How to Read Academic Articles
Have you ever tried to read an academic text? If you are in
college, you have probably read some articles that seem to be written in a
different language. This guide will help you read academic texts by teaching
you about the moves academic writers make. It will also help you think about
your own academic projects.
Academic texts have their own language, and because the
audience is a group of experts, the writer fits her writing style to the
audience’s needs. Remember reading Dr. Seuss as a kid? He used rhyming to reach
a wide audience of kids and their parents. Dr. Seuss used entertaining stories
to teach kids important lessons.
When the target audience is very broad, the writer needs to
make the writing simple and understandable. Dr. Seuss wanted to reach lots of
kids and parents. A rhyming sing-song approach fits perfectly with Dr. Seuss’
target audience. The newspaper is written for an eighth grade reading level
because news companies want to make information accessible to a lot of people.
An advertisement will use simple words and common language to reach a really
wide audience of customers. Academic articles are different because researchers
have different purposes, and they write for different audiences.
Academic articles target specialized audiences. For example, a medical doctor who writes for
a journal of medicine is writing to other doctors. The writers who publish in
medical journals need to use big words and complex sentences because the
content is complicated. Doctors who read medical journal articles expect the
writer to help advance the field of medicine. People not familiar with the
medical community will have a hard time reading medical journal articles. This
example illustrates two important points:
·
* Communities of practice shape communication
· * Learning to read and write academic articles is
challenging for newcomers
Academic texts are not designed to be accessible. When you
first start reading academic articles, you will have to take it slow. The
vocabulary will be hard. The structure of the article will be new. It feels
like you showed up late for a very heated conversation. It is uncomfortable.
And your first reaction might be to run for the exit. Getting past this initial
reaction to run is the first step to success.
Stay positive as you learn how to read into academic
conversations. You are learning how to read a new language- a language experts use
to talk to other experts. At first it will be confusing and challenging. But
think back to when you first learned to ride a bike. Did you sometimes fall
off? Of course you did. I fell a lot, but I learned because I kept getting back
up.
You are going to college to become an expert in some field. In
order to become an expert, you have to learn how other experts communicate.
Becoming an expert in one day or even a year is a tall order, but if you are
passionate about your subject, you can become an expert who does amazing work.
Below you will find an outline to help you read academic
articles. I break the structure down into four parts:
1.
Introduction
2.
Locating a Gap or Niche
3.
Methodology
4.
Results / Discussion
Introduction
Academic writers begin with an introduction to the area of
study. The writer will show what other writers and scholars have done before.
Expect to see citations, paraphrases, and quotes, as writers set up a context
for a conversation.
I want you to think of the introduction as the beginning of
the conversation. The writer is showing what other researchers have reported about
a topic. Showing what other experts and scholars have already done helps to set
up the rest of the article.
Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen a little further, it is
by standing on the shoulders of giants.” In order for Newton to raise questions
and test theories, he needed to examine how others had studied similar theories
and questions. Einstein came along in the 1900’s and built on Newton’s
theories.
Today, scientists are still using Einstein’s theories to
help build new ideas and theories. Some wonderful scientists from this century
have shown some of Einstein’s theories to be incorrect. Other researchers have
built on Einstein’s other theories and extended them even further.
Think of academic research as a building process. The writer
starts off by showing what others have done.
Think of the introduction as the writer’s way of showing how
others have explored a problem or issue. For example, an article designed to
explore how students overcome writer’s block will look at how other scholars
have studied writer’s block. This makes a lot of sense. Products are developed
this way too. If my company wants to build the fastest and most comfortable
private jet, it would start by looking at other successful designs to find ways
to make improvements.
Here are some tips and tricks to help you get through the
introduction:
· * Relate what you are reading to your own
experience. Sometimes ideas are really abstract.Making a connection to
something from your own life can help.
· * Be a tortoise. Slow down. Remember, you are
reading a conversation by experts for other experts. The people in the
conversation have been doing this for a while.
· * Make notes in the margin. Just because you are
not an expert, doesn’t mean you are not able to raise questions. Use your notes
to help guide your interpretation of the conversation.
· * Put complex ideas into simpler terms. It may
help to write brief summaries to help distill complicated ideas into something
more digestible.
Locating a Gap or Niche
Academic writers are expected to do more than summarize the
work of others. If you think about it, the introduction is actually a summary
of the related work that others have done before. If I am trying to help
autistic children eat healthier, before I write my own article, I need to read
the articles that others have written. As a researcher, I need to learn about
how others have approached similar problems to the ones I am looking at.
Summarizing what others have done is never enough. Imagine
that you are sitting around a giant table with ten other people. Everyone is
discussing a complicated problem and each person has a perspective to offer. If
you want to get into the conversation, you have to find a gap or a place to
bring something new to the conversation.
The writer will show something is missing from the
conversation near the end of the intro. The beginning and middle of the intro
show what others have done and said. So what is the writer herself going to do?
A writer can’t just summarize what others have done without making some kind of
contribution.
Let’s look at an example.
A researcher is studying factors that contribute to women
reporting rape to police. In the intro, the researcher shows a lot of studies
that explain why women don’t report. Here’s
the gap: while many have studied why women don’t report rape to police, few
studies explore why women do report. After showing what other scholars have
done and explored, the writer is showing how she is going to enter the
conversation.
Sometimes the gap involves continuing a tradition. For
example, let’s say a researcher is studying political speeches. The researcher
notices that many other scholars have found strong emotional appeals at the end
of speeches. The researcher decides to examine some recent political speeches.
