What is Your Purpose for Reading the Article
Your Reading Strategy Depends on Your Purpose
Your approach to reading a scholarly journal article will vary depending on why you are engaging with or reading the article. Your reading strategy will be different when you have been assigned a specific article to read for a course and you are responsible for leading class discussion of that article compared to if you are trying to get a quick idea if an article you found while doing a library database search is going to be relevant to your proposed research topic. In almost all cases, you will not be reading a scholarly journal article from its first sentence to its last line on your first encounter with the article.
The Structure and APA Format Used in Scholarly Journal Articles Should Guide Your Reading
- The predictable order of elements in an APA-formatted scholarly article can help you hone in on the parts of article that will build your understanding.
- The use of headings in APA can assist you in locating specific information.
Common Parts of a Scholarly Journal Article
Look for the Following Sections in a Scholarly Research Article
- Title, Authors & Their Credentials, Publication Information
- Abstract
- Introduction/Literature Review
- Hypothesis or Purpose of Study
- Methods
- Data/Results/Findings
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- References
Note: Some types of scholarly articles have less defined methods and data/results/findings sections depending on what type of study was conducted and how the information for the article was collected.
How to Locate These Parts in Articles
The following resources show examples of how the common parts appear in scholarly journal articles as retrieved from library databases:
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The Anatomy of a Scholarly Article--Oregon State University LibrariesAlthough it appears on an Orientation to Fisheries and Wildlife (FW 107) tutorial guide, it uses a sample article from the journal Child Development to show and explain the various elements of a scholarly article.
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Anatomy of a Scholarly Article Animation by North Carolina State University LibrariesThis tutorial by NCSU Libraries allows the user to click on various areas of sample scholarly journal article pages to identify the specific parts and read explanations about those parts.
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Strategic Reading of Scholarly Journal Articles
Approaches for Efficient First Readings of Scholarly Articles
Understanding a scholarly journal article will often require multiple readings. The resources below present strategies for making first readings of such articles efficient and productive.
- How to Read a Scholarly Article video by Western University Libraries (Ontario, Canada)
This quick 2-minute video provides a basic strategy for first readings of scholarly articles.
- Tips for Reading Scholarly and Journal Articles, Brandeis University Study Skills
This 2-page document by authors affiliated with Brandeis University gives overall tips for how to read scholarly articles and offers a more detailed table that indicates which sections of articles are most useful for different reading purposes and assignments.
- "Confused about COVID?" Here's how to read a research paper
This article in The Conversation publication and included in CREDO Reference offers a brief overview of how to do a first read and evaluation of academic research papers/articles. While it references COVID-19 specifically, the strategies aren't just applicable to the natural sciences but rather can be used across subject areas.