Reverse Engineering an Article
The goal of this exercise is for students to work backwards from an article in order to reconstruct the research process that produced the article. The instructor can either assign an article or ask students to locate one on their own. Students could be asked to produce a written work responding to these questions, or they could simply be asked to come to class prepared to answer them in a discussion.
- What was the author’s research question? What was he/she trying to learn by undertaking the research project which produced this article?
- What sorts of information were used for this article? Does the author appear to have used all the various forms and sources of information that would be needed for a research project such as this one? What other forms and sources of information might be useful? (“Information” in this and the next two questions includes secondary academic literature, applied policy works, primary sources of all sorts, data, etc. as is relevant for the article under consideration.)
- If you were working with the author on this project, where would you go to find information?
- How can you evaluate the quality of the information sources used in the article? What is your evaluation of the quality of the information sources used in this article?
- How does the article communicate the findings of the author’s research work? How is the central argument presented? How is the article organized? How are the various types of information sources presented and used to advance the article’s central argument?
- How well does the article communicate the findings of the author’s research work? Are there other ways the author could have used to communicate his/her findings?
- What sorts of ethical and legal issues must be considered when conducting this sort of research and then writing an article on the research findings?
- How have others made use of this article?