Journal Article Evaluation

Earn 10% of your course grade while contributing to our course content! By the second class period, we will have created a lengthy list of articles that have potential to make it on our class reading list. Each article will be read and evaluated by two students. I will choose articles and themes based on your recommendations.

Contribute articles by adding to this GoogleDoc.

YOUR TASK: Read 2-3 articles (as agreed in class). For each article, identify which potential course theme does the article fit (if any, or suggest an alternative theme), write a 200-word blog-style entry that summarizes the paper and explains why it might be useful to know, briefly explain whether you think the article should (not) be used, and conduct a self-assessment of your blog entry. Submit your work using this survey!  Evaluates Learning Goals #5, #6.

When writing your blog entry, consider that the audience is an educated layperson who wants to learn something about the topic of Psychology of Self in Social Media, but isn’t going to read the whole article. The audience is not “academic,” which means that copying and pasting the abstract isn’t appropriate. Think more along the lines of “readers of the New York Times” rather than professors.

Your grade comes from your Self-Assessment of each blog entry, using the criteria below. Note that self-assessment grades will be evaluated by our Teaching Assistants and are subject to adjustment. Any adjustments, including reasoning, will be explained. (Note the departmental grading policy here.)

  1. Clear and brief indication about the method, giving just enough detail so the watchful reader knows what type of study it is (e.g., experiment or correlation) and what the most important variables were.
    • missing
    • present but does not meet this criterion — much room for improvement
    • somewhat meets this criterion — there’s some room for improvement
    • fully meets this criterion — very little, if any, room for improvement
  2. Clear and brief indication about what the most important result was.
    • missing
    • present but does not meet this criterion — much room for improvement
    • somewhat meets this criterion — there’s some room for improvement
    • fully meets this criterion — very little, if any, room for improvement
  3. Connects the results to a problem or experience in everyday life, so the reader can see how it is relevant.
    • missing
    • present but does not meet this criterion — much room for improvement
    • somewhat meets this criterion — there’s some room for improvement
    • fully meets this criterion — very little, if any, room for improvement
  4. Written in a way that someone who hasn’t read the article could clearly understand what is written. They might have questions and want to know more, but they’re not confused about what’s there. (Hint: get some feedback from a friend!).
    • missing
    • present but does not meet this criterion — much room for improvement
    • somewhat meets this criterion — there’s some room for improvement
    • fully meets this criterion — very little, if any, room for improvement
  5. Overall evaluation: If you came across this paragraph as you were using social media, would you share it to your own social network? [Why this question? We share things we care about. This criterion captures whether the blog entry is written in a way to help an educated layperson care about it.]
    • no, I certainly wouldn’t
    • I would give it some thought but probably not
    • I would probably share it, I would definitely share it

Due date: Tuesday January 19 (Note: if you registered in the course after class on January 14 or later, please see Dr. Rawn for a revised deadline.)