Advice on Referencing and Critical Appraisal

If you are writing a report, an assignment or a dissertation, your university will require you to reference the resources that you’ve used. Every university has its own variation of the Harvard referencing style. This quick guide from Liverpool John Moores University gives examples of the different types of resources and how to reference them in the Harvard LJMU style.

When doing an academic course, you may need to critique an article.

E-Learning for health Website in conjunction with HEE has launched an 8 module course entitled ‘Critically Appraising the Evidence Base’ – To view the e-learning, simply login to e-lfh via OpenAthens. If you already have an OpenAthens account, please select the ‘Sign on with NHS OpenAthens’. If you don’t have an NHS OpenAthens account, please register here

Here is the quick link and the modules are listed below.

Critically Appraising the Evidence Base

1) Introduction to Critical Appraisal 
2) Equity considerations in critical appraisal 
3) Critical Appraisal of RCTs 
4) Interpreting Results for Critical Appraisal 
5) Critical Appraisal of Systematic Reviews
6) Critical Appraisal of Qualitative Studies 
7) Critical Appraisal of Diagnostic and Screening Tests 
8) Critical Appraisal Tools 

The library also has several books to help you with the critical appraisal process.

CASP the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme has an online learning course for appraising randomised controlled trials. The website also provides critical appraisal checklists to be used when reading different types of research studies.