Homework answers / question archive / I

I

Unrecognized

Share With

I. Critical Article Review Read the following article and write a critical review: Blomberg, Craig L. “Degrees of Reward in the Kingdom of God.” Journal of Evangelical Theological Society 35, no. 2 (1992): 159-172. The critical review should include the following: i. Summary The summary, stated in your own words, should highlight the major arguments, themes, and ideas of the article. While you may use direct quotes from the book (with the page number), such quotes should not constitute a major part of the summary. ii. Critical Evaluation The critical evaluation of the article consists of your thoughts, responses, and reactions. It doesn’t have to be necessarily negative. It is sufficient to follow the author’s argument and his/her hypothesis. Regardless of whether or not your critique is negative or positive, you should provide a rationale for your position. Consider the following questions: i. What did you expect to learn when you started reading the article? Have your expectations been met? ii. Identify the author’s thesis (main idea) and restate it in your own words. How clearly and in what context is it stated and developed? How well does the author argue his/her case and establish his/her thesis with evidence? iii. What are the author’s aims? How well has he/she achieved them? iv. How are the author’s main points argued, presented, explained, and supported? Does the structure of the article contribute to establishing the thesis? v. How effectively does the author draw claims from the material being presented? Are connections between the claims and evidence made clearly and logically? Here you may use examples to support your observation. vi. What conclusions does the author reach and how clearly does he/she state them? Do these conclusions naturally flow from his/her research and the evidence on which he/she claims he/she had based it? 2 vii. Are there assumptions in the article, either explicitly stated or implied? For example, does he/she expect or anticipate readers come into his topic with some prior knowledge of the main idea? Does the author expect his readers to agree with him/her or accept his/her thesis? viii. Does the author’s argument and the assessments of the issue seem fair and accurate? Is the interpretation biased? Can you detect any distortion, exaggeration, or does the author overstate his/her case? If so, what appears to be his/her rationale? What does he/she want to accomplish? ix. Finally, provide your evaluative statement.