MODULE Study and Thinking Skills

CHAPTER 6: Writing a Book Review or Article Critique

Objectives:

a.) Identify the writing a book review or. article critique

b.) Define the literature review and its function
.
c.) Discuss the different guidelines of literature review

WRITING A BOOK REVIEW OR ARTICLE CRITIQUE

A book review or article critique is a specialized form of academic writing

in which a reviewer evaluates the contribution to knowledge of scholarly works
such as academic books and journal article. A book review or article critique,
which is usually ranges from 250 to 750 words, is not simply a summary. It is a
critical assessment, analysis, or evaluation of a work. However, take care not to
equate the word “critique” to cynicism and pessimism. As an advance form of
writing, it involves your skills in critical thinking and recognizing arguments. A
book review or article critique is different in movie review that you see in a
newspaper. Although movie reviews involve the analysis of one’s work, they are
written for a general audience and primarily aim to offer a persuasive opinion.
An academic book review or article critique, on the other hand, addresses a more
specific audience and usually offers a critical response to a published scholarly
work. Moreover, book review must not be mistaken for book reports. Book
reports focus on describing the plot, characters, or idea of a certain work.
Book and article reviewers do not just share mere opinion;
rather, they use both proofs and logical reasoning to substantiate
their opinions. They process ideas and theories, revisit and extend
ideas in a specific field of study, and present analytical responses.

Structure of a Book Review or Article Critique

Introduction (around 5% of the paper)
• Title of the book/article
• Writer’s name
• Writer’s thesis statement

Summary (around 10% of the paper)

• Writer’s objective or purpose
• Methods used (if applicable)
• Major findings or claims

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Review/Critique (in no particular order) (Around 75% of the paper)

• Appropriateness of methodology to support the arguments
• Theoretical soundness
• Soundness of explanation in relation to other available information and
experts
• Sufficiency of explanation

• Other perspectives in explaining the concepts and ideas

• Coherence of ideas
Conclusion (around 10% of the paper)
• Overall impression of the work
• Scholarly value of the reviewed article/book
• Benefits to the intended audience
• Suggestion for future directions

When writing a book review or article critique, make sure to ask

the following:
1. What is the topic of the book or article?
2. What is its purpose?
3. Who are its intended readers?
4. Does the writer explicitly state his/her thesis statement?
5. What theoretical assumptions (i.e., a scientific/logical
explanation without evidence) are mentioned in the book or
article? Are they explicitly discuss?
6. What are the contributions of the book or article to the field
(e.g., language, psychology) it is situated in?
7. What problems and issues are discussed in the book or article?
8. What kind of information (e.g., observation, survey, statistics,
and historical accounts) are presented in the book or article? How
they are used to support the arguments or thesis?
9. Are there other ways of supporting the arguments or thesis
aside from the information used in the book or article? Is the
author silent about these alternative ways of explanation?
10. What is your overall reaction to the work?

Guidelines in Writing a Book Review or Article Critique

1. Read the article or book to be reviewed carefully to get its main concept.
2. Reread it to get the arguments being presented.

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3. Relate the content of the article or book to what you already know about the
topic. This will make you more engaged with the article or book.
4. Focus on discussing how the book treats the topic and not a topic itself. Start
your sentences with phrases such as “this book presents…’ and “The author
argues…”
5. Situate your review. This means that your analysis should be anchored be
anchored on the theories presented by the book or article writer.
6. Examine whether the findings are adequately supported or not.
7. Analyzed the type of analysis the writer use (e.g, quantitative, qualitative, case
study) and how its supports the arguments and claims.
8. Suggest some ways on how the writer can improve his/her reasoning or
explanation.
9. Discuss how the same topic is explained from other perspective. Compare the
writer’s explanation of the topic to another expert from the same field of study.
10. Point out other conclusion or interpretations that the writer missed out.
Present other ideas that need to be examined.
11. Examine the connections between ideas and how they affect the conclusions
and findings.
12. Show your reactions to the writer’s idea and present an explanation. You can
either agree or disagree with the ideas, as long as you can sufficiently support
your stand.
13. Suggest some alternative methods and processes of reasoning that would
result in a more conclusive interpretation.
Completing a book review or article critique means that you can
pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of an article or book and
that you can identify different perspectives. This task also equips
you with more skills to engage in discussions with an expert and
makes you a part of a community of scholars.

WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW

A literature review is a type of academic writing that provides an overview

of a specific topic. It surveys scholarly work such as academic books (but not
textbooks), computerize databases, conference proceedings,
dissertation’s/theses, empirical studies government reports, historical records,
journal article, monographs, and statistical handbooks.
As an advance form of academic writing, a literature review critically analyzes
the relationship among the scholarly works and the current work. It can be
written as a stand-alone paper or as part of a research paper explaining a
theoretical framework and related studies. Unlike an annotated bibliography
which presents a summary and synthesis (i.e., linking different sources).

