You have already seen in Part One the mechanisms for structuring a Critical Summary of a text. A Critical Review operates on the same principle but goes into more depth. A review can be structured in various ways, depending on its scope and purpose and on the nature of the text under scrutiny. But in all cases it will have to develop an argument that is designed to convince the target audience. The review should therefore introduce the reader to the topic, develop the warranting and provide a conclusion that this warranting adequately supports. You will probably notice, as you read a wider range of literature, that these three components (introduction, development of the warranting, conclusion) underpin the structure of most texts. Frequently, the development of the warranting is subdivided into a sequence of sections.
The basic structure is flexible, enabling you to design your own text so that each component builds on the previous one, as best suits the material you want to cover. Every part of the text, from the title at the beginning to the reference list at the end, has its place in helping you to build up a convincing argument.
We offer here an adaptation of this basic structure that is appropriate for a Critical Review of an article or book chapter reporting research. The com-ponent on developing the warranting to make the conclusion convincing will be divided into a sequence of three linked sections, covering:
• what the authors were doing;
• the main claims about findings relevant to the review questions;
• your evaluation of their claims.
You will see that your answers to particular Critical Analysis Questions on your completed form relate to particular sections within the structure. So you can draw on your responses when writing and also refer back to the text that you are reviewing. If you mention any additional literature, follow the nor-mal conventions, referring to the publication by the author’s surname and date in the text, with a full reference list at the end.
Note that the projected length of our illustrative Critical Review structure is up to 1,000 words (plus references). We have indicated the approximate number of words that each section should contain. These suggestions may be altered to suit your purpose within the limits imposed by the necessity of developing a convincing argument. (If you were writing a longer or shorter review, you could adjust the length of each section proportionately.)
Structure for a Critical Review of an article or chapter reporting research (1,000 words)
Title
• Your choice of title should include the keywords that will indicate to the reader what you are doing (a Critical Review of a selected piece of literature) and the aspect of the social world that forms your focus.
Introducing the Critical Review (50–150 words)
• A statement of your purpose – critically to review the selected text (give the names of the authors, the title of the chapter or article and the date of publica-tion) as a contribution to answering your review question or questions (Critical Analysis Question 1). You should list the review questions to give the reader an indication of the focus for your review. (For this exercise, we will use the same review questions as those for the Critical Analysis of Wallace’s article that you were invited to try out earlier:
1 What does the text suggest may be key factors promoting or inhibiting the effectiveness of a particular aspect of educational leadership and management practice?
2 To what extent are the factors identified applicable to the leadership and management of my organization or one known to me?)
Introducing the text being critically reviewed – what the authors were trying to find out and what they did (150–250 words, beginning to build the warranting for your argument)
• A summary of the authors’ purposes for the text and the kind of enquiry they engaged in, including an indication of the type of literature they produced (use your answer to Critical Analysis Question 2) and their intellectual project (use your answer to Critical Analysis Question 3).
• A brief indication of why this text is relevant to the review questions guiding your Critical Review (Critical Analysis Question 1).
• A brief summary of how they went about their investigation (e.g., the research design, methodology, sample, methods of data collection and analysis).
The authors’ main claims relating to the review questions (150–250 words, continuing to build the warranting for your argument)
• A summary of the main claims made by the authors of the text, as relevant to answering your review questions (use your answer to Critical Analysis Question 4) – a synthesis of, say, up to five main points.
• An indication of the range of contexts to which the authors claim, explicitly or implicitly, that their findings may apply (e.g., they imply that their claims apply to all contexts or do not specify any limits on the extent to which they may be universally applicable).
Evaluating the authors’ main claims relating to the review questions (200–400 words, continuing to build the warranting for your argument)
• Your evaluation of these findings and any broader claims, critically assessing the extent to which they are convincing for the context from which these claims were derived. (Use your answers to Critical Analysis Questions 5–8, possibly referring to additional literature to support your judgement in relation to Critical Analysis Question 8.) In your critique, you may wish to refer back to your earlier account of the authors’ purpose, intellectual project and how they went about their enquiry (e.g., you may wish to assert that the value stance of particular authors led to bias which affected their findings).
• Your critical assessment of how far the claims made by the authors of the text may be applicable to other contexts, including those in your own experience (Critical Analysis Questions 5–9, possibly referring to additional literature to support your judgement in relation to Critical Analysis Question 8). In your cri-tique, you may wish to refer back to your earlier account of how the authors went about their enquiry (e.g., you may wish to assert that the findings from a particular intellectual project were derived from a context which is so different from yours that you consider the prescriptions for practice emerging from this work are unlikely to apply directly to your context).
Conclusion (150–250 words)
• Your brief overall evaluation of the text, to assess its contribution to answering your review questions (use your answer to Critical Analysis Question 10).
• For this exercise, your summary answer to the first review question. This will include a statement of your judgement, with reasons, about how far the findings and any broader claims are convincing for the context from which they were derived.
• For this exercise, your summary answer to the second review question. This will include a statement of your judgement, with reasons, about how far the findings and any broader claims are applicable (e.g., at how high a level of abstraction?) to your professional context or one known to you.
References
• Give the full reference for the text you have reviewed.
• If you refer to any additional literature, list the texts to which you have referred, following the normal conventions for compiling a reference list.