Scientific research articles generally follow a standardized structure in sections that often include:
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Materials & Methods
- Results
- Discussion
This structure helps you quickly find relevant information to meet your purpose for reading the article. Before you start reading, take a moment to preview the research article.
- Read the Title - Titles often contain important context info. If you don’t understand a word or term in the title it is worth looking it up.
- Skim the abstract and each section to get an general sense of the content
- Scan the tables and figures - you don't have to understand them, just notice what you see.
- Make notes about what you observe and what stands out
This gives you a strong overview, and you can start to form questions about what the authors did and what they found in their study.
Identify what you are expected to read in depth and go back and read those sections in more detail. Sometimes you need to read everything, but sometimes your professor will want you to focus on specific sections.
More Tips!
Results - this section can sometimes be the most technical. It can help to initially skip over the results section and go directly to the discussion - this is where the authors summarize their findings and explain how the study addressed the topic under investigation. Then go back and read the results section – now you have a better understanding of what you are looking at!
Vocabulary - there may be a lot of words you haven't encountered before. You don't need to look them all up - often you can pick up meaning in context. If you notice a word or term that is repeated often, is in the title, or appears to be a key concept to the paper, look that one up.
