How to Read Journal Articles
We often read scholarly sources like journal articles for the first time in a post-secondary setting, and they can be difficult to understand without knowing what to look for. This page provides information on what journal articles are, how they are usually organized, and how to read and learn from them.
Key Words
Academic journal / scholarly journal: a publication that releases regular issues containing research, reports, and reviews on academic topics. Some well-known examples of academic journals include The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), PLOS One, The Lancet, and many more.
Journal article: a single work published in a journal.
Database: a digital storage system that can be searched for information. Academic journals and articles are usually stored online in academic databases.
Empirical: this describes information or knowledge gained through direct observation, experimentation, or experience. For example, original research is usually based on empirical evidence.
Peer-reviewed: an article that has been examined by other experts in the field. The peer-review process is used to make sure the information in journal articles is accurate, so peer-reviewed articles are usually considered very trustworthy sources. You might also see the word "refereed" used to mean this.
What Is a Journal Article?
A journal article is a short piece of writing published in an academic journal which discusses research and information on a certain topic. Their first pages often look something like this:
Journal articles are written by researchers in all different fields (usually professors or advanced students), and are often reviewed by other experts (peer-reviewed) before they are published. They are usually found online, through academic databases and search tools like NWP's WorldCAT Discovery or Google Scholar, as described in the image below (by Rachel Arteaga, 2016, for California State University, Chico):
Check out the tabs on this page to learn more about reading journal articles!
Types of Journal Articles
Different types of journal articles have different goals and types of main ideas, including:
Original research
For example, "We gave 300 plants different types of water, and this is what happened to them."
or, "These are the reasons this historical event occurred the way it did, and this is how we know."
Case studies
For example, "We looked at how one school responded to this crisis, because their situation could represent lots of similar schools too."
Review articles
For example, "We read all the recent work on this topic, and these are the major trends we found."
Parts of Journal Articles
Key information about the article can be found on its first page, as shown in the example below (University of Toronto Mississauga, 2017):
Journal articles that talk about original research will usually have the following sections:
Rochester Institute of Technology Libraries, 2009, https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/scholarly-articles/
How to Read Journal Articles
One suggested method is as follows:
Once you know the article will be useful for you (after you have read the abstract), be sure to:
Image from "How to write an Introduction." Science Research Writing, n.d. http://www.ehu.eus/ccwintco/uploads/e/ef/How_to_write_a_good_introduction.pdf
Check out this video by NWP Writing Support Specialist Teevin Fournier (2023) for more about reading journal articles
You can use the timestamps below to help navigate the video if you have specific questions:
0:00 Intro
0:20 Know your reason
1:22 Active reading
3:15 Common sections
3:40 How to approach or read
9:40 Keep track of sources
11:17 Further resources and wrap up
Attribution
Unless otherwise stated, this material was created by Claire Pienaar for the NWP Learning Commons in November 2021. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY NC SA 4.0 International License.
All icons on these pages are from The Noun Project. See individual icons for creator attribution.