An article review is a critical appraisal of an article that simultaneously describes and critically assesses the article's goals, content, and arguments. It does so in a way understandable by a fellow scientist who is reasonably well informed on issues in the field but who may not have more than a passing familiarity with the article's specific focus. Your job is to give the reader enough information to determine whether he or she should read the article. Importantly, the word "critical" is meant in the sense of "exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation" as opposed to "inclined to criticize severely and unfavorably". You must justify your critique at every step of the way.

Review Elements

The following are common elements of a review. While these elements do not necessarily map onto actual review headings or paragraphs, for instance, they do identify elements common to most reviews. By extension, most readers of your review are likely expecting these elements.

Bibliographic citation. The review must begin with the bibliographic information for the article. Consult the GIS Resources page on writing a paper, in particular on how to format references, to learn how to create a bibliographic citation.

General summary of content. Describe the key goals, arguments, and conclusions of the article.

Discussion of goals. Most articles are meant to achieve one or two key goals, such as buttressing a theory, answering a question, or presenting a new technique.

Discussion of arguments. Most articles use one or more key arguments to support their goals. These are usually presented as assertions or corollaries of theoretical frameworks. Identify the components of the arguments and importantly, the stated or unstated assumptions of these arguments.

Discussion of conclusions. Most articles tend to lead to one or more conclusions supported by the key arguments and meeting the article's goals. Do you agree with the conclusion? Do you feel the arguments support the conclusions?

Assessment. Complement your discussion of goals, arguments, and conclusion by identifying essential strengths and weaknesses of the article and then proposing potential fixes. The strengths and weaknesses that you identify can be broad (e.g., "the theory on which the arguments rely is outdated" or "the problem addressed by this piece is one of the most pressing facing humanity..."), narrow (e.g., "the statistical procedure used could be made more powerful by doing X"), or focused on stylistic elements (e.g., "the writing is very approachable" or "the figures could be larger").

Summary discussion. Conclude your article by succinctly recapping your discussion and assessment. Also offer your sense of the import of the article (e.g., "this piece will become the standard by which other projects of its kind will be measured") and by identify the best audience for it (e.g., "this article is ideally suited for the professional surveyor interesting in learning about X").