Article Critique: How to Write One & Example

What Is an Article Critique: Expanded Definition

Article critiques is a type of academic essay that offers an analysis of a specific article, following a formal style. In this type of writing, students should not only sum up the author’s ideas. One also has to evaluate the key points presented in a text and make a response based on solid research. A critique should be objective and based on facts and logic rather than emotions.

Your written piece should have a clear organization. The entire text should be divided into separate paragraphs. In these sections, one would describe, analyze or argue the original work’s points.

How Is an Article Critique Different From a Summary

An article critique typically includes a brief summary of the text that is under review. However, it is much more than a simple summary. A critical piece, as its name suggests, should focus more on analysis than a bold overview. Students must go an extra mile and evaluate strong and weak sides of a text. You are expected to explain whether the author was right. Determine if their argumentation was used correctly. Specify the gaps if there are any. As a conclusion, you can point out whether this subject requires additional research.

How to Critique an Article: Prewriting Steps

So, how to critique an article? These are 3 prewriting steps you need to follow to make sure your review is good:

1. Read an original piece carefully.
2. Write an outline of your critique where you state your main point.
3. Identify contradictions and other weak points in your primary source.

Let’s discuss each of these steps more in detail.

In case you are looking for how to write a book review, go to our library and find such a blog there.

Step 1: Read an Article Before Writing a Critique

Before you critique an article, you should be very familiar with it. Your goal is to understand the aim of the writing piece you are analyzing. While reading an original piece, focus on such aspects: 

• Problem and critical points covered in a text.
• Methods an author has used for conducting their research.
• Actual findings that have been received.

Unless you know it all very well, it would be difficult to identify the author's weak points or gaps. Much like it would be hard to come up with valid arguments and expose these flaws.

Here’s our bonus tip: familiarize yourself with an author’s background and context of writing. Knowing some little story behind any article ensures that one sees a whole picture more clearly.

Step 2: Write an Outline for an Article Critique

An article critique outline is a good start to put together a high-level plan for your essay. It should include your main points about the original article. You shouldn’t include many details in your outline. Nor should you use full sentences to describe your ideas. Just mark an author’s thesis and list possible flaws in their argumentation. You can also make a quick general assumption that would later help you write a conclusion.

There is no need to write a lengthy outline. Don’t waste too much time on it – setting the right direction for your writing would be enough.

Step 3: Find Contradictions for Article Critique

This is how to critique an article properly: you should find real flaws or gaps that contradict with the main subject. Here are several things you should pay special special attention to:

• clarity
• scope
• relevance
• precision
• uniqueness.

After that you can provide a list of any flaws and gaps that you have found. Formulate your own opinion about each of these contradictions, supported by solid arguments. Underline relevant examples that prove your point. Use plain but formal language and avoid any emotional or unprofessional remarks.

What Is Included in an Article Critique

When you critique an article, you should maintain a proper structure of your essay. Here’s a basic structure that will surely help you get started. 

1. Introduction
   1. Give background on author
   2. Identify the purpose of text
   3. State the author’s main ideas
   4. Craft a thesis statement
2. Main Body
   1. Make a brief summary
   2. Offer your key arguments
   3. Provide supportive example (quotes)
   4. Comment on this point (praise or criticise)
3. Conclusion
   1. Sum up your key points
   2. Paraphrase your thesis
   3. Offer suggestions

In order to analyze any text, you should summarize it first. And before giving your opinions, you should highlight these points in your text. Below you can find the key critical review parts, explained in detail.

How to Write an Introduction for an Article Critique

This is how to write an introduction for an article critique:

1. Start with giving full information about an original article. Mention its author and title followed by the journal where it was published, and publication date.
2. Give an explanation of its topic. Get your readers familiar with some context.
3. Briefly list the authors’ main points, mentioning the research methods and sources they have used.
4. Highlight possible flaws, gaps or bias in their assumptions and conclusions. Mention that you will examine these flaws more in detail. This is an excellent hook that always works.

Creating Body for Your Article Critique

When writing the body paragraphs for article critique, you should follow the structure of an original article. Start each paragraph with a sentence related to your specific topic or subtopic. Then, go into the details and use your arguments to expose the weak points. Whenever you include any piece of evidence, make sure you properly cite your sources.

Your review must have at least 3 body paragraphs. But it can have more than that, especially if you are analyzing some longread.

Article Critique Conclusion: Summarize Your Points

Let us examine a good conclusion of an article critique. To ensure a positive impression on your audience, you should make it clear and informative. Connect all ideas mentioned in your introduction and main body.

In your conclusion you should summarize all your critical responses. Put all puzzles together and offer your final thoughts. After that, you can include suggestions for potential implications of your critique. Call for additional research or for changing prevalent opinions on the subject.

Article Critique Example

Now that you know the details of the writing process, it’s time to look at an example of an article critique. Click the link below to open our sample and see how a finished paper should look. Feel free to use this sample for your reference.

How to Critique Different Articles

Different texts require different approaches. We will show you how to critique an article in a journal compared to critiquing a research paper. Keep in mind that you should understand how to approach this task while reading the text itself. So focus on its main peculiarities from the beginning.

How to Critique a Journal Article

This is how to write a critique on a journal article:

• Include some basic information about the article so that it can be localized (name, title, date of publication and page numbers).
• Specify the statement of problem or issue discussed in it. Don’t miss any necessary detail.
• Summarize an author’s approach to the main subject.
• Do your own research and get valid arguments against the author's points which you aim to discuss.

How to Critique a Research Article

This is how to critique an article for research:

• If it is published in a specific source, provide all information about its publication.
• Focus on research methods. Tell how the data was collected.
• Try to follow all research steps and identify a gap or a logical flaw.
• Make sure you are familiar with some context of that problem before you define any weak points of the original article.

How to Critique an Article: Final Thoughts

So, today we have learned how to critique an article in a professional way. This brief guide contains the most important rules of a good critique, including critical approach, analysis and format of your work. Hopefully, you have learned useful details on preparing a decent textual analysis. Now that you know how to conduct it properly, you can complete your assignment successfully!