Instructions for 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