data is taken from 24 interviews conducted amongst university students, all of whom were deemed of a similar, ‘higher’ social class, categorised thus by the application of the Cambridge Scale to their parents’ occupations coupled with their educational background. As well as social class, the interviewees’ linguistic profile was evaluated by professional 2 Note how the student has integrated summary and evaluation through the use of (sometimes implicitly) evaluative terms and phrases, such as ‘detailed’ and ‘evaluated by professional phoneticians’ to summarise this aspect of the article. Good critical writing often does this. Page 2 of 2 Summary of an aspect: summarises for the reader an aspect of the article (the findings of the study) phoneticians who deemed those included to be RP speakers. Using a variety of statistical methods the author demonstrates a number of interesting findings. A frequency analysis shows that t‐glottalling occurs more Evaluation of this readily in natural speech than aspect: in formal reading, revealing evaluates this aspect of the article an element of style‐shifting in (here the student RP dependent on the situation evaluates the validity and perceived by the speaker. A significance of the regional cross‐tabulation findings ) shows how speakers from London and the South East of England are more prone to t‐
glottalling, 3 confirming hypotheses on the diffusion of this feature from its historical epicentre (London) made by University College London professor of phonetics JC Wells and cited by the article’s author. Additionally, an ANOVA (‘analysis of variance’) test on participants’ reactions to two identical bodies of speech, differing in the level and varieties of t‐glottalling contained within each one, reveals that certain usages of t‐glottalling are more acceptably ‘RP’ than others. 4 While these findings are certainly of interest, the author’s somewhat
somewhat overbearing attention to detail in outlining the minutiae of her study was exacting Evaluative vocabulary conveys the reviewer’s positive evaluation of the validity/credibility/si
gnificance of the findings (for example compare ’shows’ to ‘suggests’ in this context) Implicit positive evaluation of the validity of the findings is conveyed by mention of similar credible findings 3 Note how the student has related the findings in the original article to other findings in the field. This allows them to demonstrate knowledge of the field and its concerns and use this knowledge to support their evaluations. The more evidence you use to back up your evaluations the better. 4 When you are evaluating an aspect of an article you need to use terms of Contrastive evaluation that are conjunction used to both specific to the link the positive and discipline and its negative aspects of concerns and the assessment objective. The use of general and personally Modal term used to Modal term
loaded terms such as reduce the strength of ‘overbearing attention to detail’ and ‘point of distraction’ detracts from the validity of the Page 3 of 3 student’s evaluation. almost to the point of almost
distraction. For instance, the inclusion of the make and model number of her Dictaphone used to record and transcribe the interviews, an unnecessary detail extraneous to the interest of the reader. While an element of thoroughness in the review, methodological considerations and exposition of results is of course essential in any research, and particularly academic research, it must not go so far as to distract from the individual findings and their overall implications, as was certainly the case here. the negative evaluation Evaluative vocabulary conveys the student’s negative assessment of the degree of detail included in the article Page 4 of 4 Functional elements Article Review: Conclusion In conclusion, Fabricius’ article provides a comprehensive review of past research into RP and presents interesting findings from the author’s own thorough study of the changing nature of RP and attitudes towards this change with regards to the replacement of the /t/ sound at the ends of words/syllables with the / / glottal stop. However, the author’s failure to explain findings in simple terms and provide real‐world examples renders this research inaccessible to lay audiences who are nevertheless stakeholders in the status of RP (e.g. media commentators, those in the dramatic arts). The relevance of this Overall assessment: otherwise comprehensive tells the reader what your overall assessment and contemporary study is of the article is (here therefore 5somewhat somewhat
positive assessment in terms of the rigour and compromised by its significance and negative relatively restricted assessment in terms of accessibility. accessibility) Summary of evaluation: summarises for the reader the main points made in the Review stage in terms of your evaluation of each aspect Language resources Evaluative vocabulary conveys the reviewer’s positive assessment of the rigour and significance of the study and negative assessment of the degree of detail and lack of focus Contrastive conjunction used to link the positive and negative aspects of the assessment Modal term used to Modal term
reduce the strength of the negative evaluation 5 The use of modal terms and tempering vocabulary is important as by reducing the strength of your claims and evaluations you leave less room for your reader to dispute your claims and evaluations. Page 5 of 5