Author Last Name, Journal article title
Journal name (Publication year)
Research Question
Look near the end of the Introduction:
Write a one-sentence summary of the article’s research question. If the article gives a hypothesis, write a one-sentence summary of that too.
Motivation
Look near the beginning of the article’s Introduction:
Write a one-sentence summary of the social motivation. How will the article solve social, environmental, or other problems?
Look throughout the Introduction’s Background/Lit Review portion:
Write a one sentence summary of the research gap. How will the article fill a lack of knowledge in the literature?
Results
Look in the Results & Discussion, especially the figures, tables, and subsection headers:
Write a one-sentence summary of the main finding. What finding directly answers the research question?
Write a one-sentence summary of each supplementary finding. What context do these supplementary findings add to the main finding?
Copy and paste any relevant figures and/or tables.
Methods
Look in the Methods section:
Write a one-paragraph summary of the experimental methods. Describe each phase of the experiment, how those phases interact, what inputs they require, and what outputs they generate. Draw a flowchart for complex methods.
Impressions
Answer the following questions:
How can you adjust the article’s research question to better fit its motivation?
Does the article’s answer to the research question fully fill its identified research gap?
What are the study’s limitations? How could you reduce those limitations?
What assumptions does the study make? Are those assumptions correct? If not, how must the study change if those assumptions are abandoned?