[bumby]

Just like most commenters here, I don’t think there’s a template to do this in a reliable fashion.

Besides some of the suggestions already presented, here are some additional elements I look for:

1) Do the references actually align to there claims they back up? Surprisingly, you can find a lot of reference fodder that is misused

2) Does the validation make sense or is it gamed? There are times the article method uses one model but slightly tweaks it during validation. Examples being dropping troublesome data or using a different classification scheme. Does the model actual compare to and improve on current state-of-the-art practice?

3) Do the authors offer their data up for review?