Critical reviews are essays based on scholarship. You will be asked to find and read the literature on a topic and add your own considered arguments and judgements about it. This involves both reviewing an area, and using critical thought and judgement. It is quite a good idea to write with fellow students as your imagined audience, this will help you to avoid assuming that the reader knows everything so you needn't explain much. You need to show that you understand the topic. If you write clearly enough so that a fellow student both understands and is interested by your paper, then it should look good your lecturer.
Your goal is:
The first step is to find relevent literature to review. Your lecturer will give you guidance on your topic and what type of literature to include.
Decide on how much and what type of information you need to –
You can find more detailed information in our systematic reviewing pages.
We have some examples of successful search strategies on GCULearn:
This video resource from the University of Plymouth, Learning from WOeRk project helps summarise the main points of critical thinking and reflection. You may need to adjust the sound levels from time to time.
We have a checklist of questions to ask which will help you.
A study by Daniels (1998) found that group exercise was more effective than a control (n=21) in significantly reducing anxiety symptoms among 22 middle-aged men. The participants were randomly assigned to groups and effects were maintained at 6 month follow-up. Beck (2005) reported that anxiety symptoms decreased in a group of 42 middle-aged men and women in comparison to a control. No follow-up measures were taken.
Consider the questions raised over the next few pages, then we will show how they can be applied to this paragraph to improve it.
Don't just describe - evaluate! Avoid simple description; you must evaluate if you are to be critical (though some description will still be required to ‘set the scene’, otherwise the reader won’t understand the context).
Here are some further tips:
A study by Daniels (2002) found that group exercise was more effective than a control (n=24) in significantly reducing anxiety symptoms among 28 middle-aged men. The participants were randomly assigned to groups and effects were maintained at 6 month follow-up. A strength of Daniel’s study was the randomisation of participants to groups and the incorporation of a follow-up anxiety measure. However, the study is limited due to the relatively small sample size and anxiety measure which has been shown to have poor reliability (ref).
The lowest approach to a critical review just summarises the contents of some papers. A better approach also collects and presents criticisms, but is still essentially reacting to the papers one by one and bit by bit. But what is best is when thecritical review as a whole has a clear structure invented by the student, not just directly reflecting the papers being reviewed.
This cannot be planned in advance. One student decided to review the literature on personality and binge drinking, and noticed on his first pass through the papers that most studies had only reported on one or two of the main personality dimensions. This became his chief criticism and also offered a structure for his whole review: beginning with a summary of personality theory, and discussing the studies under each of the 5 personality dimensions in turn. Another concerned CBT therapies for certain mental illnesses. This student began with an introduction about the relevant general issues of clinical study methods, including references to papers on what is desirable. He then applied those standards to the particular papers he was reviewing: again imposing a pre-selected set of standards which he had independently justified and laid out in advance.
This kind of approach usually cannot be decided on until after reading the set of papers through for the first time, making notes of points, and eventually coming to a decision about the most important overall issue. By imposing their own standards and structure, these students demonstrated they were not just taking the literature uncritically; and this gave their whole critical reviews a coherence that the students, not the papers, had come up with.
The results of the studies reviewed suggest that exercise can have beneficial effects on alleviating anxiety symptoms. The vast majority of studies reviewed employed robust research designs, with seven studies using RCTs. Given the power of RCTs for identifying causal effects, the evidence for the beneficial effects of exercise on anxiety can be considered strong. However, several limitations should be noted. Firstly, some studies have been hampered by weak anxiety measures and high attrition rates. Secondly, as some studies have failed to consider follow-ups, the sustainability of the effects of exercise on anxiety is not fully understood. Finally, the lack of qualitative studies prevents an understanding of the mechanisms that explain how exercise reduces patients’ experiences of anxiety.
When writing up your review, you need to give a synthesis of the research papers that you have identified. This isn't just a summary of each paper, but it investigates the themes across the papers. It critically evaluates the methods and findings of papers, and identifies relevant similarities and discrepancies between papers. This is a critical investigation of an intervention or service used within a health or social care setting, with a specific client group or area of performance. It is best to focus on one intervention or service if possible.
Here is a diagram showing the process of synthesis: