One of the primary goals of this course is for you to become a good (or even better) consumer of the scientific literature.  To be a good consumer of the literature, you must be able to identify the strengths and limitations of peer-reviewed, empirical journal articles and determine which ones should be weighed heavily in policy and practice decisions and which ones should be weighed lightly in policy and practice decisions.

1.  Please select one of the articles from your literature review to use for this assignment.  (You will need to upload a pdf of the document as part of the assignment because I will need to read it.)

2.  Please review the document I’ve attached for this section “Guidelines for Evaluating Journal Articles.  The document provides you with a series of questions that will help you identify the strengths and limitations of the article you’ve selected for this assignment.

3.  In approximately 3-5 pages, summarize the strengths of the article and summarize the weaknesses of the article.  (If some information is missing from the article, please note that as a weakness.  If some information is unclear in the article, please note that as a weakness.  There is a difference between methodological weaknesses, omissions from writing, and poor writing.)  You will be graded on your ability to 1) identify and provide specific examples of the strengths of the article, 2) identify and provide specific example of the weaknesses of the article, and 3) write clearly.

*Note:  Please do not answer every question in the “Guidelines for Evaluating Journal Articles.”  Instead, use the document as a guide to help you identify the article’s strengths and limitations.  Then, structure the document you will submit to me into two sections:  1) Strengths and 2) Limitations.  Please make sure you’re writing a narrative and using specific examples.  Do not simply provide a bulleted list of strengths and limitations.