literature research paper rubric

Barry Mauer; John Venecek; and Emily Smeltz

This page contains the following rubrics:

• Identifying a Problem
• Establishing Relevance
• Evaluating Purpose
• Searching as Strategic Exploration
• Using Evidence for a Research Project
• Interpreting Literary Works
• Creating an Annotated Bibliography
• Creating a Literature Review
• Finding Trustworthy Sources
• Creating a Research Question
• Creating an Abstract
• Relating the Conceptual and Concrete
• Positing a Thesis Statement
• Composing a Title
• Defining Key Terms
• Structuring Your Writing
• Avoiding Plagiarism

Identifying a Problem Rubric (Chapter 2)

Establishing Relevance Rubric (Chapter 2)

Evaluating Purpose Rubric (Chapter 2)

Searching as Strategic Exploration Rubric (Chapter 3)

Using Evidence for a Research Project Rubric (Chapter 4)

Interpreting Literary Works Rubric (Chapter 5)

Creating an Annotated Bibliography Rubric (Chapter 6)

Creating a Literature Review Rubric (Chapter 6)

Finding Trustworthy Sources Rubric (Chapter 9)

Creating a Research Question Rubric (Chapter 10)

Creating an Abstract Rubric (Chapter 10)

Relating the Conceptual and Concrete Rubric (Chapter 11)

Positing a Thesis Statement Rubric (Chapter 12)

Composing a Title Rubric (Chapter 12)

* Note: Titles that reference thesis statements and arguments may be OPTIONAL. Please check with your instructor.

Defining Key Terms Rubric (Chapter 12)

Structuring Your Writing Rubric (Chapter 13)

Avoiding Plagiarism Rubric (Chapter 14)

Rubrics Copyright © 2021 by Barry Mauer; John Venecek; and Emily Smeltz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Literature Review: Assess your Literature Review

• Video Tutorial
• Research Question
• Select Resources
• Search Strategy

Assess your Literature Review

• Sample Literature Reviews
• Resource List
• Quick Links
• Avoid Plagiarism
• Use the rubric below to evaluate the quality of your literature review.  If your instructor has provided you with a rubric, you should use the criteria listed in that course or assignment rubric to ensure that your paper will meet the expectations for the course. ( Download a copy of the rubric.)

Adapted from Education 690: Assessment Rubric/Criteria for Literature Review, retrieved September 29,2010 from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/ed690dr/grading/literaturereviewrubrique.html and Boote, D.N. & Biele, P. (2005). Scholars before researchers: On the centrality of the dissertation literature review in research preparation. Educational Researcher. 34(6) p. 8.

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• URL: https://research.auctr.edu/literaturereview

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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• v.71(4); 2007 Aug 15

A Rubric to Assess Critical Literature Evaluation Skills

To develop and describe the use of a rubric for reinforcing critical literature evaluation skills and assessing journal article critiques presented by pharmacy students during journal club exercises.

A rubric was developed, tested, and revised as needed to guide students in presenting a published study critique during the second through fourth years of a first-professional doctor of pharmacy degree curriculum and to help faculty members assess student performance and provide formative feedback. Through each rubric iteration, the ease of use and clarity for both evaluators and students were determined with modifications made as indicated. Student feedback was obtained after using the rubric for journal article exercises, and interrater reliability of the rubric was determined.

Student feedback regarding rubric use for preparing a clinical study critique was positive across years. Intraclass correlation coefficients were high for each rubric section. The rubric was modified a total of 5 times based upon student feedback and faculty discussions.

A properly designed and tested rubric can be a useful tool for evaluating student performance during a journal article presentation; however, a rubric can take considerable time to develop. A rubric can also be a valuable student learning aid for applying literature evaluation concepts to the critique of a published study.

INTRODUCTION

There has been increased interest over the past decade in using evidence-based medicine (EBM) as a basis for clinical decision making. Introduced in 1992 by the McMaster University-based Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group, EBM has been defined as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.” 1 Current best evidence is disseminated via original contributions to the biomedical literature. However, the medical literature has expanded greatly over time. Medline, a biomedical database, indexes over 5000 biomedical journals and contains more than 15 million records. 2 With this abundance of new medical information, keeping up with the literature and properly utilizing EBM techniques are difficult tasks. A journal club in which a published study is reviewed and critiqued for others can be used to help keep abreast of the literature. A properly designed journal club can also be a useful educational tool to teach and reinforce literature evaluation skills. Three common goals of journal clubs are to teach critical appraisal skills, to have an impact on clinical practice, and to keep up with the current literature. 3 , 4 Journal clubs are a recognized part of many educational experiences for medical and pharmacy students in didactic and experiential settings, as well as for clinicians. Journal clubs have also been described as a means of teaching EBM and critical literature evaluation skills to various types of medical residents.

