Introductory Nutrition Week 5 Tutorial: PART 1: Critical Analysis PART 2: Mahara development

Critical analysis of literature Revision: – AIM: taught you about using references in your writing Why is referencing important? What are the consequences of not referencing?

What is critical analysis??

What is critical analysis? Critical analysis requires you to ask questions about the material you are analysing, and then to make judgements about the material. – Without this you cannot make an informed decision about whether or not to use a piece of work to support your own work.

What do you need to look at to decide whether or not a piece of work is useful for you?

What should you look for? 1. What is it? – A primary source of information? Journal articles (when discussing original ideas or reporting on research) Statistics, interviews and surveys Books (as for journal articles) – A secondary source of information? Text books, lecture notes, newspaper articles offering opinions or commentary, dictionaries

Do you think you should use Primary or Secondary resources and why?

Primary versus Secondary Resources You should use Primary sources wherever possible Primary sources allow you to better critically evaluate the information because: – Has not been filtered, which means minimal misinterpretation – You can better understand where the information has come from

What should you look for? 2. Where has it been published (which medium)? – A reputable, peer-reviewed journal? – A magazine? – A newspaper? 3. Who is the author? – A qualified person in the area or not? (e.g. a nutritionist or dietitian speaking about nutrition or a lawyer?)

Why does the mode of publication matter??

Why does the mode of publication matter? Peer review means that a piece of work written in a particular field is reviewed (scrutinised) by other experts in that field. Newspapers and magazines do not follow this process, which means that nutrition information (for example) contained in these sources is less reliable

What should you look for? 4. Is the work referenced? Why is this important??

Why are references important? If a piece of work that you read does not have references, you are unable to know where the information has come from, and also whether or not others in the field support their ideas. This means you cannot provide an effective critical analysis of the work

What should you look for? How old is the article? – Is there more recent research? – How much do you think our body of evidence changes over time? – A general guide for age of research is to not use anything older than 10 years

Activity 1: Fill in the table provided

Interpreting Journal Articles Your 24 hour recall assignment requires you to use a minimum of 3 journal articles to support your work. What is the point of using journal articles in your writing??

Journal example Nutrition & Dietetics is our Australian peer reviewed journal for the field of nutrition and dietetics. The website for this journal is ) )

Activity 2: Answer the questions in your table groups

Vancouver Referencing Example Once you have analysed an article and decided to use it to support your assignment you then need to reference in-text and in the reference list using the Vancouver style.

Here is how it should look In-text: In their paper Subar et al. 1 used digital images to assess the accuracy of portion-size estimates and participant preferences. OR Recent research has shown support for using aerial images in automated self-administered 24-hour recalls. 1

Here is how it should look Reference list: 1.Subar, AF, Crafts JC, Zimmerman et al. Assessment of the Accuracy of Portion Size Reports Using Computer-Based Food Photographs Aids in the Development of an Automated Self-Administered 24- Hour Recall. J Am Diet Assoc 2010; 110: The UC library site includes an Endnote referencing guide at For examples of how to use Vancouver in Nutrition & Dietetics: /homepage/ForAuthors.html /homepage/ForAuthors.html

More information The UC library website and Academic skills sites provide excellent supporting information for students: