Lunar International College

School of Graduate Studies

Article Review Guideline
Article Review Process Involves:
• Summarization, classification, analysis, critiques, and comparison.
• The analysis, evaluation, and comparison require use theories, ideas, and research, relevant
to the subject area of the article.
• It is also worth nothing if a review does not introduce new information, but instead presents
a response to another writer’s work.
Actions to Take
1) Skim the article without taking notes:
 Read the abstract. The abstract will tell you the major findings of the article and why they
matter.
 Read first for the “big picture.”
 Note any terms or techniques you need to define.
 Jot down any questions or parts you don’t understand.
 If you are unfamiliar with any of the key concepts in the article, look them up in a textbook.

2) Re-read the article more carefully:

 Pay close attention to the “Materials and Methods” (please note that in some journals this
section is at the very end of the paper) and “Results” sections.
 Ask yourself questions about the study, such as:
o Was the study repeated?
o What was the sample size? Is this representative of the larger population?
o What variables were held constant? Was there a control?
o What factors might affect the outcome?

3) Read the “Materials and Methods” and “Results” sections multiple times:
 Read the Methods section of the paper. In this section, the authors will describe how the
data was collected, who was included in the sample, and any instruments used.
 Carefully examine the graphs, tables, and diagrams.
 Try to interpret the data first before reading the captions and details.
 Make sure you understand the article fully.

4) Before you begin the first draft of your summary:

 Try to describe the article in your own words first.
 Try to distill the article down to its “scientific essence.”
 Include all the key points and be accurate.
 A reader who has not read the original article should be able to understand your summary.

5) Write a draft of your summary:

 Do not look at the article while writing, to make it easier to put the information in your
own words and avoid unintentional plagiarism.
  Refer back to the article later for details and facts.
 Ask yourself questions as you write:
• What is the purpose of the study? What questions were asked?
• How did the study address these questions?
• What assumptions did the author make?
• What were the major findings?
• What surprised you or struck you as interesting?
• What questions are still unanswered?

Sample Format for Reviewing a Journal Article

Reading and summarizing a research article in the social sciences can be overwhelming. Below is
a simple model to guide students through this process.
1) Preliminaries
Here write the following:
 Name of the author/s
 Title of the journal
 Title of the article
 Year of publication
 Volume number: Volume typically refers to the number of years the publication has been
circulated,
 Issue number: refers to how many times that periodical has been published during that year.
 Pages, if given
 Doi (document identification number)

2) Introduction/ Rationale
• Read the Abstract; this will give an overview of the study’s (article’s) purpose.
• Read the introduction/background section of the article. Toward the end of the section, the
authors should identify gaps in the existing literature and tell the reader how the current
study will fill that gap. The authors will also state their hypothesis (purpose) at the end of
this section.
3) The participants were/the setting
• Read the Methods section of the paper. In this section, the authors will describe how the
data was collected, who was included in the sample, and any instruments used.
• A reader might want to consider sample size, demographic characteristics, or any
interesting protocol.
• It is not necessary to report every fact (i.e., 35% of the participants were male, 71%
identified their race as Asian).
4) The Findings and Discussions
• Read the findings section of the article.
• Some statistics may be confusing. Pay attention to key words such as “increased”,
“decreased”, “improved”, and “reduced”.
• “No change” may also be considered a significant finding.
• Next, read the Discussion section. The authors will present the findings in general terms.

5) Suggestions of the Author/s

 • Read the Discussion section and look for comments that the authors made about the
intervention or program such as “Did it work?” or “Should it be continued?”.
• Look for the author’s critique of why the study did or did not produce results. Did anything
unexpected influence the findings?
• The author may suggest a future line of research or “next steps” to improve the body of
knowledge.
6) Citations and References
Particular referencing styles are preferred by particular academic disciplines because they work better with
the kind of texts that are most commonly used in that discipline.
Check if the in text citations are appropriate
Make sure that all the sources cited in the text appear in the reference section
Make sure that only those sources cited in the text are included in the reference section
Check if a given referencing style is consistently used. Some of the commonly used
referencing styles include:
• APA: (American Psychological Association) is used by Education, Psychology,
and Sciences
• MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used by the Humanities.
• Chicago/Turabian style is generally used by Business, History, and the Fine Arts.
• Harvard referencing style is popular style using the author-date system for in-
text citations. In-text citation consists mainly of the authors' last name and the year
of publication (and page numbers if it is directly quoted) in round brackets placed
within the text
7) Your Suggestions
• Show the strengths and weaknesses of the article
• Write your suggestions
Group Assignment on Managerial Economics
General Instructions
Select any managerial decision making (firm level) related articles published recently by
reputable publishers like Elsevier, Springer or Wiley & Sons and undertake a critical
review. You can use this site to download articles (https://sci-hub.st/ ). In addition to your
effort in reviewing, quality of the article reviewed and its relevance to development policy
play a great role in earning you a good grade. Therefore, you need to pay due attention in
selecting quality, recent and relevant article.
Based on the article selected,
A. Write down a summary (maximum 2 page) of the paper describing the research
question, the related literature, the methodology and the results. Please don’t copy and
paste from the article. Just follow above guideline.
B. At the end of the summary, explain if the paper convincingly addresses the research
question and discuss any potential issues concerning the interpretation of the results
and the quality of the data. (Maximum 1 page)
C. Explain also what you did not understand well and what remains to be explained.
(Maximum 1 page)

Additional Information:
✓ Write the article in APA (American Psychological Association) format at the top of
your paper. Example: Charles M. (2015). Estimating demand for spatially
differentiated firms with unobserved quantities and limited price data, 131, 50-53.
✓ The maximum number of students in a group is 3.
✓ Write group member full name and ID
✓ Save the file using the name of the group leader and section as a word document.
Example: Abebe_MBA2.doc
✓ Any kind of plagiarism has no excuse.
✓ Answers to be sent by the following email before 9:00 am of August 9, 2021. LATE
SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
o lunatmfi@gmail.com
✓ Presentation Schedule
No Section Presentation Schedule
1 MBA2 August 11, 2021
2 MBA3 August 12, 2021
3 MBA1 August 14, 2021
4 MBA5 August 15, 2021
5 MBA4 August 16, 2021