Description
For this assessment you will be given an academic journal paper to critically review.
The paper is:
Sustainable development: Our Common Future revisited
Holden E., Linnerud K., Banister D.
(2014) Global Environmental Change, 26(1), pp. 130-139.
This task is an opportunity for you to demonstrate critical thinking, and to make
connections between the literature you are reading. Here are a list of questions you can
consider in your review:
• What is the problem being addressed in this paper?
• What are the strengths and limitations of the study?
• How does the author approach the study – from a theoretical, experimental,
interpretive standpoint? Did they choose the best approach?
• How does the author engage with other literature in the field? Is there
literature that both contradicts and supports his/her findings mentioned?
• Did the researchers choose appropriate methods of experimentation and
data analysis for the research question?
• Do you think that the conclusions they draw based upon the data they
present are valid and reasonable? Or are there gaps in the logic or assumptions being made?
These questions are meant as a guide and your critical review should not simply be a list of answers to these questions, nor should it simply describe the paper. Throughout your critical review you should provide provide reasoned judgements about how convincing the paper’s statements, claims, arguments and findings are. To do so, you will also need to refer to other literature you have been reading for weeks 1 and 2. For example, what does this paper contribute to how we might understand SD (linking here to debates around Brundtland or Planetary Boundaries)? How does it develop approaches to SD as set out by Hopwood et al., (2005) (Hopwood, B., Mellor, M., & O’Brien, G. (2005).
Sustainable development: mapping different approaches. Sustainable Development,
13(1), 38-52.
Advice on critical thinking is available here:
There is also a ‘how-to’ guide here:
Advice on how you might use resources when undertaking a review is available here:
