Writing Journal Article Review (Guidelines)

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Writing a journal article review

You may be asked to write a journal article review. Although this may be an unfamiliar exercise, it is not as complex a task as writing an essay requiring a lot of library research, and not the same as a review in The Canberra Times which is written for the general reader.
Your journal article review is written for a reader (eg, your supervisor, lecturer, tutor or fellow student) who is knowledgeable in the discipline and is interested not just in the coverage and content of the article being reviewed, but also in your critical assessment of the ideas and argument that are being presented by the author.
Use the following questions to engage with the journal article and help you form your critical analysis:

• Objectives: what does the article set out to do?
• Theory: is there an explicit theoretical framework? If not, are there important theoretical assumptions?
• Concepts: what are the central concepts? Are they clearly defined?
• Argument: what is the central argument? Are there specific hypotheses?
• Method: what methods are employed to test these?
• Evidence: is evidence provided? How adequate is it?
• Values: are value positions clear or are they implicit?
• Literature: how does the work fit into the wider literature?
• Contribution: how well does the work advance our knowledge of the subject?
• Style: how clear is the author's language/style/expression?
• Conclusion: a brief overall assessment.

Meeting these demands

1. Get to know the article you are reviewing. Look at the title, the table of contents, the abstract and the introduction. These should give you some idea of the central focus and the coverage of the article and the author's reasons for writing the article. Skim quickly through the whole article, running your eye over opening sentences of paragraphs and glancing at any tables, illustrations or other graphic materials. Read more closely the first section, which should tell you the main issues to be discussed and indicate the theoretical or conceptual framework within which the author proposes to work. Read closely the final section, which should cover the author's conclusions and summarise the main reasons why these conclusions have been reached. Now that you are familiar with the text, read the whole text thoroughly to develop a basis on which to critically review it.

2. Decide which aspects of the article you wish to discuss in detail in your review: the theoretical approach? the content or case studies? the selection and interpretation of evidence? the range of coverage? the style of presentation? Usually you will discuss the main issues which the author has specifically examined. Sometimes you may choose a particular issue because it has importance for you and the course you are studying, even if it is not the main issue for the author.

3. Now, on the basis of your overall knowledge of the article and your decision about which issues you will discuss, read in closer detail the sections which are relevant to these issues. Make notes of the main points and key quotations.

If necessary, read other articles or books which are relevant to your topic, possibly to provide supporting evidence or alternative theoretical models or interpretations of data.
You may also want to glance at other reviews of the article in recent academic journals in order to get a feel for the way the article has been received within the discipline. However only use these reviews to support your own evaluation; don't merely copy or imitate them.

Drafting and writing your review

The structure of your review should include:

• an initial identification of the article (author, title of article, title of journal, year of publication, and other details that seem important, eg, it is originally a French edition, etc), and an indication of the major aspects of the article you will be discussing.
• a brief summary of the range, contents and argument of the article. Occasionally you may summarise section by section, but in a short review (1,000-1,500 words) you usually pick up the main themes only. This section should not normally take up more than a third of the total review.
• a critical discussion of 2-3 key issues raised in the article. This section is the core of your review. You need to make clear the author's own argument before you criticise and evaluate it. Also you must support your criticisms with evidence from the text or from other writings. You may also want to indicate gaps in the author's treatment of a topic; but it is seldom useful to criticise a writer for not doing something they never intended to do.
• a final evaluation of the overall contribution that the article has made to your understanding of the topic (and maybe its importance to the development of knowledge in this particular area or discipline, setting it in the context of other writings in the field).

Checklist for your final draft

• Have you identified the article clearly, right at the start?
• Is the author's argument clearly and objectively summarised so that your reader can recognise the theoretical approach and the range of material covered? (About a third of a short review.)
• Are the 2-3 key issues raised in this article clearly identified and discussed? (About 50-60% of the review.)
• Have you given reasons for your criticism and your approval of the article?
• Is there a final evaluation of the article's importance, based on your earlier discussion?

Source: WebLink

Orientation Session for Muslims in KOREA

This is an orientation session for all the students coming to South Korea
LINK

Sexual Relationship between Married Couple in Islam: A Comprehensive Guideline

 

The Islamic Views on Sexual Relationship between Married Couple

Motivation and Purpose

I have observed that many couples, even after a long time of their married life, do not know exactly the teachings of Islam regarding sexual relationship. I can guess, the major reason would be they feel shy to discuss these matters. The purpose of this post is to share useful resource (a small book containing around 140 pages) in this regard.

Source of Information

Book Name: Islamic Guide to Sexual Relations (Author: Muhammad ibn Adam al-Kawathari)

Basis: Qur'an and Sayings of Holy Prophet (SAWW)

Scope of Reference: Four Sunni Schools of Islamic Law (Hanafi, Shafai, Malki, Hambali)

[note: Find the link to book(pdf) at the end of this post]

You Will Know

• What should be the intentions behind sexual relationship?
• What are couples allowed to do and what must they avoid?
• How does one prepares for sexual relations?
• What are the rules and etiquettes of foreplay, sex itself and the moments after sex?
• What is the ideal way of spending first night of marriage?
• What Islam says about modern time issues, for example Bondage, Cross-Dressing,  using Sex-aids, Watching Pornography, Oral and Anal Sex, Phone Sex etc. 

Download Book from Link

[Note: Do share it with your friends and relatives]

Key Steps to a Successful Academic Article Revision

How to Respond to a “Revise and Resubmit” from an Academic Journal: 

Ten Steps to a Successful Revision 

"When I submit an article to a top journal, often the best possible outcome I can hope for is that the editors will invite me to respond to the reviewers’ comments and resubmit the article. At this point, I have successfully completed five requests to revise extensively and resubmit. Over time, I have developed a straightforward approach to these requests.

