see also: Guide to writing experimental reports

Title: Does the title accurately reflect the relationships among variables studied?

I. Introduction

1. What is the author proposing?
2. What hypotheses will be tested?
3. What theory predicts the hypotheses?
4. How else could they be tested? Differently/ better?

II Method

Sample / population:
1. Sample: Was it representative of  population to which it will be generalized?
2. Choice of data collection site: time/ place? ....to avoid bias

Procedure:
1. Is my proposed method better? Why?
2. Does the method actually test the hypotheses?
3. What competing theories could lead to the same predictions?
4. What were  IVS and DVs, Subj variables, control vars?  Were they appropriate? Was scaling adequate?
5. Were there adequate controls for demand and experimenter effects?
6. Were subjects selected randomly and conditions assigned randomly?
7. Were control groups used where needed?
8. What the design appropriate?

II Results

1. Were the statistics appropriate for the design?
2. Did the author get unexpected results?
3. How would I interpret the results?

IV. Discussion

1. Was the discussion consistent with the results?
2. Were conclusions that were drawn warranted?
3. Were the weaknesses identified?
4. Was my interpretation better than the author's?

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