How to Write an Article Review That Deserves a Reward
Any work performed, whether a scientific or creative work, needs an objective assessment and constructive criticism at the initial stage. You will get acquainted with the key rules for writing and formatting article reviews in this article. Let’s find out how to write an article review.
What Is a Review of an Article
An article review is an official document prepared by an expert in a relevant scientific topic, which is a professional and objective assessment of the research conducted by the author. The review concerns the positive and negative aspects of the document submitted for analysis and contains comments, recommendations, and clarifying questions for the applicant.
There are two types of reviews:
- Internal review – it is prepared by an expert working directly in the institution in which the applicant is being defended. Such a specialist can be a supervisor or a member of the certification commission who works at the department of the university.
- The external review is written by an independent professional working for a different institution. Such an expert can be an opponent invited from another university, a member of the editorial board, or a special commission.
Why do you need a review of an article?
The review is a mandatory document for the defense and publication of any research work of a higher educational institution. A positive review can significantly affect the successful defense of a scientific project.
How to Write an Article Review
In the review, the main task of the author is reduced to expressing an objective critical assessment of the material presented. As a rule, a thesis analysis of the content of the article is given, and the quality of the experimental and documentary base is assessed, and the author of the article draws key conclusions within the framework of the study. It also takes into account the degree of innovation, the relevance of the research, and the significance of the article for practical use.
Content, style, and format are also evaluated.
It is worth paying attention to the following points:
- The topic of the article (how relevant and interesting it is today, what are the prospects for the further development of the problematic issue).
- Novelty (whether the author used new research methods and possibly formed his or her own unique approach to studying the issue).
- The validity of the author’s position (what materials, evidentiary facts, and research results the author is guided by in order to substantiate his or her position).
- Completeness criterion (whether the author of the article managed to answer the problematic question posed and reasonably reveal the topic of the article).
- Clear formulations (how unambiguously the thoughts and ideas of the author are expressed, the lack of ambiguity, and the clarity of the position).
- The volume of the article and the format (whether the article complies with generally accepted standards, how fully the problematic issues raised are disclosed, what topics need to be improved and other structural components be reduced, how logical, readable, and correctly structure is the text).
The result should be a review of the article, consisting of an introduction, main part, and a conclusion, which will outline the positive and negative aspects of the work. All comments must be clearly reasoned, objective, and impartial.
Structure
When writing a review, it is worth paying attention to the generally accepted structure, key elements, and criteria. The review must include the following components:
- Data of the author of the article. In this part, the full title of the article under review should be indicated, then the full name of the reviewer and the position held by him or her, indicating the necessary status.
- The key problematic issue raised in the article. This part requires coverage of the problematic issue to which the study is devoted.
- The urgency of the problem. Here, you should present analysis and express an expert opinion on the degree of relevance of the topic chosen for research, on its significance for the scientific environment, and on the world community as a whole.
- Important aspects of the topic disclosed by the author. Present a revealing and reasoned analysis of the key distinctive points in the article, as well as the original ideas and concepts. You need to highlight exclusive and indicative moments of the research that the author was able to reveal.
- Conclusion. Present the general characteristics and analysis of the results achieved by the author, analysis of the theoretical and practical value of the presented work, as well as a brief description of the novelty of the scientific research. Review the scientific materials used by the author in his or her work, as well as the literary and other sources. Present a general assessment of the format, style, and presentation of the material.
- Recommendations. Here, it is crucial to identify the mistakes the author made. Provide comments, inconsistencies, discussion questions, and general recommendations for revision. Based on the review, the article can be recommended for publication or sent for revision. A negative decision should be clearly and easily reasoned by the reviewer.
- Reviewer details. The review must end with the name of the reviewer, his or her academic title, degree, position, and place of work. The document must be signed and stamped from the place of work.
Let’s find out some details of a review of the article format.
Volume
In fact, there is no strict regulation for setting the scope of a review. It may vary depending on the complexity of the research topic, as well as on the form and characteristics of the presentation of the author of the review. The main task is that all key elements of the structure are worked out, and the assessment is sufficiently detailed and justified.