Cramer described use of a journal club to reinforce and evaluate family medicine residents' understanding and use of EBM concepts. 5 Pre- and posttests were used during each journal club to assess the residents' understanding of key EBM concepts related to the article discussed. Pretest scores improved over the year from 54.5% to 78.9% ( p < 0.001) and posttest scores improved from 63.6% to 81.6% ( p < 0.001), demonstrating the journal club's ability to help residents utilize EBM techniques. Linzer and colleagues compared a journal club to a control seminar series with regard to medical interns' reading habits, epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge, and ability to read and incorporate the medical literature into their practice of medicine. 6 Forty-four interns were randomized to participate in the journal club or a seminar series. After a mean of 5 journal club sessions, 86% of the journal club group improved their reading habits compared to none in the seminar group. Knowledge scores increased more with the journal club and there was a trend toward more knowledge gained with sessions attended. Eighty percent of the journal club participants reported improvement in their ability to incorporate the literature into medical practice compared to 44% of the seminar group.

Journal clubs have also been used extensively to aid in the education and training of pharmacy students and residents. The journal club was a major component in 90% and 83% of drug information practice experiences offered by first professional pharmacy degree programs and nontraditional PharmD degree programs, respectively. 7

When a journal club presentation is used to promote learning, it is important that an appropriate method exists for assessing performance and providing the presenter with recommendations for improvement. Several articles have listed important questions and criteria to use when evaluating published clinical studies. 8 - 11 However, using such questions or criteria in the form of a simple checklist (ie, indicating present or absent) does not provide judgments of the quality or depth of coverage of each item. 12 A rubric is a scoring tool that contains criteria for performance with descriptions of the levels of performance that can be used for performance assessments. 12 , 13 Performance assessments are used when students are required to demonstrate application of knowledge, particularly for tasks that resemble “real-life” situations. 14 This report describes the development and use of a rubric for performance assessments of “journal club” study critiques by students in the didactic curriculum and during an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE).

Two journal article presentations have been a required part of the elective drug information APPE at the West Virginia Center for Drug and Health Information for many years. For these presentations, students select a recent clinical study to evaluate and present their study overview and critique to the 2 primary drug information preceptors. Prior to rubric development, these presentations were evaluated using a brief checklist based upon the CONSORT criteria for reporting of randomized controlled trials. 15 Work on a scoring rubric for the student presentations began in 2002. The first step in its development involved identifying the broad categories and specific criteria that were expected from the journal club presentation. The broad categories selected were those deemed important for a journal club presentation and included: “Content and Description,” “Study Analysis,” “Conclusion,” “Presentation Style,” and “Questions.” The criteria in “Content and Description” involved accurate and complete presentation of the study's objective(s), rationale, methods, results, and author(s)' conclusion. Other criteria within the rubric categories included important elements of statistical analyses, analysis of study strengths and weaknesses, the study drug's role in therapy, communication skills, and ability to handle questions appropriately and provide correct answers. The first version of the rubric was tested in 2003 during the drug information APPE, and several rubric deficiencies were identified. Some sections were difficult to consistently interpret or complete, other criteria did not follow a logical presentation sequence, and a few of the levels of performance were based on numbers that were difficult to quantitate during the presentation. For example, the criteria under “Content and Description” were too broad; students could miss one aspect of a study's design such as blinding but correctly identify the rest, making it difficult to accurately evaluate using the rubric.

