Your critique should be a blend of summary and evaluation. Base your evaluation on facts as much as possible. Where you express personal opinion clearly qualify the statement as such.
- Introduction
- Summarize the research problem in your own words.
- Give an evaluation of the importance of this problem to daily practice of software engineering.
- Describe any ambiguities in the problem statement.
- Background
- Are all the relevant terms defined?
- Are the definitions understandable?
- Is the literature cited adequate?
- Research Method
- Is this an analytic or experimental study?
- How appropriate is the selected method?
- What design is being used?
- How is the validity of the research ensured?
- Hypotheses
- Describe the research hypotheses that are used to test the research problem.
- Are the hypotheses stated adequately for the research method being used?
- Is it clear how the hypotheses relate to the original research problem?
- Data Issues
- Is the description of the data being collected sufficiently complete to judge its adequacy?
- Is data collected in a way that ensures its integrity?
- Are the analysis techniques appropriate for the hypotheses/research method?
- Results
- Are the results related back to the research question?
- Have the authors reached reasonable conclusions based on the data and the technique?
- Have the authors sufficiently proved their case that you would change your engineering practice based on the information presented in this paper?
Grading Criteria: Quality of analysis, completeness of analysis, clarity of description and organization in that order of importance.