The standard size of a review is from 3.5 to 4 thousand characters (with spaces), which is approximately two pages of typed A4 text in Word.
In terms of volume, the structural components of a review should generally meet the following requirements:
– relevance of the article – two-three sentences
– important aspects (negative and positive characteristics of the article) – two-three paragraphs
– conclusion – two-four sentences
Style
Whether you have an MLA or APA format article review, it should be written in a scientific style with strict adherence to structural norms. The review should be understandable. You should also avoid a banal retelling of the article, subjectivity in the assessment, and unreasoned opinions. The use of specific clichés, clericalism, and jargon is unacceptable.
Article Review Example
To have a full understanding of how to write this type of paper, it is worth reading through an article summary example. But remember, the sample is for reference only. You cannot copy this text as it is considered plagiarism. Also, look at this review article example.
Are Menstrual Products Toxic?
Introduction
This article covers the use of tampons and menstrual cups and their impact on causing toxic shock syndrome, a rare but severe disease that can lead to serious conditions in women using them. The article looks at the sizes of these products and their composition and tries to find a correlation between the two on the growth of Staphylococcus aureus and to determine if the use of intravaginal products leads to the toxic syndrome in women.
Background
The article looks at tampons and menstrual cups as they are currently marketed and tested using the modified tampon sac method (Nonfoux et al.). The purpose of the test was to study whether these products inhibited or promoted the growth of S. aureus and toxic shock syndrome toxin 1. The author states that toxic shock syndrome is a disease that can occur in women who use intravaginal protecting products such as tampons or menstrual cups. The occurrence of this disease is rare, but it is very severe and can manifest in the form of symptoms such as fever, low blood pressure, skin rashes, and organ dysfunctions of multiple varieties (Nonfoux et al). The use of these products induces the syndrome, as the collection of catamenial products favors the growth of Staphylococcus aureus which then, in turn, produces the toxin called TSST-1. The procedure used was to insert the tampons and cups into 532-ml. sterile plastic bags and then add 15 ml. of BHI solution or BHI broth of S. aureus strain LUG2902 (Nonfoux et al). The same was done without the tampons or cups as a positive control. In the end, 4 ml. was taken out for toxin identification and quantification of the amount of S. aureus and TSST-1 in them.
Results
Both the intravaginal products affect the growth of S. aureus, but it depended upon the composition of the tampons and the size of the menstrual cups. The P<0.001 suggests that the null hypothesis that there is no risk is not true. The levels of the toxins ranged from 0.1 to 70.5 plus or minus 7.5 ng/ml for tampons. The level of toxin increased with the size of the cups. This indicated that the structure of the cups had an impact on the toxin growth. The hypothesis that tampons were safer cannot be supported. The space between the cups and space between the fibers have a major impact on S. aureus growth and production of TSS-1 (Nonfoux et al). There was a significant increase in the growth, with cup models having larger cup sizes irrespective of the brand or its constituents. The aeration plays a more important role than the composition. Another similar study also confirmed there is a risk of vaginal colonization of the toxin while using tampons or other forms of intravaginal devices (Billon et al.).
Conclusion
The results suggest that the cup size is a risk factor because the bigger the cup, the greater the amount of air it can contain. The air inserted may favor s. aureus and toxin growth. These toxins then enter the blood and cause shock. It has also been shown that the growth is lower for tampons that are made up of a mix of rayon and cotton. The combination of cotton and viscose had higher growth levels. The author concludes that both devices are a risk factor, and precautions are advised while using them, as both the products are toxic in healthy menstruating females.
References
Billon, Amaury, et al. “Association of characteristics of tampon use with menstrual toxic shock syndrome in France.” SSRN Journal. Elsevier BV, doi:10.2139/ssrn.3514661. Accessed 26 Mar. 2021.
Nonfoux, Louis, et al. (2018). “Impact of currently marketed tampons and menstrual cups on Staphylococcus aureus growth and toxic chock syndrome toxin 1 production in vitro.” Appl Environ Microbiol, vol. 84, no. 12, pp. e00351-18. American Society for Microbiology, doi:10.1128/aem.00351-18.
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