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Social Work

How to read a scholarly article

Read the abstract at least twice. Underline or highlight the ideas you think describe what the author wanted to learn from this study. Now restate in your own words what you think the goal of the study was.

Read the introduction thoroughly. Locate the research question or hypothesis and underline or highlight it. It may be more than one sentence long. Now explain the research question in your own words.

Skip to the discussion section and read it thoroughly. State briefly at least two specific things the author learned from his study.

Go to the methods section and read it thoroughly. Explain briefly two things you know about the people who participated in the study.

SKIM the results section. What were the results of the study?

What do you know about the author of this article?
Underline or highlight one citation in the text of the article. Then turn to the References section and underline or highlight the reference that corresponds to your citation.

Adapted from the work of Krista Bowers Sharpe, Western Illinois University Libraries and Hilary Kraus, Brown University Libraries.

Anatomy of a Journal Article

Adapted from the work of Frederique Laubepin, PhD, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2013 and Hilary Kraus, Brown University Libraries, 2024
Element	What is it?	What can you learn from it?
Title	The title presents a concise statement of the issues being investigated.	What is this article about?
Abstract	A brief summary of the article. Remember, this is not what you will use for an annotated bibliography. You must write your own annotation. For more info, check out our annotated bibliography tutorial.	What is this article about? What topic is the author studying? What were the primary things the authors learned?
Introduction	This section introduces the topic of the article and discusses what the article contributes to existing knowledge on the topic.	What is this article about? What does the author plan to do in the paper? Why should we care about this problem/study? What is the author trying to test or show? How do they intend to contribute to the field?
Literature Review (may be part of the introduction or have its own section title)	The purpose of a literature review is to discuss previous work on the topic, point out what questions remain, and connect the research in the article to the existing literature. There should also be a clear discussion of the author’s research hypotheses. Note that not every article will have a literature review.	What do we already know about this topic and what is left to discover? What are some of the most important findings on this topic? How have these past studies led the author to do this particular study? What are the research hypotheses (what do they believe will be the outcomes of their research)?
Methods & data	The methods section provides information about what the author studied and the way that they analyzed it. It includes information about the study participants, the procedures, the instruments, and the variables that were measured.	What data did the author use and how did they analyze them? Who were the participants in the study? What makes them unique? How were they chosen? Is the sample a good representation of the entire population? If not, how are they different? Is the study qualitative (based on interviews, ethnography, participant observation, or content analysis), quantitative (based on statistical analysis), or mixed methods (includes both quantitative and qualitative analysis)?
Results	The results section explains what the author found when they analyzed the data. It can be quite technical, reporting the results in detailed statistical language. Tables and figures are frequently included.	What did the author learn from their research study?
Discussion & conclusion	Articles typically end by discussion in “plain English” what the results mean and how the study contributes to existing knowledge. Here the research questions are answered and it should be clear at this point whether the hypotheses were supported. The conclusion is the final section. It relates the research back to the larger context, and suggests avenues for further research.	What does it all mean and why is it important? What were the author’s overall findings? Why are these findings important? What limitations of the study does the author identify, if any? What suggestions for further research does the author make, if any?
References	This section lists all of the articles and other sources cited within the article.	Check for additional sources you may be able to use for your assignment.