The author states in the preface that this book is intended “to guide student and novice researchers through their critical reading of a research paper in the field of second language learning” (p. ix). It does an admirable job of this and, in fact, should be required reading for every language researcher. Porte emphasizes that the role of the book is not to guide readers toward critical judgments of research articles but rather to constructive reading as consumers of research—which may, in turn, lead to well-designed and presented research studies of their own. To meet these goals, Porte divides the book into two parts: the first portion of the text, the textbook (pp. 3–149), guides readers through analyses of the various components of research studies, and the second portion, the workbook (pp. 153–246), leads readers through a detailed analysis of two sample studies.

The textbook follows the basic structure of a research article: Chapter 1 includes discussion of abstracts, background information, problem statements, literature reviews, research questions, and hypotheses; chapter 2 focuses on the presentation of subjects, materials, procedures, research design, and data analyses; chapter 3 discusses the use of various types of common statistical procedures; and chapter 4 addresses the discussion and conclusion sections of a research study.

In each chapter, Porte poses questions to encourage readers to reflect on the information presented in each section of a research report and on their subsequent expectations of the study based on what has been written. He does a fine job of connecting previous information presented in the study (e.g., research questions posed) with new information as it appears (e.g., the design of the study), encouraging readers to examine how their expectations have or have not been met as the study proceeds. Throughout the text, Porte emphasizes how the information presented by a researcher in each part of the study leads us to envision the research design and to determine how confident we will be in the results presented. Analyzing a research study thus becomes a contemplative, reflective endeavor, rather than a simple (or not so simple!) comprehension task. I am certain that readers of Porte's book will approach the reading of research from an entirely new perspective.

More frequent use of examples might be helpful in the textbook section to illustrate the concepts at work. As this is the role of the workbook section, however, I am willing to suspend this need, but I recommend working between the two sections to provide students with a more solid application of the ideas—that is, having students read about the goals of a literature review and how they may be fulfilled and then having them turn immediately to the workbook section to examine the samples there. Porte provides guiding prompts to lead readers to thorough, reflective reading of these sample studies. He shares his responses to these prompts for the first sample study. Prompts alone are provided for the second sample. (His Web site provides two more similarly presented studies.)

Research terminology is highlighted in a light gray color throughout the text. A glossary of these terms is provided in the back of the book, serving as a nice resource for the novice researcher. Porte has also reprinted various helpful statistical reference charts from Brown (1992) and Hatch and Lazaraton (1991) in the appendixes.

As an instructor for a master's-level research methods course, I believe that Porte is responsible and fair in his representation of the manner in which studies are reported and of the types of information that we should be interested in seeing as readers. The preface states that he intends the book to serve as either a primary text or supplementary text to a “research-techniques” book. Having some familiarity with research design and methodology would enable readers to apply the concepts much more readily, and I could envision, for example, using a text like Brown (1988)—or the now unavailable Hatch and Lazaraton (1991)—for the first few weeks of a course to familiarize students with the basic tenets of research design and then moving to Porte's text for an in-depth application of the concepts to the reading of research. Students using this book would certainly come away with a much clearer sense of how research concepts interact in the real world of a research study.