The author gave an explanation of the definition of elaborative learning techniques. He stated a possible reason for the mixed results as “elaborative learning techniques tend to be ineffective as students discontinue using the strategy when unsupervised” (Sample Paper, 2013, pg.1). He clearly illustrated his argument that the elaborative study technique is bi-directional. However, the argument is somewhat less thorough. He provided a lot of information and description but sometimes off topic. He spent much time on explaining what are the pros and cons of elaborative learning technique rather than focus on the topic which is the reason of mixed results of the technique. His conclusion readdresses the thesis in light of the evidence provided. He presented a possible solution to the mixed results by saying “the solution to this paradox may exist in the way schools evaluate students”
The author provided good examples from the work of other scholars with enough details. He used many examples to support his argument, such as Palinscar & Brown’s definition of elaborative learning technique and Schwartz and Martin’s experiment about how the technique works.
According to the APA style, the author has to provide a reference with either full bibliographic information (e.g. author, title, publisher, year published, page number), or an in text reference (author, page) and a full bibliography. The author gave name and year of the reference but did not cite the name of the document. In the second last paragraph, he wrote “following the order of operations (BEDMAS)” (Sample Paper). He didn’t state anything about the meaning of “BEDMAS” and it turned out this reference is very unclear to the readers. Despite of the APA style, the paper format is good and it meets the length criteria which is about 500 words in