REM 505: Winter, 2009

REM 505 (2006) Assignment #2: Suggested criteria for critique of an REM thesis

**See the syllabus for general assignment requirements. These are additional suggestions.

Criteria to consider:

  1. Appearance
    • appropriate title, logical headings and subheadings
  2. General Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling
    • reads smoothly, spelling is correct
  3. Abstract
    • grabs your attention, summarizes the whole paper, concise, and clear
  4. Introduction Section
    • contains problem, purpose, or objectives, and significance of study
    • defines and focuses the research realm
  5. Study Area
    • has map, boundaries are defined, provides significance of this particular area
  6. Literature Review
    • current sources especially on method and theory
    • focused around or at least tied to objectives of research outlined in introduction
    • source quality (currency, primary, secondary, tertiary, etc.)
  7. Methods
    • variables of study clearly articulated and integrated with problem from introduction
    • field of phenomena clearly defined
    • classifications to be used or other measurement tools are up to date
    • sampling design (including sample sizes, sample selection technique, etc.)
  8. Results and Discussions
    • relates to hypotheses
    • results allow testing of hypotheses
    • results are interpreted correctly
    • depth of analysis and what it allows researcher to say or imply
  9. Figures and Tables
    • are they readable
    • do they use appropriate amount of ink, that is, do they get the point across without confusing the reader
  10. National Science Foundation grant proposal criteria (modified for a finished thesis)
    • What is the intellectual merit of the thesis?
    • How important is the thesis to advancing knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields?
    • To what extent does the thesis suggest and explore creative and original concepts?
    • How well conceived and organized is the thesis?
    • What are the broader impacts of the thesis?
    • How well does the thesis advance scientific and technological discovery and understanding?
    • What may be the benefits to society?

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