One Way to Analyze a Research Paper:
• What is the problem?
–
–
•
•
•
•
evidence of the problem? (Facts)
importance of the problem? (Motivation)
Who is the audience?
– adequate definition of terms?
– level of discussion
What approaches others take to solution?
– survey others’ thinking on the issue
– evaluate existing solutions
– find “gap” for new work (author’s target)
Author’s approach to the problem
– an extension, synthesis or novel approach?
– application to a real example?
– analysis of strengths and weaknesses
Citations - adequate and useful?
– can I verify the work?
– can I find other sources of work on this problem?