The first step to successfully writing on any subject is a thorough understanding of what your assignment is all about and the expectations you are required to meet. An article review is a critical constructive analysis of the literature of a specific field written for the viewing pleasure of professionals knowledgeable about that specific field or students interested in knowing what the literature is about.
The work that goes into writing an article review is much due to the fact that the reviewer must engage with the original writer’s text, understand what he or she is trying to achieve before one can proceed to critique the article or literature. Therefore, if you are tasked with writing review on social science and crime prevention, here are some tips on how to get started and structure your entire review draft.
Preview the Article
Since your review is going to be based on another author’s work, the first step to kick-starting it, is going through the original work with a view to understanding what the author is talking about and to map out the points made. This is the learning phase, so you are expected to take note of points you do not understand and read up on them before coming to any conclusion on how to go about writing reviews.
Explain the Article in Your Own Words
To test your understanding of what you have just read, it is important to put the article or literature in your own words. This isn’t the start of writing your article review, but it allows you to break down difficult concepts using your own words and puts you in a position to explain the author’s writing to a 5 year old. Therefore, you can scribble, scratch and draw anything that keeps your understanding of the work to be reviewed fresh in your mind.
Write an Outline of Your Evaluation
The next step is organizing your thoughts on the points raised in the article in a structure that will help you come up with a good introduction, analysis and conclusion about the reviewed work. Once this has been done, then you are definitely ready to start on the more difficult part of your assignment which is writing the actual article review.
Draft Your Article Review
Now that you are sure of what direction to take, the next step is coming up with a good title that encompasses the entire scope of work. You can then proceed to develop on your title using this time tested format: An apt introduction, an analytical or explanatory body and a good conclusion that covers what you think about the work been reviewed.
Conclude Your Review
Now that your points have been made, and you have made use of points culled from the original article to analyze the arguments or compromises made, the final step is to be original. In your conclusion, you are tasked with summarizing your beliefs in relation to the article you have just reviewed.
And there you have it, the 5 tips on how to write an article review guaranteed to give you top marks during your educational and professional career. So do not hesitate to continuously apply these tips as you progress with writing article reviews. You can also find 20 social science essay topics on crime prevention here as well as 10 facts for an article review on social science and crime prevention to help you get started with drafting your essay.