Here is the format that should be used for your journal critique when you post to the discussion board as a discussion leader.

Part I: Article Identification

The full citation of the article (in APA format) should be listed first.

Part II: What was found

This section should contain the following information in no more than three paragraphs:

• The rationale behind the study (the broad area that was being studied)

• The objective of the study (what did the researchers set out to find?)

• The method(s) used in the study

• The findings of the study

• The authors’ conclusions

Part III: Your response

This section should address the following issues:

• Was the paper well-written or was it difficult to follow? Note that stating that the paper was hard to follow because of vocabulary is not a valid response for this assignment. If you do not understand a word or term it is up you to rectify the situation.

• What were pros and cons of the research method(s) that was/were used?

• How could the method(s) have been improved?

• What problems do you see with the obtained results? Are there confounding variables or other issues that weren’t taken into account when the study was designed?

• Do you agree or disagree with the authors’ conclusions based on their results?

• What questions remain unanswered?

• Could these aforementioned questions have been answered in this study with a better research design?

• What research logically follows from the current study (What is the “next step”) ?