Appraising Research in Second Language Learning

Book excerpt: Designed for students of applied linguistics and second language acquisition on research training courses, practising language teachers, and those in training, this combination textbook/workbook is a set or recommended textbook on more than a hundred undergraduate and postgraduate courses worldwide. Now in its second edition, it remains the only book to provide specific advice and support to those wishing to learn a methodical approach to the critical analysis of a research paper. It seeks to answer a current need in the literature for a set of procedures that can be applied to the independent reading of quantitative research. Innovative features of the workbook include awareness-raising reading tasks and guided exercises to help develop and practise the critical skills required to appraise papers independently. Through informed and constructive appraisal of others work, readers themselves are shown how to become more research literate, to discover new areas for investigation, and to organise and present their own work more effectively for publication and peer evaluation. This revised second edition sees a closer integration of the text-and workbook and a number of additions to the text itself, as well as further guided and unguided research appraisal exercises."