You are required to choose two articles of your choice from academic journals and critique them this
semester.
You can choose articles from academic journals of your choice. Examples of academic journals in the public administration
discipline consist of: Urban Affairs Review, Journal of Urban Affairs, Public Administration Review,
Journal of
Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Quarterly, State and Local Government
Review, Economic Development Quarterly, Public Budgeting and Finance, Public Organization Review,
Public
Performance and Management Review, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management etc. The articles you
will be choosing must focus on state politics.
The critique does not necessarily mean emphasizing the weaknesses of an article but, more importantly,
emphasizing its strengths. A good synopsis should include the following:
references about the article such as: authors(s), title of article, title of Journal must be on the first line of
your paper.
a summary of the paper, written in your own words (do not copy the summary of the article!)
a critique of the content (your reaction to the way the article is written, to what the article accomplished
or not).
You are supposed to judge the adequacy of the method, approach, or arguments and if you are to re-write
this article, would you do anything differently?
Here are some guiding questions for writing your critique:
What is the argument of the article?
How did the author show it?
What methods were employed and how reliable the results of the study are?
What did the author find?
Would you do anything differently?
Sample Solution