Research Methodology

How to Critically Analyse a Piece of

Writing
 Research Paper Structure

• Title
• Authors
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Materials and Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions or Summary
• References
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 Abstract

• normally about 100-200 words

• Advertisement for the paper
• Summary of paper
– Reason for performing the study
– Hypothesis
– Important results
– Implications of the findings

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 Introduction
• Put your approach in the context of the key papers on the
subject covered
• Describe the problem you’re investigating, why it needed to
be investigated.. Point out problems
• Background to the study
• Brief overview of the current state of the field
– Citing other people’s work
• How the authors arrived at their research question
• Why this is the most important question in the world!
• HYPOTHESIS
– Simple
– Easily answered

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 Materials and Methods
• Clear concise description of what they did
– Often includes figure of experimental setup if appropriate
• Subjects
• Data collection – what they were measuring and how
• Analysis
• Statistics
• Methods should be clear enough to repeat the
experiment and give the same results

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 Results

• What they found

• Visual representation of the data
– Graphs
– Tables
• Good figure legends
• Description of their results - no
discussion of the implications

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 Discussion
• Start with a brief summary of your main findings, are
there any implications from your findings?
• Interpretation of the results
• How they relate to previous research
• Implication and/or applications of the findings
– How supplement A might improve endurance
– How knowledge of the forces at the knee during a cutting
manoeuvre might be used to reduce injury risk
• Future directions for research

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 Conclusions or Summary
• Summarise the main arguments and point to any further
areas of research that may be required.
• Should be short and concise
• What is your opinion

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 References

• Expansion of the citations in the text

• Record of the authors, title and journal where the
papers were published
• Critically important to avoid plagiarism – must
include the sources of all information that is other
people’s intellectual property
• Two citation methods
– Harvard System
– Numeric System
• Individual journals will request specific methods

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 What is a literature review?

• Critical look at existing research relevant to

your question in order to
– Identify the problem
– Develop a hypothesis
– Develop a method
• It is NOT just a summary of a series of research
papers
• You must evaluate the research papers and
show the relationships between different work

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 What is a literature review?

• Approach it with the following questions

– What do we already know in the area concerned?
– What are the key concepts?
– What are the existing theories?
– What are the inconsistencies?
– What evidence is lacking, inconclusive, contradictory
or too limited?
– What views need to be tested further?

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 How to Write a Literature Review

• Background
– Introduce to topic to the reader
– Make it interesting and easily understandable by
explaining it in plain language and relating to actual
or potential applications
– Explain scientific principles underlying the topic
– Define and justify the scope of the review – i.e. your
question

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 How to Write a Literature Review
• Critique of the Literature
– Do not give a summary paper by paper
– Deal with themes and try to draw together the
results from several papers into each theme.
– Use sub-headings to identify your themes
– Try and create a logical progression through the
subject/argument
– Use what you have learnt about research design to
critically evaluate the results of the papers you are
discussing
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 How to Write a Literature Review

• Tables and Figures

– Tables can be a useful, concise way of summarising
the findings of a number of similar studies
– You must cite the sources of the information
– Use tables alongside your evaluation of the data in
the text, not instead of it
– Figures and diagrams can be very useful to explain
important principles
• Cite source of information

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 How to Write a Literature Review
• Further Research
– Finish your review with some ideas for further research that needs
to be done in the area and why.
• References
– Use Harvard referencing system
– These should be in alphabetical order at the end
– Every assertion that you have made in your Introduction, main
section or discussion
– needs to be backed by evidence in the form of a citation.