Version 2 of the rubric was reformatted to remedy the problems. The description and content categories were expanded to make it easier to identify the specific parts of the study that the students should describe, and the “Study Overview” category was divided into distinct parts that included introduction, study design, patients/subjects, treatment regimens, outcome measures, data handling method, dropouts per group, statistics, results, and conclusion. To facilitate ease of use by evaluators, a check box was placed next to each item within the individual parts. This format also allowed the student to see in advance exactly which criteria they needed to include during their presentation, as well as any that were later missed. The use of a checklist also aided evaluators when determining the overall score assigned to the subsections within this category. “Study Analysis and Critique” directed students to refer to the “Study Overview” category as a guide to the parts of the study they should critically analyze. “Study Conclusion” divided the scoring criteria into an enumeration of key strengths, key limitations, and the conclusion of the group/individual student. “Preparedness” included criteria for knowledge of study details and handling of questions. The “Presentation” category included criteria for desired communication skills. This rubric version was tested during 8 journal club presentations during the drug information rotation, and on a larger scale in 2003 in the required medical literature evaluation course for second-professional year students. During the second-professional year journal club assignment, groups of 2 or 3 students were each given 1 published clinical study to evaluate, which they later presented to 2 evaluators consisting of a faculty member plus either a fourth-professional year drug information rotation student or a pharmacy resident. The faculty members evaluating students included the 2 rubric developers as well as 2 additional faculty evaluators. The evaluators first completed the rubric independently to assess student performance; evaluators then discussed their scores and jointly completed a rubric that was used for the grade. The rubric was given to the students in advance to serve as a guide when preparing their journal club presentation. In addition, to provide students with actual experience in using the rubric, 2 fourth-professional year drug information APPE students each presented a journal article critique to the second-professional year class. The fourth-professional year students first gave their presentations to the drug information preceptors as practice and to ensure that complete and accurate information would be relayed to the second-professional year class. The second-professional year students then used the rubric to evaluate the fourth-professional year students' presentations; the completed rubrics were shared with the fourth-professional year students as feedback.

Based on student and evaluator feedback at the end of the journal club assignment, additional revisions to the rubric were needed. Students stated they had difficulty determining the difference between the “Study Analysis and Critique” category and the key strengths and weaknesses parts of the rubric; they felt they were simply restating the same strengths and weaknesses. Students also felt there was insufficient time to discuss their article. The evaluators had difficulty arriving at a score for the “Study Analysis and Critique” category, and students often did not know the important aspects to focus on when critiquing a study. Revisions to the rubric included expanding the presentation time from a maximum of 12 to a maximum of 15 minutes, explaining that the strengths and weaknesses should relate to the areas listed under “Study Overview,” and stating that only the key limitations that impacted the study findings should be summarized as part of the conclusion.

Version 3 of the rubric was tested during the 2004 journal club assignment for the second-professional year students. A brief survey was used to obtain student feedback about the rubric and the assignment as a tool for learning to apply literature evaluation skills. The rubric was revised once again based on the feedback plus evaluator observations. Through use of the first 3 versions of the rubric, the evaluators continually noted that students skipped key areas of the analysis/critique section when presenting their journal articles. Thus, for version 4, a list of questions was developed by the drug information faculty members to aid students in identifying the key considerations that should be included in their analysis (Appendix 1 ). To prepare this list, several sources were located that detailed questions or issues to take into account when evaluating a published study. 8 - 11 Specific questions were also added based upon areas that were consistently overlooked or inappropriately discussed during the journal club presentations. Version 4 of the rubric was used by the 2 primary drug information preceptors to evaluate the fourth-professional year student journal club presentations during the drug information rotation. Following each fourth-professional year student's journal club presentation, each evaluator independently completed the rubric. The evaluators then met together to briefly review their scores, discuss discrepancies, and modify their individual scores if desired. This was important because one evaluator would occasionally miss a correct or incorrect statement made by a student and score the student inappropriately lower or higher for a particular section. Based upon further feedback from students and evaluators, final revisions were made to the rubric. The final and current version (Appendix 2 ) was used for all subsequent fourth-professional year journal club presentations, for the second-professional year students' journal club assignments during 2005 and 2006, and for a new, similar journal club assignment added to the curriculum for third-professional year students in 2006. Feedback about the finalized rubric was obtained from the second- and third-professional year students.

To evaluate the rubric's reliability, 3 drug information faculty members used the final rubric to evaluate the journal club presentations by 9 consecutive fourth-professional year drug information experiential students. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for each rubric section and the total score.

