ANALYZING YOUR ARTICLE AND COMPOSING YOUR FINAL PAPER

There are three parts to this paper: the summary, strengths and limitations of the paper, and your proposal for a next step. You should demonstrate overall organization by using transitions and topic sentences where appropriate.

INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION

The introduction should include an attention-getter to gain the interest of the reader, briefly introduce the article and author(s), and preview the structure of the paper. The thesis does not need to be persuasive. Rather, it should preview the structure of your paper.

The conclusion will also be short and should include your thesis and a review of your main points. You should briefly provide closure to the paper. You might use this section to recommend or not recommend reading the article.

BODY SECTION: SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

Translate the meaning of your article for a different audience, once that is perhaps not as well-versed in the area but who still wants access to this information. While you should summarize the article for your readers, please do not feel as though you need to excerpt the entire article all over again in your essay. This section should be about two pages long. Consider the following questions to answer in the summary of your article:

• What was the article about?
• Does the author indicate what other research or occasion led to this article? What is the interest in this research?
• What questions are the authors trying to study/answer? What are the research questions or hypotheses?
• How does the researcher conduct the research? Interviews? Statistical analysis? Observation? Content analysis?
• What are the findings? Why do they matter?
• Besides academics, who would be a good audience for this article? Who should read this article?

BODY SECTION: STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS

Now that you have offered your reader an overview of the article, you should then begin to explore:

• the article’s potential usefulness to the intended scholarly audience; what did you like about the article, and what you think author (or authors) did well;
• the author’s assumptions, limitations, and misconceptions; where does the article fall short (aside from not directly addressing a non-scholarly audience)?

BODY SECTION: PROPOSAL

One of the limitations to scholarly research and writing is that its findings are, in general, relevant to the outside world, but the writing style itself sends a contradictory message. After all, we also don’t all have subscriptions to these academic journals. In general, these researchers find other avenues to distribute their research and findings, and you are going to make such a suggestion.

The article you’ve chosen should make a point about future implications to better society (or part of society) in some way. What are those implications? Who you do you think would benefit the most from this research? Identify that audience, and write one or two paragraphs with a plan for communicating (as a news article or LinkedIn post, for example) the findings to this new audience.

Be sure that you write in a style that is appropriate for your chosen audience, while still engaging their attention and sharing the author’s (or authors’) insights.

Formatting guidelines

Your paper should be 1000 words in length including in-text citations and Works Cited. All drafts must be typed and double-spaced with one-inch margins. Use 12 pt. font, preferably Times New Roman. Please do not include a title page. Simply include your name, the semester, and the assignment (single-spaced) at the top of the first page. Citations should be formatted in accordance with MLA guidelines. Those guidelines can be found in The Pocket Wadsworth Handbook and the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) for MLA. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Feedback from instructor:

ORGANIZATION: Although the structure of this assignment is different compared to the MOP assignment, the organizational elements still remain useful with this assignment. Right now I would like to see more purposeful topic sentences and transitions between the three different sections of the paper.

BODY PARAGRAPHS: SUMMARY: I don't really have a good understanding of what happens in the article itself. Remember that this paper is solely about the article and less about the content of the paper, so you need to summarize what happens in the article so that I have a good understanding. ANALYSIS is good and just needs framing.

The PROPOSAL is a good start. You've identified a new audience (developers) but I don't see how you will get the information to them. (Giving them the article is not an option.)

INTRODUCTION & CONCLUSION: Overall good introduction to the paper. The preview of the paper is somewhat difficult to navigate, likely because it's too long. Conclusion is fair.

FORMAT: Works Cited page needs some revision, as does the in-text citation. Some consistent errors in grammar and sentence structure.