Peer Review of A Critique

The Quality of Hospice Care for Individuals with Dementia (Albrecht et al., 2013) critique in general was a very good one. The author does a good job identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the article. One of the major components missing from the critique was the total sample size the investigators used. Some data on demographics of the sample size would have been beneficial. The original article failed to give more data about the demographics of the participants. The absence of demographic data is a weakness of the article which the critique author could have noted but failed to do so. Additionally, in order to enhance the critique, the author could have commented on the widespread nature of dementia as well as the seriousness of the disease for which reason the reader and society in general need to care.

Another major shortcoming of the paper that stands out to any reader is the excessive use of direct quotes from the original article and also usage of present tense instead of past tense. The incorrect choice of tense is consistent through the entire paper and weakens the quality of the author’s critique.

The use of direct quotes is not disallowed in academic writing, as long as the author spends at least double the number of lines the direct quote took up, to explain the quote in his/her own words. The author’s inability to paraphrase the quote and merge the original article’s ideas with hers made it difficult for her own authentic ideas to be clear to the reader. The author will be more effective in putting across her ideas if there is as little quoting as possible or a lengthier explanation of direct quotes; by so doing she will have the opportunity to synthesize her own ideas by building on the work of others while giving them credit.