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last.updated 1.6.06

 

Article Review

Purpose

In addition to the readings that you will be assigned, this assignment gives you the opportunity to expand your own and your peers' scope of writing in the disciplines. Furthermore, both the acts of reading an article and writing the review will give you further exposure to thinking about genres and working within discourse communities.

Instructions

Epistemological Process

Begin this project by choosing a scholarly peer-reviewed article about a writing issue in your chosen discipline; you are encouraged to work with the discipline that you are analyzing in your other work for this class. Consult the rhetoric, composition, or technical writing sections of the resource page for suggested journals. Articles may also come from other topic specific journals, edited collections, and scholarly book chapters. You are strongly encouraged to...

  • choose a topic that interests you
  • choose a topic most related to your professional goals
  • find articles that a fairly recent or seminal in the field

If you are having problems finding an article, consult the instructor.

Once you have found an article, read it carefully paying close attention to the author's argument and evidence.

Writing

After you have read the article, you will write a 500 word review of the article. For the review genre, the writer...

  • provides a citation (APA) of the text
  • briefly summarizes the text focusing on the argument and how it is supported
  • briefly discusses how the text may or may not be useful to future research
  • briefly gives her or his overall opinion about the quality of the article's argument and presentation

Since your peers are the primary audience for this review, you will want to consider their interests and knowledge. Remember that this review is meant to potentially be a resource for their own inquiries. Provide sufficient information about the article so that your peers have a good sense about whether they should adopt the source for their investigations.

You will ultimately submit the review to the class discussion board on the designated Tuesday by 7pm. However, you can post your review to a personal webpage or blog and submit the URL (http//...) to the class discussion board. Please do not post your review any earlier than the Sunday before it is due.

Presentation

On the day that your review is due you will give a 10 minute presentation at the beginning of the class. For this presentation, you will cover the same points you do in the review (i.e., argument, support, usefulness, opinion), but you will elaborate on the last three points. You can use visuals to illustrate your the author's point or make your own point; you will have to coordinate with the instructor so that these can be displayed during the presentation. In the presentation you will want to emphasize how you see this article being useful to your peers' understanding of writing in the disciplines.

Presentation Schedule

Week & Date Presenter(s)
Week 4, 1.31.06 Sarah, Kristen
Week 5, 2.7.06 Thomas, Jennifer
Week 7, 2.21.06 MaryCate, Shanon
Week 8, 2.28.06 Alauna, Linda
Week 12, 3.28.06 Liz, Laura
Week 13, 4.4.06 MaryBeth, Caroline
Week 14, 4.11.06 Starr, Jeri


Criteria

Logistic:

  • written submission around 500 words
  • due on the assigned day
  • 50 points

In addition to the general evaluation criteria, the instructor will be looking for evidence of...

  • a sense of audience–do you present the article both verbally and orally so that your peers understand the content? do you provide enough information to assist your audience's understanding of the reviewed article? do you make it relevant to them?
  • an understanding of the text reviewed, as well the field of writing and rhetoric
  • an understanding of the review genre
  • an ability to stimulate interest, as evidenced by discussion
  • appropriate use of conventions, including APA citation formatting
  • a professional persona