Continuing a tradition involves extending a line of research by showing even
more evidence for the current trend. Since this researcher found similar
results as others, she is continuing a tradition that those scholars started.
As you read academic articles, keep an eye out for this
move. The writer will show that something is missing from the conversation, and
then she will do something to enter the discussion.
Methods
Next is the methods section. The methods section explains
who, what, where, when, and why. Here are some common research methods:
· * Experiment: researcher tests variables and
hypotheses.
· * Textual analysis: researcher examines texts
(texts can mean different mediums, such as films, television programs, brochures,
and so forth).
· * Interviews
· * Focus groups
· * Surveys
Paul Piff conducted an experiment to see if money makes
people mean. He organized the experiment using a cross walk, a fake pedestrian,
and a video camera. Cars are supposed to stop for a pedestrian at a cross walk.
The video recorded each cross attempt and counted which types of cars stopped
and which didn’t. Piff divided the cars into separate categories according to
how expensive the cars were and whether they broke the law.
After two days of experimenting, Piff reviewed the videos
and charted which cars stopped and which ones broke the law. Later on in the
paper, Piff reveals the findings and uses the data to make some claims about
which types of cars stopped for the pedestrian. Paul Piff is trying to see if
there is a relationship between the expensiveness of a car and whether or not
the driver breaks the law.
Let’s look at another example. Criminal Justice researchers
are interested in finding ways to reduce crime in high crime areas. In the 1990’s
Community Based Policing was started to reduce crime rates in high crime
areas. Participating police are trained
in community relations and are taught how to interact with the community. The
goal is to build positive relationships between police and people living in
troubled neighborhoods.
A researcher wants to understand what factors make community
based policing successful. She reads a lot of academic articles about community
based policing. She notices that many researchers have studied the effects of
community based policing, but few study why programs are effective. She travels
to police stations and interviews officers who started community policing
programs. She asks questions like:
· * What made your program successful?
· * What shortcomings did you face?
· * How did you train officers to get the program
started?
By interviewing many officers across many departments, the
researcher hopes to learn more about why community based policing programs are
successful. This researcher read lots of other articles, noticed a gap, and has
decided to do interviews to learn more.
Here is one more example. Researchers who study Autism
Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have found lots of evidence that children with Autism
are malnourished. Autistic kids are often picky eaters because of sensitivity
to taste and texture. Other factors like color can also limit the variety of
foods autistic kids will eat. Researchers want to learn how to help autistic
kids eat a healthier diet.
Think of the paragraph above as the introduction and
literature review. The researcher has showed the problem, and next comes the
method to try to solve the problem. An experiment is in order. This researcher
decides to see if gradually introducing new foods in small amounts might help
autistic kids eat a better variety of foods. The study lasts ten weeks and
involves one autistic child. Each week, a new food is put onto the plate with
other foods that the child likes. Eventually, the researcher replaces common
foods the child eats with new foods.
The methods section shows how the researcher conducted her
study.
So far, we have looked at the intro, which shows what other
researchers have done. We looked at the gap, where researchers show what is
missing from the conversation. Finally, we looked at the methods, which is how
the researcher studies the issue. After conducting a study, the next step is
reporting the results.
Results/Discussion
After the methods section comes a combined section called
the results and discussion sections. These sections are sometimes separate but
can also be delivered as one section. You can think of the results as what the
researcher found out. Think of the discussion as why it matters.
The results section reports the findings from the study and
explains what was learned. Results will often synthesize findings from the
current study with perspectives emerging from the other scholars who are part
of the conversation. The results section is designed to build an understanding
of the findings, complicate the conversation by bringing in a new but related
perspective, or perhaps refute and shed doubt on previous scholarship. The
evidence from the study will shape how the results and discussion sections
unfold.
Remember the example of the study looking at whether or not
cars stop for pedestrians? Would you be surprised to learn that as the
expensiveness of the car increased, the likelihood of breaking the law
increased too? Nearly half of the cars in the most expensive car category broke
the law. None of the cars in the least expensive category broke the law.
Does this study prove that people who drive expensive cars
are mean? Not necessarily. The discussion section will also report on some
shortcomings for the study. It is hard to know why cars don’t stop. Filming for
only two days means that the sample size is relatively small. Perhaps two weeks
of data could reveal different results.
Many researchers will call for further research in the
results section. The scholar studying eating habits for autistic kids found
that gradually introducing new foods on the plate with preferred foods worked.
By the end of the study, the autistic child was eating plates of only new foods
without any of her preferred foods. This research demonstrates that with
positive reinforcement and a gradual approach, an autistic picky eater will eat
new foods. There is also a need for studies that engage a larger sample size.
Only studying one child is pretty limiting.
Will Reading and Writing Academic Articles get Easier?
All academic texts are designed to solve problems. Some
researchers are looking for better approaches to help kids with specific
learning disabilities. Others are trying to understand how to help doctors
relate to patients across different cultures. All research articles are centered on finding
solutions to challenging problems.
As you expose yourself to academic texts in the discipline
you are studying, you will grow in confidence. If you want to become a great
swimmer, you have to spend lots of time in the pool. Find a pool that fits your self-interest, one
that matters to you, and the work of becoming an expert will be worth it.
References
Barahoma, C., Dubard,
M., Luiselli, K., & Kesterson, J. (2013).
School-based feeding intervention
to
increase variety and quantity of foods
consumed by an adolescent with autism.
Patterson, D., & Campbell, R. (2010). Why rape survivors
participate in the criminal justice system.
Journal of Community Psychology,
Vol. 38, No. 2, 191-205.
Piff, P. (2013). Does money make you mean. TED talk, October.
