Article Reviews - Software Methodology

Every week you are required to write a brief, one page review of one (or two) of that week's readings. The syllabus describes which readings require reviews and provides exact due dates. Please hand your reviews in on paper at the start of class.

Article reviews have multiple purposes:

• Improve understanding of the readings by summarizing key points,
• Develop a critical understanding of materials by making subjective judgments about articles, and writing your subjective questions/impressions of the article,
• Demonstrate that you have read the article.

Each paper review should be typewritten and include:

• The title, and first author’s name
• The main point that the article seemed to make (2-4 sentences)
• One to three short paragraphs concerning the content of the article, containing either:
• A question about the article, such as one that you or someone reading the paper for the first time might have to stop and study, look elsewhere, or reread to find an answer. Questions should be accompanied by an elaboration of the question, and/or a discussion of its relevance.
• A comment on the article, such as discussion of application, classification, comparison and/or evaluation of method or methods.
• What you liked, disliked, found interesting or found unclear in the article (and a description of why).
• How long it took you to read the article
• Two subjective numerical ratings on a 1-to-6 scale (1 low, 6 high):
• How important is the material covered in the article?
• How well-written was the article?
• Clear, concise writing is a valuable skill. Try to distill the essence of your ideas into short, compact reviews.

Also, see “How to Read an Engineering Research Paper” by Bill Griswold for additional ideas.

Paper evaluations will be graded according to the following scale: 0: not submitted, 1: marginal, 2: what was expected, 3: outstanding.

Papers may be considered marginal for any of the following reasons:

• Substantial grammar or spelling errors
• Not typewritten
• Review fails to demonstrate that article was fully read and understood
• Questions about the article are not accompanied by a discussion of the relevance of the question, or the question is trivial or non-germane
• Discussion of likes/dislikes/interesting/confusion in the article without an accompanying description of why you had that impression

Papers may be considered outstanding for the following reasons:

• Inclusion of, and references to, information from other relevant sources.
• In depth and/or exceptionally well thought out discussion of the subject matter.

Since every article review clearly states the title and author of the article at the beginning of the review, it is not necessary to cite quotations from the article under review (you must quote all quotations, however). Quotations from other articles must be cited.