Reader's Guide to Assessing Scholarly Articles

1. Identify and summarize the problem or question at issue.

2. Identify the author's perspective and position in relationship to the issue. (Remember the fairness check -- would the author agree with your summary?)

3. Identify other salient perspectives and positions indicated by the author to be important to his or her analysis. In other words, what is the scholarly context or conversation which the author is joining?

4. Summarize the evidence provided to support the author's position.

5. Evaluate the quality of the evidence.

6. Summarize the line of reasoning and supporting logic used by the author.

7. Evaluate the reasoning of the author.

8. What are the key assumptions underlying the author's position (if any)?

9. What are the implications of the scholar's argument for the scholarly conversation on this issue?

10. How has the argument changed your thinking about the issue or work at hand?

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