Deciphering sources is critical to being able to use their content in your class research. Obviously, it's not enough to merely gather sources; you must also extract the valuable ideas contained within the sources you have found. Your approach to decoding and interpreting source material will depend largely on the type of source with which you are working. See below for tips about getting the most out of one type of source that student's often struggle with, scholarly journal articles.
Scholarly Articles
Scholarly articles are great sources of information when you want the latest research findings, straight from the experts studying it. These articles are written for other experts in the field, so they will be very dense and written with lots of technical jargon. Don't let that scare you away though. With some reading strategies, some patience, and some practice you can make use of the information packed into scholarly articles.
Parts of a Scholarly Article
Most scholarly articles follow a common format to organize their information. This common format will help you know what to expect from each section and to jump to the section that has the most useful information for your needs.
- Title, Author(s), Publication
- Definition: Basic information about the article and researchers. Always on the first page.
- Purpose: Gives an idea about the article and authors
- Abstract:
- Definition: A summary of the article, found between the authors and introduction
- Purpose: Lets the readers know what the article is about and why it is important so they can decide if they want to read the full text.
- Introduction & Literature Review
- Definition: Detailed information about the study. May contain sub-sections, like research questions and a literature review, or what the authors read to understand the topic. Found after the abstract and sometime separated.
- Purpose: Provides background information and sets the study in context by showing what else has been published on a topic.
- Methods
- Definition: A description of how the study was done, including how the researchers collected data. Found after the intro.
- Purpose: Details what data was collected so the study can be reproduced by other researchers.
- Results
- Definition: Charts, tables, graphs, and text that summarize the data gathered from the methods section. Found after methods.
- Purpose: Shares data found in the study so it can be compared to other studies.
- Discussion & Conclusion
- Definition: An explanation of the results, with a clear connection back to the literature review and research questions. Found after the results, and sometimes separated.
- Purpose: Shows the effect of the study on the field and suggests new research questions.
- References
- Definition: A list of all the sources used in the article. Always on the last pages.
- Purpose: Documents the sources used so readers can access them for their own work. Great place to find more sources on a topic
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Identify Key Information on First Page of Articles
When you first encounter a scholarly article, your first task is to make sure it fits your need. Use the first page to make this call. The first page also has all the information you will need to create your citations.
