Assignment:
When you did your first journal article critiques for this class, perhaps you had never read an article in such detail or considered some of the finer points of the writing or presentation. At this point in the semester, you have not only critiqued an article, but you have also found many articles for different purposes and even written your own short proposals. Thus, I want you to take this fresh experience and apply it to another journal article critique. I am expecting these to be high quality and really dig deep into the article, using the points presented in the link below. Further, at this point, everyone should recognize what a peer-reviewed journal article looks like, so hopefully, we will not have any issues with the article selection.
You are going to do a thorough critique of a journal article based somewhere in the field of your future career in healthcare, or a personal interest of yours (i.e. a medical condition you or a loved one have, a medical treatment or issue that interests you, etc.). Your topic must be related to healthcare, either clinical or administrative. Also, the unit of analysis should be either individuals, groups, or organizations.
Take the time to pick an article that you think is well written and analyze every aspect of it- from the title to the way they present their research question, to the way they wrote their methodology, to their use of subheadings, to how they wrap up the paper in a thoughtful conclusion. Look at their use of language- consider how they present the process they went through. Does everything make sense to you? How could the author(s) have done better? Read it a few times if you can. Be critical! Even great articles have weaknesses, and even boring/monotonous articles have good points.
Remember, you are not critiquing the study, but the actual article itself. This is also not a place to just summarize the article or give your opinion about the topic. The journal article you select must be:
From a peer-reviewed journal only (if you need help figuring out how to do this, this video will help (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.)
Based on a quantitative and/or qualitative empirical research study that contains primary data analysis- not a literature review or meta analysis article (i.e. should not just summarize a topic or talk about what other studies have found- should have a methodology or procedure section where they discuss exactly what they did)
Longer than 5 pages- no short case studies or commentaries, etc.
Failure to pick an article that adheres to the above guidelines will result in your grade being docked- so choose an article wisely! Don't just pick the first article that pops up when you search for your keywords.
Take all the skills you have learned from this class, including the book and the assignments, and really challenge yourself to pick apart an article in a thoughtful, in-depth, and critical way.
Critiques must be one to two (1-2) full pages of writing, excluding cover page and the reference list. The entire document must be in APA formatting, but no author's note or abstract is required. That means 12 point font, one-inch margins, double spacing, page headers, and a standard APA cover page (see APA examples in module)- but you don't need an author's note or abstract