How to Critically Analyse an Article - Essay Samples

Essay Sample #1

Reading Assignment 7: “Why You Truly Never Leave High School”

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

You will find a link to this article in the Week 9 homework folder in Blackboard.

1. Ask a question about the purpose of the article.

Why we never leave high school is an article which outlines the importance that adolescence ages play to people lives. The article start by describing a real life scenario of a life in high school for popular and non-popular students, and their afterlife. It gives a substantial support to the idea that those who were popular still lead in social groups even after the high schools years. The article also shows that issues like self-esteem and shame also originate in high school. The portrayal of the ideas in the essay thus leads to a question on its purpose to the readers. One would thus ask, is this article meant to show the readers that high school life is the most important part of development for all humans?

2. Ask a question about one of the claims made in this article.

One of the claims made in this article is that life is a perpetual high school. In other words, it means that life has similar characteristics to those encountered among the high school students. The writer argues that this is because, in life, people always find themselves in boxes of strangers; thus, those future used in social segregation at high schools are still applied in adult life. Such claim thus raises some questions on the idea that people never leave high school. One would ask, are the high school students who behavior similar to adult lives, or are the adults who act like the high school students?

3. Ask a question about one of the examples used in this article.

One example used in this article is the sensitivity of the high school teenagers to their social lives. A 2005 study by Koji Ueno suggested that only 37% of all the teenagers in the United States had a clear answer to whom was their best friends. According to this example, it is clear that most adolescents do not know the feelings of others and that’s why they cannot tell who their best friends are. Such statistics thus lead to questions about the future character formed by false friends. One would ask, is there a future social impact on the high school students due to the false friends that they socialize with?

4. Ask a question about the way this article was written.

This article directs the readers on the most interesting things that happen when people are in their adolescence. The primary concentration is on the things which make this period of life different from other development stages. The article is thus skewed toward one area of understanding. However, it leaves out other possible changes, which occur in other development stages, which are also relevant to the human lives. The method used to write this article can thus be questioned based on the execution. One would ask, is this article written with proven evidence, or is it just a persuasive essay meant to make life in high school look unique?

5. Ask a question regarding something this article made you think about.

This article made me think about the modern parenting concerning the parent’s past life in high school. According to the article, when students enter high school, and they are rejected from the cool table or the sports teams, they complain to their parents about their awful life in school. However, their parent does not give positive advice as they try to make their children fit in rather that coping with the situation. For this reason, some parents even move to buy their children expensive clothes and more pocket money. Such parenting method thus had me question life in high school with regard to modern parenting. One would ask, could life in high school change through good parenting advice?

Essay Sample #2 - Critical thinking analysis

In the article, we get to make an analysis Chapter 8 of Making Software which talks about of “Beyond Lines of Code” by Israel Herraiz and Ahmed E. Hassan. In the analysis, we will check on the metrics and drawbacks. This chapter has been written with a lot of skills in order bring out what the main topic covers. This is because it begins by giving people an assurance the complexity is experienced in almost all areas in the software life cycle. This already is like a clue of what is going to be talked about as it acts as a thesis statement for this chapter. It highlights that software are complex and this is the reason why people are never able to change them easily once it has been coded and is running.

This chapter still has the best metrics when it comes to choice of words to explain some concepts that deal with software it does this by using examples which are easily practical from the illustrations that are given. For instance, in the subtopic on Surveying Software, we see that it uses an example which based on research in order to give an illustration of the way a software is developed. It states that it is done like a survey where one begins from an unknown situation and finally comes up with an answered. When developing a software, it is not known whether it will work or not. The end results shows it all. (Herraiz and Hassan, 126)

Documents that use case studies to illustrate ideas are always good when it comes to making people understand whatever is being presented. This is exactly what is seen in this chapter as there is the use of a case study to show the development of a software. This is where ArchLinux software distribution is used to illustrate an example of a software which comes as a package and what one needs in order to get the best out of it. For instance it says, “We have selected for our case study the ArchLinux software distribution which contains thousands of packages, all open source...There are two ways to install a package in ArchLinux: using the official precompiled packages, or installing from source code using the Arch Build System (ABS)” (Herraiz and Hassan, 127)

Even though the chapter is perfect in its presentation of ideas that concern doing things beyond the normal way of coding, it still has some drawbacks. The drawbacks come from some of the types of codes which have been touched on. The problem here is that it has been presented in such a way that only one is good is in coding and has had an experience can be in a position to understand. It does not give guidelines on where to start at but goes direct to talking about the coding types. Some of the codes talked about line of code and source line of code.

The chapter utilizes some generalized terms and ideas which are scientific and computer based meaning that one who is not well conversant with software engineering terms cannot gain maximum information out of it. For instance, it uses words like algorithms and operands (Herraiz and Hassan, 136). This is especially to those who are still new in this field.

The other draw back from the chapter comes in giving examples of how a given a theory works or operates. For instance when explaining Effect on the Halstead's Software Science metrics (Herraiz and Hassan, 127) we see that there are various graphs that have been used but their explanation does not give one a clear guideline of what is being talked about. In addition to this, figures and symbols which used have not been shown in the key.

An analysis of the chapter can still be done using “Introduction to Software Engineering” written by Leondes. Using this book we get to see that they share some similarity in the way they present their ideas. For instance in Leondes’ book, we see that the first chapter is also introduced using words which are in present tense and go straight to the point maintaining the scope. For example, it says, “In the beginning semesters you were coding as an individual. “The problems you were solving were small enough so one person could master them” (Leondes, 3). This a good way to introduce an argument or present a point it gets one ready for the book. The only difference now comes where all data and words used in this book is have been given illustations with diagrams and guiding points.

Work Cited

Andy Oram and Greg Wilson. “Making Software: What really Works, and Why We Believe It” O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. 2011

Leondes. “Introduction to Software Engineering.” CRS Press. ISBN 2002