Writing Research Article Summary

Instructions for writing Research Article Summary

Naturally, you want to provide the bibliographical information of the research article first. Place

this at the top of the page (center it) and it should contain the following information:

Name of author(s)

“Title of Article”

Title of Journal

volume: complete number of pages, year of publication

For Example

Volkan Topalli. “When being good is bad: An expansion of neutralization theory.”

Criminology 43:797-827, 2005.

Now, proceed to summarize the article:

1. Make sure you describe the focus, purpose, or goal of the article. These should all be the same. To make this easier to read, students should probably identify these as headings, such as follows.

Focus, Purpose or Goal of Article

2. If a sample was used in the research then describe the sample and identify how it was collected or selected. If the article is a theoretical piece then there will be no sample and if that is the case then simply omit this area.

Sample

3. Describe the finding(s) of the research. What was the author(s) able to establish from the research should be described, discussed here.

Findings

4. What conclusions did the author(s) draw or write in the article? So make this a conclusion session which should be different from the findings.

Conclusion

5. In your last paragraph (or more if needed) develop a statement (brief discussion) of how this article fits into the understanding of the focus of the class, crime profiling. Relate the article/research to what we have talked about during this semester, criminological theory.

Article’s Application