Your assignment is to do the following:

1. Select a research topic and write a topic sentence, e.g., in what ways are variables x and y related to z? This may be the same topic you used for Assignment One, or any other research topic you wish. Save your topic sentence in an MS Word file.
2. Conduct a MEDLINE search on your topic (or OVID or any other database of your choice. Moody Medical Library Databases page). Locate a very promising, relatively recent research article dealing with the topic. It may not be a review article or anyother type of "non-research" article. Save the article reference (author, title, journal, year, etc.) and the abstract in an MS Word file. Go find the text of the article (on the web or in the library). Read the article and insure it fits these criteria.
1. It is recent, but not too recent. Five or six years old is a suggested time frame.
2. It is very relevant to your topic.
3. It is not the same article you used for your critique in Assignment One. It may have been one you found before in your literature search.
If the article does not fit all three criteria, go and find another article. The article that fits the criteria will become your Key Article.

Pause to Complete Part 1 - Now write a brief report to email to the class. As a reminder the email list is on the Notices page. In your report, list or describe:

1. The authors, title, journal, year, volume, number, and pages of your Key Article.
2. The independent variable (IV) and the dependent variable (DV) from the Key Article that you are focusing on.  Describe the variables in operational terms, e. g., how were the variables defined (IV) or measured (DV).
3. The hypothesis you are looking at that is an expression of how the IV affects the DV.
4. Email your report containing the three elements above to the class.
5. Chose two other student’s reports and write a critique of them following the guidelines below.
   • Is the article a research article?  It is NOT to be a review article or a clinical report.
   • Are the variables defined in operational terms? If not, tell what is missing.
   • Is the hypothesis stated correctly? If not, re-write it yourself as an example.
6. You will earn points for providing complete and careful advice. You will also learn more about the process of defining variables and writing hypotheses by critiquing your colleague's work.
   
   
3. Now, look in the references of your Key Article, and select two articles that appear to:
   
   1. Deal with the same variables, and
   2. Test the same hypothesis as your Key Article.
   The articles can deal with other variables, so long as they deal with the ones you are focusing on too. Go find the full text of the articles, either on the web or in the library. They will have been published before the Key Article's publication date. Read them and insure that each article fits this criteria: It deals with the same independent and dependent variables and the same hypothesis as the Key Article. If they do not fit the criteria, go find more articles. You can use the references of the Key Article or any of the subsequent articles you locate, but you must attempt to find two articles from the references. If the references just do not lead you to suitable articles, use any other resource to find what you need. Save the articles' references (author, title, journal, year, etc.) and abstracts in your MS Word file.
   
   You can also modify your IV, DV, and hypothesis to match what you are finding. This is an evolution.
4. Use the Web of Science to search for two articles done since the Key Article was published, e.g., newer articles. The Web of Sciences is also found on the Moody Medical Library Databases page. Using the Web of Science Cited Reference Search you can look for the authors and articles that you already have and locate new articles where the newer author's cited those previous authors and their articles.

   These two new articles must fit the same criteria as the other articles, e.g., have the same IV and DV and test the same hypothesis as the key article. These newer articles may have been written by the same author's or by other authors. The author does not matter, just the criteria of the same IV, DV, and hypothesis needs to be met. Enter these articles' references (author, title, journal, year, etc.) in your MS Word file.

   If using the Web of Science Cited Reference Search does not locate two newer articles, then you can use Medline to do a more brute force search. Search Medline for newer articles by searching for the author's names and search terms from the articles you already have found. This is a less precise method of searching than using the Web of Science Cited Reference Search.

5. Now, you have five articles. At this point read sections 6.1, 6.2, and 6.7 of Chapter 6. Critical Appraisal of Studies in the Cochrane Handbook (or download the pdf file). Chapter 6 deals mostly with internal validity. Also, read Chapter 7, section 8 for another piece of internal validity and the reliability of data collection. Finally, read Chapter 9, section 2 at this time as well. This deals with external validity. If you have qualitative research also read Chapter 6, section 8. Read each assigned section before going on to the next step.
   
   
6. Create your idealized variables and hypotheses. In order to have a point of reference, answer the following three questions, and fit information from each article into the table below. Create these answers and table in your word processor or use the HTML table in Sample 1 in Step 4.
   1. Synthesize across all five articles and define one idealized independent variable to be the basis of your review. This is an operational definition (how the variable was measured, observed, or used to define categories), and can be developed for both qualitative and quantitative research.
   2. Do the same to define one idealized dependent variable. The studies you read may have more than one variable, but you just need to deal with the one of interest.
   3. Now define one idealized directional hypothesis that incorporates both the IV and DV. This hypothesis is consistent with your research question, and expresses how the IV causes the DV to change.

   Resist the temptation to add another IV, DV, or hypothesis. Only do this if it is really necessary. Ideally, keep it to one Iv and DV and hypothesis. Do not make this complicated. Simplify. These variables and hypothesis form your idealized conception of the research question. The remainder of your review will be to compare each study to these idealized elements and to see how they are the same ordifferent.

7. Now, fill in the table with information from each article. In the table capture how each article is different from the idealized variables and hypothesis you synthesized above. Specifically, in each column discuss:
   1. Independent variable - Give the operational definition of the IV for each study. Describe how the IV is defined differently from your idealized one above.
   2. Dependent variable - Do the same for the DV.
   3. Hypothesis - State the hypothesis for each article. They will each be somewhat different. State the hypothesis in very specific terms. The more specific you are the more different will be each hypothesis. You want to be able to distinguish each article by its differences now, later you will want to be able to discuss the similarities and differences and this analysis will allow you to do so.
   4. Threats - Discuss threats to internal and external validity for each study.
   5. Hypothesis supported - Using the guidelines in Chapter 9 of the Whole Art of Deduction assess the hypothesis for each article in terms of the data gathered, the statistical analyses run, and the threats. State if the hypothesis is supported or not, and explain what they found to be true.

   Write your table entries in complete sentences. Your table will be quite large when you are done. You can use a small font, say an 8-point sans serif font (Arial for example).