How To Write An Article Analysis Paper: A Comprehensive Guide

WHAT IS AN ARTICLE ANALYSIS PAPER?

An article analysis paper is a common type of paper, often assigned in research methods classes, where your professor will ask that you use all that you have learned in the course to assess the findings of a published peer-reviewed scholarly paper. The core goal of writing an article analysis paper is to evaluate an academic article that you have been assigned or mandated to find on the basis of the concepts that you have learned in the course. Your principal task in writing an article analysis essay is to demonstrate if its research methods support its conclusions in a valid and generalizable fashion.

With this in mind, writing an article analysis paper means that you need to think critically about how you will apply concepts like internal and external validity as well as generalizability to the study that you are analyzing. In writing an article analysis essay, questions of validity and generalizability are the ones most commonly focused upon because a good peer-reviewed article is both valid and generalizable. Focusing on validity and generalizability when writing an article analysis paper is thus advised as these are the two most important elements of a good methodology.

When writing an article analysis paper, you will sometimes have the opportunity to choose your own article and sometimes you will be provided with an article to analyze and critique. If you are given the choice of selecting your own article for your article analysis paper, you should choose an older one with very clear research design flaws. Picking an older article, especially one that makes use of antiquated quantitative methods, will give you more to talk about as you write your article analysis paper.

Ultimately, an article analysis paper is a modified type of research paper that asks you to apply what you have learned about research methods in critiquing or praising the work of a published scholar. To effectively write an article analysis paper, it is important that you understand the core concepts that you have learned in your research methods class. Concepts like validity and generalizability are especially important but you must also be familiar with concepts like research design, hypotheses, methodology, findings, analysis of findings, implications and directions for future research. If you are not familiar with these elements of research methods, you might wish to study them more significantly or hire an Unemployed Professor to write your article analysis paper.

HOW TO WRITE AN ARTICLE ANALYSIS PAPER

When you are writing an article analysis paper, you are using an essay or research paper model but doing so backwards. Because writing an article analysis paper typically involves critically evaluating the author’s hypothesis, research design, findings, methodology, sample and limitations, you must look through all of these areas of the study, and begin writing the corresponding portions of your article analysis paper, before you can write your thesis. Your thesis should reflect your holistic evaluation of the article you have been assigned to write on as measured on the basis of the different criteria discussed above and/or any additional criteria that have been specified by your professor. Remember that it is completely normal to write your thesis last when completing an article analysis paper as you must first analyze the study before determining whether it is good or bad based on the metrics you are using to write your article analysis paper.

As you are writing your article analysis paper, it is critical that you define the terms, like validity and generalizability, that you are using. Teachers and professors use article analysis papers to measure both your understanding of research methods and your ability to use them. As such, you must both define and apply these different elements of your research methods course when you are writing an article analysis paper. While the application of these concepts is most important when you are writing an article analysis paper, you should also always define the terms clearly so that your professor knows that you know what you are writing about in your article analysis paper.

When you are writing your article analysis paper, it is very likely that some of the quantitative elements of the scholarship used by the publishing author might be unknown to you. If this is the case, the best angle to critique the article you are writing on is typically tied to its sample. If you critique the sample for not being random, for being too small or from being too small of a geographical space, you can argue that the article lacks both validity and generalizability. This is the easiest pathway to writing an article analysis paper. If you do not understand the research methods you have been taught very well, you might want to use this approach when writing your article analysis paper so as to mask the fact that you do not actually understand the methods that the author you are analyzing has used.

In the end and with article analysis papers being commonly assigned in research methods classes and with students in almost all majors having to take such a course, you will likely have to write an article analysis paper during your academic career. If you struggle with methodology, using an Unemployed Professor to write your article analysis paper may be a good idea. As all of our Unemployed Professors have undergone extensive methodological training during their graduate studies, they are able to rapidly and efficiently highlight the strengths and weaknesses of peer-reviewed articles across all disciplines and tailor the writing of an article analysis paper to whatever level of study you might find yourself engaged in.

HOW TO FORMAT AN ARTICLE ANALYSIS PAPER

Formatting an article analysis paper makes use of the same logic as writing an essay or writing a research paper. Even though you will be writing your thesis after your body paragraphs, your article analysis paper will be centered on a thesis that will then be supported by body paragraphs tied to the different parameters you were provided for evaluation. In more advanced classes, writing an article analysis paper will require that you refer to other studies so as to compare the study you are analyzing to others. In lower-level classes, you will likely only be citing the article you are writing you article analysis paper on and the research methods textbook that you have been assigned for the class. Following an essay or research paper model and ensuring that your citations and bibliography are consistent with the style guide assigned to you are thus critical for achieving success in writing an article analysis paper.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN RESEARCH PAPER AND AN ARTICLE ANALYIS PAPER?

The main difference between a research paper and an article analysis paper is that an article analysis paper is bound to the article that you are analyzing. While writing an article analysis paper will sometimes require that you cite other peer-reviewed journal articles from the area of research of the article you are evaluating, most article analysis papers simply require that you critique the article under analysis. In this respect, writing an article analysis paper diverges from writing a research paper in that you will typically not go beyond the boundaries of the article that you are analyzing when writing an article analysis paper. With this imposing a limited scope on the work that you can conduct in your article analysis paper, it is important that you focus on applying what you have learned in your research methods class, rather than doing outside and additional research, when writing an article analysis paper.