You will have two types of critiques to complete: a detailed critique on one paper and Brief Evaluation Reports on the other papers. You should use the online form for the brief reports and write an essay for the detailed critique; give copies to me and to the author on the day he/she presents the paper to the class.
The purpose of this critique is to develop your skills in summarizing and assessing scholarship. Your goals are to understand the aim of the project and to help an author strengthen this work; you are not grading the paper, and you should not simply praise or chastise.
Task: write an essay of roughly two pages to be presented in class. First, you must summarize the thesis and contributions of the paper, and discuss its strengths. This should take at least half a page. Next, explain its weaknesses and suggest how the paper could be improved. Be sure to address the larger questions in this critique, and write specific corrections of punctuation, spelling, or grammar on the rough draft of the paper (which you will return to the author). Be thoughtful in analyzing what the paper aims to do, and what it actually does. Is the thesis clear? Is it followed?
Form: this is an objective evaluation, a critique addressed to an anonymous reader, not a personal comment (or questions) to the author of the paper.