History 4990

Critiquing a Scholarly Article

When reading a published article students often make the mistake of assuming that the information they’re reading must be the truth.  Such assumptions are dangerous because historians, like everyone else, are affected by their own history/their own experiences/their own training.  Any time you read a historical article (or any article for that matter) you should approach it with a critical eye.  Think carefully about what the author has written and ask yourself whether or not he or she has done a good job of supporting his or her argument.

In this exercise you will be selecting and critiquing a scholarly article from a historical journal. Your first assignment will be to select a journal article that interests you.  The article you select must conform to the following criteria:

• You must select your article from the JSTOR database or other scholarly database such as the History Cooperative .
• The article must cover an event, personality, or development related to your thesis topic.
• The article must be at least 20 pages long (i.e., 20 pages of text).
• The article’s date of publication must be after 1970.

Your critique paper should include:

1. A complete citation of the article following the standards for history (Chicago Manual of Style) Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Use the Rampolla Guide.
2. The main purpose of this article is . . ./The key question that the author is asking is . .
3. The most important information in this article is/concerns . . .
   • Identify the facts, data, or resources the author uses to support his/her argument.  To expand on this statement you will have to look at the foot or endnotes.
4. The main conclusion[s]/inference[s] in this article is/are . . .
   • Identify the key conclusions the author comes to and presents in the article.
5. The main assumptions underlying the author’s thinking are . . .
   • Think about what the author is assuming to be true and what might be questioned. 
6. If you accept the author’s line of reasoning, the implications are . . .
   • What consequence does the author’s argument have on our understanding of the past and the present?
7. If you reject the author’s line of reasoning, the implications are . . .
   • What consequence does rejecting the author’s argument have on our understanding of the past and the present?
8. When writing this article, the author’s point of view may have been influenced by . . .
   •  It is important to remember that historians are influenced by events that occurred during the time when they wrote.  For example, historians writing in the 1950s tended to be very proud of America and its history.  During the 1960s that pride turned to criticism and even anger.

*The statements are an adaptation from The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools by Richard Paul and Linda Elder.

The most important pages in a scholarly article are usually the first 2-3 pages and the last 2-3 pages.  In fact, the answers to many of the above questions will be found at the beginning and/or end of the article.  Thus, before you delve into the article, spend a few minutes reading the first couple of pages and the last couple of pages (don’t worry about spoiling the ending, unlike literary writers, scholars seldom finish their works with a big surprise).  The important thing is that you understand what the author is trying to say; you can then read the full article and determine for yourself whether he or she has done an adequate job of arguing the point.

Format

• Each of the statements above will be the first sentence of an expanded paragraph on that particular point.  Thus you will be writing an eight-paragraph critique. The completed critique should be 2-3 pages in length. 
• It must be typewritten (use a standard 12-point font) and double-spaced with one-inch margins.  Do not include a cover page or a vinyl cover.   Your name, the course number and date should appear (single-spaced) at the top of the report against the left-hand margin. 
• The bibliographic citation will be single-spaced and located four spaces below the date (use the same bibliographic format as the sample above).  Responses to the questions will be double-spaced and will begin two spaces below the citation.  Staple all pages together in the upper left-hand corner.