The partition functions of many lattice statistical problems, such as the Ising models, the dimer model, and the ferroelectric model, have been written in the following general form:[Formula: see text]For models that can be solved by the pfaffian technique, H(j) is a quadratic function of fermion operators, but otherwise H(j) also contains quartic functions of fermion operators, making the above expression intractable to exact evaluation. General field theoretical perturbation methods, such as the Green's function techniques and the diagonalization (by a Fourier transformation) of the Hamiltonian, Ho(j), are developed in relation to the above expression. It is shown that the partition function for unsolved problems can be expressed in terms of an "irreducible vertex part" for which low-order approximations can be obtained. This general formalism is applied to the next-nearest neighbor two-dimensional Ising lattice. A first-order approximation is obtained for the irreducible vertex part, and the critical properties are obtained. For the equivalent-neighbor model, the critical temperature obtained is in excellent agreement with the series expansion results, being only 0.4 % higher.