Five versions of the rubric were developed over a 3-year time period. The majority of the revisions involved formatting changes, clarifications in wording, and additions to the criteria. However, the change that appeared to have the greatest positive impact on the student presentations was the addition of the specific questions that should be considered during the study analysis and critique. Second- and third-professional year student feedback from the final version of the rubric is shown in Table ​ Table1 1 and is very positive overall. Representative comments from the students included: “Very helpful for putting the class info to use,” “Great technique for putting all concepts together,” and “This assignment helped me to become more comfortable with understanding medical studies.” The suggestions for change primarily involved providing points for the assignment (it was graded pass/fail for the second-professional year students), better scheduling (the journal club assignment was due at the end of the semester when several other assignments or tests were scheduled), and providing more pre-journal club assistance and guidance to students. A small number of students indicated they still found it confusing to critique a study after the journal club assignment, which was expected since literature evaluation skills take considerable practice and experience to master.

Pharmacy Students Feedback Concerning a Journal Club Assignment in Which the Rubric Was Used for Evaluation

*Items specific to rubric

† Based on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree

‡ Positive response = agree or strongly agree

A survey of 7 recent fourth-professional year students who used the rubric to prepare for journal club presentations and who were also evaluated using the rubric found that all of the students agreed or strongly agreed with each item shown in Table ​ Table1. 1 . One representative comment was, “I was surprised at how articles appear to be good when I first read them but then after going through them again and using the form, I was able to find so many more limitations than I expected. I definitely feel that journal club has helped me to interpret studies better than I had been able to in the past.” Several fourth-professional year students took the rubric with them to use during other rotations that required a journal club presentation. After establishing that the rubric was user-friendly to evaluators and that students could clearly follow and differentiate the various sections, the reliability of the rubric in each of the 12 rating areas was determined (Table ​ (Table2). 2 ). The intra-class correlation coefficient demonstrated a high level of correlation between evaluators for each student for 11 of the 12 areas. A score of 0.618 was found for the section involving the students' response to questions. This was still considered acceptable; however, given that a fairly low variability in ratings affected the intra-class correlation coefficient due to the small scale (0-3 points) used in the rubric, with a relatively small number of observations. The intra-class correlation coefficient was calculated using the fourth-professional year students' journal club evaluations from the drug information rotation. Thus, by necessity, the evaluators consisted of the 2 primary faculty drug information preceptors and a drug information resident. These evaluators had previously used the rubric and the 2 faculty evaluators worked to develop the rubric. This may have increased the level of correlation between evaluators due to their familiarity with the sections of the rubric.

Rubric Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (N = 9)

*95% confidence interval

About 5 minutes are required for an individual evaluator to complete the rubric, with an additional 5 minutes needed for score comparison and discussion. In almost all cases, the reasons for any differences were easily identified through discussion and resulted from an evaluator simply missing or not correctly hearing what was said during the presentation. In general, evaluators found the rubric easy to use and did not require an extensive amount of time to consistently assess literature evaluation skills.

A rubric can be a useful tool for evaluating student performance in presenting and critiquing published clinical studies, as well as a valuable learning aid for students. However, developing a rubric that appropriately guides students in achieving the targeted performance, provides proper student feedback, and is user-friendly and reliable for evaluators requires a significant initial investment of time and effort. Multiple pilot tests of the rubric are generally required, with subsequent modifications needed to improve and refine the rubric's utility as an evaluation and learning tool. Once the rubric is developed, though, it can be used to quickly evaluate student performance in a more consistent manner.

As part of the development and use of a rubric, it is important that the rubric's criteria be thoroughly reviewed with students and they are provided the opportunity to observe examples of desired performance. Once a rubric is used to evaluate student performance, the completed rubric should be shared with students so they can identify areas of deficiency. This feedback will help enable students to appropriately modify their performance.

The journal club evaluation rubric can be used when teaching literature evaluation skills throughout all levels of education and training. Students early in their education will probably need to extensively refer to and rely upon the supplemental questions to help them identify key considerations when analyzing a study. However, as students progress with practice and experience and their literature evaluation skills are reinforced in actual clinical situations, their need to consult the supplemental questions should diminish.

Despite the considerable time and effort invested, the evaluation rubric has proven to be a valuable and ultimately timesaving tool for evaluating student performance when presenting a published study review and critique. More importantly, the rubric has provided students with clear expectations and a guide for desired performance.

Appendix 1. Study Analysis and Critique – Supplement

Appendix 2. Final evaluation rubric for journal club presentations

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