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 Writing Style
• Spelling, grammar and punctuation matter!
– Use spell check
– Ask someone to read your paper for you before
handing it in
• Fonts and Symbols
– Do not use stylised fonts
– Many of the symbols needed for scientific
information can be found in insert-symbol
• Normal text (° ± Δ ½)
• Mathematical operators (Ω √ ≤ ∑)
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 Writing Style

• Abbreviations and Acronyms

– Keep to a minimum
– Only use if full expression is excessively long or abbreviation is
in common use
– Define the first time it is used
• Use SI (Systeme Internationale) Units

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 Writing Style
• Tables
– Insert-Table in word
– Units in column and row headings
– Use a realistic number of significant figures
– Include a legend which describes the table
• Figures
– Create figure in powerpoint of graphics software
– Insert-picture from file
– Create graphs in Excel or other graph drawing package
– Paste into word
– For this review paste figures into appropriate place in the text.
For publication figures should be separate

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 Writing Style
• Use of Words
– Be economical – don’t waffle
– Be precise – don’t generalise, be specific if you can
– Don’t use however more than once in a paragraph
• changing the direction of an argument twice in one
paragraph can confuse the reader
– Don’t use however too often
• Thesaurus for synonyms
– Keep technical terms to a minimum
– Avoid colloquialisms such as steer clear of

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 Writing Style
• Use of Words
– Don’t use long complicated sentences
– Beware of tenses
• When describing experiments and reporting results use
past tense
• When discussing implications use present tense
– Beware of singular and plural terms
• Datum – data
• Medium – media
• Phenomenon – phenomena

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 Writing Style
• Flow of Ideas
– Focus your thoughts by writing a plan/outline first
– The first sentence of a paragraph usually sets the
topic for the paragraph
– Check that you don’t contradict yourself
– Aim for simplicity!
• READ YOUR WORK BEFORE YOU HAND IT IN!!!
– Preferably ask someone else to read it too!

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 Guide to the Process of Writing a Critical
Review of the Literature

• Choose a topic to review

• Be clear who you are writing for, who your
audience is
• Produce a guiding concept or build a
theoretical structure that can explain facts and
relationships between them
• It may lead to the formulation of a theory

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 A Critical Review
• Group categories and comments on features that of
particular interest
• Compares results of different investigators and
highlights a key study which may serve as a pilot for
your study
• Write a card for each study then these can be
ordered into categories
• A critical review is not
– a sales catalogue entry where all the topics get a
paragraph written about them regardless of how well the
quoted work has been conducted

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 What is a literature review?
• A literature review is an account of what has
been published on a topic by accredited
scholars and researchers.

• sometimes it is part of an annotated

bibliography, but more often it is part of the
introduction to an essay, research report, or
thesis.

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 Purpose of the Review
• In writing the literature review, your purpose is to
convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas
have been established on a topic, and what their
strengths and weaknesses are.
• As a piece of writing, the literature review must be
defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research
objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or
your argumentative thesis).
• It is not just a descriptive list of the material
available, or a set of summaries.

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 Questions to Ask
• What is the specific thesis, problem, or research
question that my literature review helps to
define?
• What type of literature review am I conducting?
• What is the scope of my literature review?
• How good was my information seeking?
• Have I critically analyzed the literature I use?
• Have I cited and discussed studies contrary to my
perspective?
• Will the reader find my literature review relevant,
appropriate, and useful?

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 Skills Developed
• Information Seeking: the ability to scan the literature
efficiently, using manual or computerized methods,
to identify a set of useful articles and books
• Critical Appraisal: the ability to apply principles of
analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies.
• A literature review must do these things:
– be organized around and related directly to the thesis or
research question you are developing
– synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not
known
– identify areas of controversy in the literature
– formulate questions that need further research

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 More Questions to Ask
• What is the author's theoretical framework
(e.g., psychological, developmental, feminist)?

• What is the relationship between the

theoretical and research perspectives?

• Has the author evaluated the literature

relevant to the problem/issue? Does the
author include literature taking positions she
or he does not agree with?
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 More Questions to Ask
• In a Research Study:
– how good are the basic components of the study
design (e.g., population, intervention, outcome)?
– How accurate and valid are the measurements?
– Is the analysis of the data accurate and relevant to
the research question?
– Are the conclusions validly based upon the data
and analysis?

