ENGL105 - Scholarly Articles 101: How to Read a Scholarly Article

How to Read a Scholarly Article

Scholarly articles can be very intimidating! They are written by experts for other experts in a field, so they can be filled with technical, confusing jargon. Studies that are measuring something might have long strings of complicated statistics or equations. How are we supposed to get through all of that and figure out what the article is saying? Here are some tips that can help make scholarly articles a little more approachable.

Step 1: Start with the abstract

The purpose of an abstract is to act as a preview for the rest of the article. Usually the abstract will touch on the importance of a topic, the methods used and results found (if a study was involved), and the conclusions the authors reached. All of this should let you know if the article will be a good fit for you and whether you should dedicate more time to reading the entire article or not.

Step 2: Read the introduction and conclusion

The introduction will give you a lot more background information on the topic of the article. The conclusion will tell you what actually happened in the study, as well as the author's interpretation of these results and ideas for future areas of study. Taking the time to read and understand these two sections toward the beginning of your reading process should make the additional sections of the article a little easier to comprehend.

Step 3: Look at any visual data included in the article

Looking at tables, charts, or graphs can often make more sense than reading sentences with long strings of statistics or other numbers. Try to draw some conclusions from this data and then compare your ideas with the author's own conclusions.

Step 4: Go back to the beginning and read the entire article!

You should have a little more knowledge of the ideas the article is discussing and it should be a little easier to understand using that context. As you read, it can often be helpful to take notes, either directly on the article or in your notebook, especially if there are quotes you may want to reference in your project! 

Finally,

Don't be afraid to Google any terms you don't know and remember that it is okay to take mental breaks if you are feeling overwhelmed!

In the video below, some university professors share their tips for reading scholarly articles:

Let's Practice!

I am looking for an article to use as a source for my paper on factors that may impact the mental health of college students. Use the strategies we explored above to quickly skim the article below. Do you think it would be a good source for my paper? Take some time to reflect on why or why not. What section of the paper best helped you decide on your answer?

(you can read the article directly on the site, but it may be a bit easier to navigate the different sections if you download the pdf version).