How to Read a Sociological Journal Article
Professor Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur
When you start reading a scholarly journal article, you
should begin by reading the abstract.
Almost all scholarly journal articles have abstracts; these are 100-200 word paragraphs
at the beginning of the article that will introduce you to the topic, methods,
and findings of the article. When you are doing your own research, the abstract
will tell you if the article in question is likely to be useful for your
project. When the article is assigned reading, the abstract is still
worthwhile—it provides signposts for what you will find inside.
When you have completed reading a sociological journal
article, you want to be able to answer a set of key questions about the content
and findings of the article.
1)
What is the topic of the article? If you were a
librarian or a bookstore owner and you had to place this article on the shelf,
how would you categorize it?
2)
What is the research question and/or hypothesis?
What does the author want to find out, and what does s/he expect to find? There
may well be more than one research question or hypothesis—be sure to locate
them all.
3)
What have prior researchers said about these
questions? How does the author propose to expand or improve on prior research?
4)
What methodological strategies did the author
use? There will often be a section called
methods, so look at that. In addition, you should identify where the data came
from. As you become more skilled in research methodology, you should take the time
to consider whether you think the methodology and data used in the article was
good, or whether there might have been better sampling strategies, data
sources, measurement strategies, or methodologies for the project at hand.
5)
What were the main findings of the research?
What was the answer to each research question, and was each hypothesis
confirmed or disconfirmed? Based on these findings, what sorts of arguments and
conclusions does the author make?
6)
What suggestions does the author make for future
research? If you are looking for a research project, this is always a good
place to turn for ideas!
7)
What sorts of limitations or shortcomings do you
find in the project? These might be methodological problems, ways in which you
disagree with the author’s interpretation of the data and findings, areas in
which the study could have been expanded, or any other issues. Sometimes the
author will even identify some of these limitations her or himself.
8)
What can you take away from this article? How is
it connected to the research you are doing? How is it connected to the learning
goals for the course you’ve read it in? Why have you read it? How does it
contribute to an ongoing scholarly dialogue about a particular topic or issue.
Of course, sometimes articles really are not that useful. However, in most
cases you should be able to identify why the article matters and how it can be
useful to you. In research methods courses, you should particularly focus on
what the article can teach you about how to do research.
9)
If you are reading this article as part of a
research project, you should be sure to skim through the bibliography, keeping
in mind what you read in the literature review. Are there any references that
might be worth getting your hands on?
As you read the article, you should take notes on key
elements of importance. I recommend that you avoid highlighting—the tendency when students highlight is to
highlight almost everything, because it all seems important (or on the other
hand to highlight nothing because the article is boring!). Instead, choose one
of the strategies below:
s
Take a separate sheet of paper or open a word
processing document and keep your notes in that document. Aim to write about
one type-written page or two hand-written pages of notes for your typical 20-30
page journal article—the same goes for textbook chapters! In your notes, write
a short summary of the article, any key insights the article suggested, ideas
about how this article might be useful for your learning or research, and
answers to the reading questions listed above.
s
Invest in some sticky notes, preferably the kind
you can write on and preferably in a variety of different colors. Flag key
insights with sticky notes and use different colors to indicate different sorts
of issues in the article. For instance, you might use yellow notes to mark
facts and findings, blue notes to mark places where you were confused or want
to know more, white notes to indicate main points and research methods, etc.
Because you can write on the notes, you can indicate what drew your attention
to this particular section, and you can also indicate which of the reading
questions this section answers.
s
If you must highlight: invest in a set of 5-6
different colored highlighters. Then, even if you have the tendency to over-highlight,
you can still quickly find the material you are looking for. For instance, you
might highlight the topic and research question in yellow, the methodological
strategies and data sources in green, the findings in blue, connections to past
or future research in purple, useful bibliographic sources in orange, and other
things worth noting in pink. If you highlight, don’t forget about taking notes!
You can write in the margin of the article to remind yourself why you
highlighted something, to ask questions or grapple with the text, or to record
insights that occurred to you while reading. In addition, you should write a
short summary of the article and how it relates to your learning and/or
research goals at the end of the article.
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If you are a more visual learner, you may want
to consider making diagrams to help you organize your thoughts, such as venn
diagrams, arrow diagrams of theoretical models, maps and timelines, or tables
with different categories.
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Finally, a time-saving tip: be sure to use your first time
through to record a complete bibliographic citation to the article. Articles
don’t always print out with all the bibliographic material on them, so use this
time to find any part of the citation that’s missing. If you take notes on separate
paper, include the bibliographic citation on that separate paper so you always
have it if you lose track of the original article. If you write down any
quotations or paraphrases, be sure to note the page numbers so you can include
them in the in-text citations as necessary—this is a key step in avoiding
plagiarism!