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 And More
• In material written for a popular readership:
– does the author use appeals to emotion, one-
sided examples, or rhetorically-charged language
and tone?
– Is there an objective basis to the reasoning, or
– is the author merely "proving" what he or she
already believes?

• How does the author structure the argument?

Can you "deconstruct" the flow of the
argument to see whether or where it breaks
down logically (e.g., in establishing cause-
effect relationships)?
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 And More
• In what ways does this book or article
contribute to our understanding of the
problem under study,
– and in what ways is it useful for practice?
– What are the strengths and limitations?

• How does this book or article relate to the

specific thesis or question I am developing?

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 Does the Writing Use Objective &Fair
Prose?
• No appeals to spurious authority
– “Professor Jones said that …”implying that
because she/he’s a professor he/she must be an
expert

• No use of subjective, value-laden adjectives,

e.g.
– “the results showed an enormous effect”,
– “Smith (2005) makes a ridiculous assertion that …”

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 Using Unsupported Statements
• Do not use unsupported statements that
imply that you, the author, are the expert on
the subject.

• Every part of your argument must be

supported by evidence when you are
reviewing a body of published work. e.g.
– Do not use “of course”, “it is obvious that”

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 How to Critique
• Ask yourself questions like these about
each book or article you include:
– Has the author formulated a problem/issue?
– Is it clearly defined?
– Is its significance (scope, severity, relevance)
clearly established?
– Could the problem have been approached more
effectively from another perspective?
– What is the author's research orientation (e.g.,
interpretive, critical science, combination)?

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 How to Write Concisely
• Precise an article – you will do this for articles
you have read for the review. This advice
covers the content and is not a critique or
analytical summary.

• A precise is a shortening of a text of written

work and putting it into your own words
(Make sure the facts are correct)

• Do not make statements that are not

supported by the original text
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 How to Write Concisely
• You should give all the information from the
original, but it must go beyond it.

• Select the most appropriate details

• Do not make conclusions or comment on the

text

• the summary must provide a clear and

effective understanding of the message
contained in the original

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 An Analytical Summary
• The Analytical Summary must still provide the reader of
the summary with a clear and effective understanding of
the message contained in the original.

• This summary requires the thematic structure of a

central idea, a thesis statement

• A judgment should be made concerning the document

being analytically summarised.

• This summary will be an essay discussing the original

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 Critical Analysis of Academic
Papers

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 Critical Analysis of Academic Papers
• Typical questions to ask when
reviewing/reading papers for the quality of
the content and purpose of the paper
1. What type of paper is this?
– research, case study, experimental,
technical.
2. What audience is the paper addressed to?
– Is it suited to this audience?
3. What claims are made?

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 Critical Analysis of Academic Papers
4. What evidence is produced?
– What is the quality of the evidence?
– What is the range of evidence?
– What is the type of evidence?

5. Is there any bias in the report?

– If yes: how does it relate to the background
of the authors?
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 Quality of the Paper
• A guide to helping you think about creating
your own paper.

1. How is the paper structured?

– How easy is it to see the structure?

2. How clearly written is the paper?

– Is it easy to read?
– If not, why not?

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 Quality of the Paper
3. Is it supported appropriately by references?
– Are there sufficient citations?
– How good are the cited sources?
– Are all the citations present in the reference
section?
– Are all the reference entries complete?
– Are all the listed sources actually cited in the
paper?

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 Quality of the Paper

4. Is terminology clear?
– Are any acronyms explained?

5. Is the paper still relevant at this time?

– (x years after it was written)

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 Points to Note in the Paper
“The Task of the Referee”

• What is the Referee's task - what s/he has to do

• The Referees Report - the purpose of it

• Evaluating a research paper

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 Points to Note in the Paper
“The Task of the Referee”
• Considerations are:
– What is the purpose of the paper?
– Is the paper appropriate?
– Is the goal significant?
– Is the method of approach valid?
– Is the actual execution of the research correct?
– Is the presentation satisfactory?
– What did you learn?
• Finally what to note – When You are the Author
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