Running Head: CRITICAL REVIEW OF A WRITING-RELATED ARTICLE 1

Significance and contribution to the field

The article chosen for this assignment is “The Application of Brainstorming to

Improve Student’s Writing Skill” written by Nurhasarah, Martin and Amalia (2015). In this

article, the authors wanted to look into the effectiveness of brainstorming in improving

student’s writing skills. The aim of this article is achieved whereby the treatment of

brainstorming method provided in this experiment had a positive effect in improving the

content and organization as well as the use of vocabulary, language and mechanic in the

essay among the experiment group students.

Although similar research was conducted in the past, this article used a different

technique to extract data from the experiment. Throughout this article, the authors used a

scoring scale that was introduced by Hughes (2005) instead of checklist method that was used

by Ibnian (2011). This testing provides a more accurate data as compare to the checklist

method. The article also shares relationship with another study conducted by Ibnian (2011),

“Brainstorming and Essay Writing in EFL Class” where the same conclusion was reached.

Both of the articles presented agree that brainstorming method helps students to improve their

writing skills.

However, the article did not mention the time intervals between pre-test, treatment

and post-test as well as time set for students to complete the essay. Without mentioning the

time, it is possible to question the validity of the findings and bias present which will

influence the result.

Methodology

The approach that was used for this article was experimental design. Experimental

design is where participants are assigned to different environments in experiments. Usually,

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CRITICAL REVIEW OF A WRITING-RELATED ARTICLE
this is used to test the hypothesis of the research. In this article, participants are separated into

two groups which are the experimental group and control group. This approach of testing is

effective because the authors were able to make comparison between the two groups and

analyse the results of having brainstorming instructions versus without brainstorming

instructions.

Additionally, the approach of testing in the article is not biased. This is because the

approach required the authors to separate the participants into two equal groups. However,

the authors could allocate more time to the experimental group so that they can perform

better. Therefore, the overall finding is biased since the time was not mentioned. Besides that,

the results of this article are not valid. This is because there are only 4 participants to

represent big population of students for the research. It is recommended that the authors use

large number of participants when conducting the experiment to increase external validity.

Argument and used of evidence

In this article, the authors mentioned that the management and content of written text,

ideas plan and arrangement as well as research of written topics are items of consideration

contribute to the problem in writing. Additionally, the authors claim that brainstorming

method can improve students’ writing skills.

The argument presented in the article regarding the effects of brainstorming method is

consistent. This is shown through the finding of past researchers which covers the significant

effects of brainstorming strategy on student’s English skills (Ibnian, 2013) and the

contribution of brainstorming on developing cognitive skills (Richards, 1990).

Furthermore, the evidences in this article are reliable and valid. This is because the

authors used rubrics to evaluate the participants’ essay. The rubrics included the content,
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CRITICAL REVIEW OF A WRITING-RELATED ARTICLE
organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanic. Nevertheless, the overall argument in

the research is weak. This is because there is insufficient amount of evidences about the

effects of brainstorming in the article.

In this research, the authors conclude that teaching brainstorming method helps

students to improve their writing skills. The conclusion is justified because the authors

performed evaluation, calculation and comparison on both experimental group and control

group in the research.

Writing style and text structure

The writing style in this article suits the authors’ intended audiences which are the

experts from the education field. This is because the vocabulary used in the article included

polysyllabic words and the sentences style were longer with descriptive phase. The authors

also used academic style of writing which brings the formal tone to the article, allowing the

findings to be more creditable to the audience.

The authors used different organization principle in each part of the article. In the

introduction, the authors used general to specific order. Then, chronological order for

methodology and comparison and contrast order for result and discussion. Besides that, the

authors used journal article structure for this article.

Overall, this article is organized because it shows the flow of main ideas and details of

the text as well as the cause and effect of brainstorming, allowing the readers to understand

this article easily.

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CRITICAL REVIEW OF A WRITING-RELATED ARTICLE
References

Amalia, R., Martin, R., & Nurhasanah, I. B. (2015). The Application of Brainstorming to

Improve Student’s Writing Skill. International Multidisciplinary Conference on Social

Sciences (IMCoSS) 1, 65. Retrieved from

http://artikel.ubl.ac.id/index.php/IMCoSS/article/view/428/434

Hughes, A. (2005). Testing for Language Teacher. London: Cambridge University press.

Ibnian, S. (2011). Brainstorming and Essay Writing in EFL Class. Theory and Practice in

Language Studies, 1(3), 263-272. Retrieved from

http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/tpls/vol01/03/08.pdf

Richards, J. (1990). New Trends in the Teaching of Writing in ESL/EFL. Beijing: Foreign

Language Teaching and Research Press Publisher.