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Below are the differences among the sources.

Annotated Book Review Literature Review

Bibliography
Summarizes the Evaluates a book Reviews a significant
references and explain Review number of scholarly
how important they are work to be identify
in addressing the what is known and not
research questions known about a topic

Doing a literature review will test your ability to seek literature efficiently and
identify useful scholarly work. It will also test your ability to evaluate studies for
their validity and reliability. Hence, writing a literature review involves research,
critical appraisal, and writing. Everything else included, a student may take 40
hours to finish a well- written literature review.

Functions of a Literature Review

This type of a review has the following roles.
• Justifies a research questions, method or theoretical and conceptual
framework
• Establish the relevant of the topic
• Provide necessary information to better understand a specific topic or
study
• Shows reviewers familiarity and mastery of the topic
• Establish a niche of the study
• Resolves conflict among contradictory studies
Structure of a Literature Review
Introduction
• Purpose for writing literature review and the importance of the topic being
reviewed
• Scope the review
• Criteria used for selecting the literature
• Organizational pattern of the review

Body
• Historical background
• Relevant theories

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• Relationship between and among the studies, and how each study
advanced a theory
• Strengths and weaknesses of each paper
• Various viewpoints on the topic

Conclusion
• Restatement of the main argument or thesis
• Main agreements and disagreements in the literature
• If stand-alone paper: conclusions; implications; and direction for future
studies
• If part of a thesis or research paper: linking of the literature review to the
research questions
• Overall perspective on the topic.

Guidelines in Writing a Literature Review

Writing a literature review is composed of three distinct parts ---literature
search, evaluation and analysis of articles and writing the literature review –all
of which are discussed below.

Literature Search
1. Review the documentation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago) that you will adopt
and be familiar with its format in relation to writing a literature review.
2. Choose and focus on a topic that you will explain.
3. Determine the kind and number of sources you will be using. Will your
literature review be exclusive to articles or will it include other documents? Will
you focus on experimental studies or will you also include theoretical papers that
explain a theory?
4. Survey the available online databases relevant to your topic. These include
Proquest, Science Direct, JSTOR, or Google Scholar. As much as possible,
include only the references published by top journals and publishers.
5. Use relevant keywords when searching for scholarly documents or article. For
example, if your topic is about the impact of Facebook-based e-portfolios on the
writing skills of ESL learners, your possible keywords are Facebook, ESL writing,
e-portfolio, portfolio assessment, Facebook-based e-portfolio, and social
networking site.
6. Always include landmark studies or papers (i.e., studies which had
remarkably changed the field) related to your topic.
7. Always evaluate the sources for coverage and currency. Include only those
article directly related to your topic.

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Evaluation and Analysis of Articles

Once you have identified and obtained the articles for your review, analyze them
before writing the actual literature review. To do this, you may apply the following
steps.
1. Skim the articles and read their abstracts.
2. Group the articles and other documents according to their categories.
3. Take down notes. Focus on the research questions,
methodology used, major findings and their explanation, and
conclusion.

4. Summarize the details using a concept map. In this way, you will see the
relationship, similarities and differences among the articles.
5. Write a synthesis of the references you have rea before writing the actual
literature review.
6. Create an outline. You may look for other literature reviews to serve as models
for writing the outline.

Writing the Literature Review

Once all the materials are ready and you have clear outline of the ideas you want
to express, you may now start the actual writing process.
1. State clearly your thesis or main argument and be guided by it
accordingly. Below is an example of a thesis statement for a
literature review.

Because of Facebook’s popularity, many educators have explored its educational

use in the tertiary level.
2. If you say that no studies have been conducted on one aspect of your topic,
justify it.
3. Direct the readers to other related literature reviews that cover itemc which
you do not intend to cover. You may use the citation format “(see Author, year)”
or follow the format prescribed by your chosen documentation style.
4. Never treat a literature review as a series of annotated bibliography.
5. Use headings and subheadings to classify the parts of your topic. For each
topic heading, analyze the differences among studies and look for gaps. Note that
each paragraph should focus on one aspect of the topic.
6. Use effective transitions to make your review easier to read and
understand.
7. The body of the literature review can be organized thematically,
methodologically or chronologically.

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For More Knowledge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJNwBGVtX9c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LHJ9FkQAsM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIYC6zG265E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nqzcfw1wDE

Reference:
https://link.quipper.com/en/organizations/547ffb8dd2b76d00020
02621/curriculum#curriculum

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https://www.letters.org/application-letter/sample-college-
application-

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