The purpose of asking you to prepare reviews is to develop your ability to critically evaluate research and to integrate your knowledge of different research issues.  Your review should be in the form of a two page memo that summarizes your thoughts about the key issues in the paper.  Pay equal attention to the substantive and methodological/modeling issues.  The questions below may be helpful in preparing your review.  Be careful not to simply summarize the article, or to make superficial or general “textbook” comments.  Your review should demonstrate the depth and breadth of your knowledge.  In some instances, you may be asked to complete a small assignment (e.g., develop a measurement scale) instead of preparing a critical review.

Conceptual Framework & Theory

• Are the author’s conceptualization and model specification suitable?  Are they adequate?

• Evaluate the model relative to existing knowledge in this area.  Are there alternative theories or extensions to the model that might be appropriate?

• Does the paper adequately capture the key theoretical relationships?

Research Design

• Are there alternative research designs or approaches that might be appropriate to test the theory or hypotheses proposed in the paper?

• Is the methodology correct?  What are the potential threats to internal validity?

• Are constructs measured appropriately? 

• Are the appropriate statistical tests conducted?

• Are the results generalizable?  To what domain?  Assess external validity. What are the caveats / limitations?

Contribution

• What are the interesting ideas in this paper?   How do they relate to other research?

• What is the contribution of this paper to the field of marketing?   Which readers would find it of most interest?  What are the “take aways” for marketing managers?

• How would you develop these ideas further?