Common Problems with Literature Critiques

 The most common mistake is to spend too much time summarizing the paper, and not enough time assessing or thinking about the paper (see the literature critique point allocation page for grading breakdown).  These should be weighted almost equally. 

• Do not just cut and paste bits of the paper together for your summary – even if you are changing enough words so that you are not plagiarizing, I’ll be much more convinced that you understood the paper if you summarize it in your own words.  Try to write the summary without looking at the paper – then go back to check that you didn’t leave anything out.
• In the past, many people made generalized statements like, “the authors didn’t support their conclusions,” without giving specific examples.  You will be much more convincing if you back up your critique/evaluation of the paper with specific examples.  Be persuasive!
• A lot of students tend to describe “proving” a hypothesis.  One of the main aspects of science that distinguishes it from other types of knowledge, is that we never really prove our hypotheses – we are never absolutely certain that they are correct.  There could always be an alternative hypothesis that we haven’t thought of that better describes our results or observations (e.g., Newtonian physics describes many observations quite well and was long considered ‘proven,’ but Einstein demonstrated that quantum mechanics supercedes much of Newtonian physics, despite its predictive power.)  So, we only ‘support’ our hypotheses and disprove alternatives.  Once a hypothesis is supported many, many times, it may be elevated to a theory – something we are pretty certain about.  Still, the whole key to the advancement of science is that even our most cherished theories can be subject to being disproved; thus we can avoid being permanently stymied by an incorrect idea.
• Some people misuse the word, ‘experiment.’  Strictly speaking, an experiment requires manipulating/controlling for certain factors, so that you can adequately separate out different potential causes and mechanisms.  Many people try to support or disprove hypotheses by examining trends in nature – basically making observations.  These are more accurately termed ‘studies,’ because they are not truly experiments – many parameters are varying naturally, and there is no strict control for potential confounding factors.  This type of study can still be useful, but is not truly an experiment.

Common grammatical errors:  (Style and grammar matter!)

• Mixing affect and effect:

In general, in scientific applications, affect is a verb – to affect – as in, “Manipulating light affected primary production,”, and effect is a noun – the effect – as in, “The effect of manipulating light was a change in primary production.”

• “It’s” means “it is” (or “it has”)!  “Its” is its own possessive.
• Their/there – although some people didn’t seem realize it in their papers, there is a difference between these words!
• ‘Data’ is a plural word
• Less/fewer – use fewer if you can actually count the objects (e.g., 10 items or fewer in the supermarket line.)  Use less if something isn’t countable (e.g., there is less air in the supermarket than outside).
• Latin names -- Underline or italicize genus/species names.  Capitalize the genus name.  For example, Spartina alterniflora.
• Some people seem to capitalize random Nouns J For example, “the Authors…” or “Sampling was performed in a Boat.”  We speak English, not German (except for ‘Aufwuchs,’ maybe) – common nouns (non-names) should not be capitalized.