In this blog post, I will describe my method in ten easy-to-follow steps.

Step One: Read the Letter.

Read the letter from the editor carefully and make sure you indeed have a request for a revise and resubmit. Other possible responses from the editor include: 1) Reject without an invitation to re-submit; 2) Conditional acceptance, where you are asked to make minor changes; and 3) Outright acceptance, where changes are not required, but might be suggested. If you are unsure, you may make an inquiry to the editor or ask a more experienced colleague to read the letter for you.

Step Two: Create an Excel File to List the Revisions.

Create an Excel file with four columns in which to put the suggestions for revisions. I open a blank Excel file, and create four columns. I label the columns as follows: “Reviewer”; “Suggestions”; “Response”; “Done?”.If you widen the columns and wrap the text, that makes it much more readable, especially for the middle two columns.

Step Three: Extract the suggestions from the reviewers' and editors' letters.

Read the reviews to extract the suggestions for revision and put the suggestions in the Excel file. This step requires the painful and painstaking process of closely reading the reviews and extracting all of the useful suggestions. On some occasions, the reviews can contain useful information, but not relay the information in a congenial fashion. The beauty of this step is that you can rewrite the suggestions and not have to look at the mean-spirited reviews again. For example, the reviewer might write: “One major problem with this article is that the research methods are suspect.” You can re-write this as: “Provide a more accurate and complete discussion of the data collection.” Be sure to label each suggestion according to where it comes from: Reviewer One, Two, or Three, or the editor.

Step Four: Re-arrange the suggestions for revision in a logical fashion.

Oftentimes, two reviewers will both mention in different ways that you need to build up the conceptual framework or the literature review. If you group all of the literature review suggestions together, it will be easier to tackle the revision systematically. Be sure you have labeled each suggestion according to where it came from, in order to facilitate this process. Organizing all of the suggestions for the Introduction, the Literature Review, the data analysis, etc., will make it easier to respond to the reviews.

Step Five: Decide how you will respond to all of the suggestions.

If the suggestion is to more clearly define the difference between “transnational” and “transborder,” then you can write: “Add one paragraph to the conceptual framework that clearly explains the difference between transnational and transborder, and why this distinction is useful.” Be sure that the suggestions you lay out for yourself make it clear what the next step is.

Note: You must respond to all of the suggestions. There may be some suggestions that you disagree with. This is fine, but you have to make a conscious decision not to respond to any particular suggestion. For example, the reviewer might suggest that you return to the archive to explore more biographical features of a certain person. You can respond that this step is not necessary for your argument. Place all of your instructions to yourself for how you will respond in the third column.

Step Six: Tackle your revision plan, step by step.

Now that you have made a clear plan for revision by outlining all of the reviewers’ suggestions and have decided how you will respond, you can tackle the revisions one by one. If you feel intimidated, start with the easiest ones. Usually, the easy ones will be something along the lines of: “Find and add a quote from Diana’s interview that elucidates how subjects talk about discrimination.” Even easier: “Add citation from Stephens (2009) about transnationalism from below.”

Step Seven: Use your Excel file to write the memo to the editor.

You should not send the editor your Excel file. Instead, you can use your Excel file to write a neat, comprehensive, and well-formatted response memo to the editor. Here is an example from a memo to the editor:

Reviewer One suggested that I engage the literature at a deeper level to get the most out of the data. I have included a more in-depth analysis of transnationalism into my data analysis section.

Step Eight: Double-check

Go back to the original reviews, and double-check to make sure that you have not missed anything. Go through each critique, and double-check your memo to the editor to make sure you have addressed each critique and have explained how you have responded to the editor.

Step Nine: Do a final read-over.

Read over your article to make sure that you have maintained the flow and argument of your paper even after having made the revisions. Read it without thinking about the reviews, but imagine a reader who is unaware of your original article or of the letter from the reviewers, as that reader is now your intended audience.

Step Ten: Re-submit!

Send the revised article and the revision memo back to the journal editor!"
  
.... Source: Link

Guidelines for healthy food/diet

Every day we are bombarded with messages about food. What to eat and what not to eat, but what can science tell us? To test the effects of food in our bodies BBC commissioned top scientists from around the world.

How to be healthy?. News presenter Fiona Bruce is going to find out how a simple change in diet can make all the difference to what keeps you healthy. To find out the truth about food Fiona is leaving the newsroom to put herself at the hearth of the 4 innovative food trials and investigate how she can improve her own well-being.

Answer: Video

How to be sexy?. Comedian Vic Reeves with the help of his wife Nancy finds out which foods can improve your sex life and boost your fertility. Nancy has agreed to let Vic to take part in a series of groundbreaking food trials to discover the power of food to turn you on or put you off.

Answer: Video

How to feed your kids?. Jan Ravens will get tips from four investigations which will transform what you think you know about kids and food. Jan is going to put her own family at the hearth of a quest to discover how to transform kids from veggie-haters into health-food-commissars.

Answer: Video

How to be slim?. DJ and party girl, Andrea Oliver, gets top dieting tips from the latest science. What she learns will transform what you think you know about losing weight. She's going to revolutionize her diet based on top tips gleaned from the scientific research.

Answer: Video

How to stay young and beautiful?. Liza Tarbuck is going to find out how a few simple changes in diet could help slowdown the aging process. The way Liza ages will be on display for all to see making her more aware of her looks.

Answer: Video

How to be the best?. Colin Jackson is going to find out what to eat to be the best in whatever job you do. Colin is convinced that one of the factors in his wining recipe was diet.

Answer: Video

Source: BBC documentary