The report is to be 5-7 pages in length. Please be sure to use both a title page and works cited page. (title and works cited pages do not count toward the overall page count of your review) You are also encouraged to follow the MLA or Chicago formats to develop this report. Please double-space your review. And in your works cited page, please list the name of the article that you will be summarizing and analyzing. This an example of the type of the format you should follow:
“Argentina in 1983: Reflections on the Language of the Military and George Orwell,” by Alberto Ciria. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Vol. 11, No. 21 (1986), pp. 57-69.
In terms of the content of the report, I am looking for two main points of discussion. First, you should devote the first half of the report to a summary of the main points that the author is trying to convey to the reader. To help you to address this issue, consider some of these questions: What type of article is this? Is the author presenting an original feature, or is he/she conducting a book review? If this is a book review, what book (or books) is being reviewed? What is the author’s purpose for writing this article? What is the author’s academic or professional background?
As for the second point of discussion, this is where you provide your opinion or perceptions of the article. In other words, what did you think about it? What were the strengths or weaknesses of the article? How did the article relate to the class? You are definitely encouraged to write in first person singular (I feel that…, I think..) as you provide your opinions. As a general rule of thumb, your JSTOR review should be about 60% summary and 40% commentary. Thus a 5-page review with about 3 & 1⁄2 pages summary and 1 & 1⁄2 pages commentary is an ideal proportion.