Useful critical evaluation rubric

Lately I've been working on ways to get more thinking about and doing of critical evaluation into my library research workshops. Rob Weir's discussion of using reviews as a critical evaluation exercise includes a rubric that could also be useful to librarians, even if writing a review is beyond the scope of most one-shot workshops.

Admittedly, I do own a cardigan. One.

From 100 Scope Notes, Things Librarians Fancy.

(Mind you, I haven't worn that cardigan in several years...)

An instructive perspective on the scholarly publishing process

Many are familiar by now with the details surrounding the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science's publication of a highly controversial article in July. This article from Inside Higher Ed helps make this entire affair an instructive example to students of how the peer review process is supposed to work, ways that it might fail (or be circumvented), and some of the characteristics to look for when evaluating research.

I find it especially instructive because it's pretty clear that Margulis's contention that PNAS's editors "don't like" the Williamson paper, while probably true, is beside the point. The article fails as research and should have failed to pass peer review.