Reading Research Articles Lesson 4b

Here is the Google Form for this lesson.

1.  Please cite your research here.  (author, title of article, title of journal, date)

2.  Where did you find your research article - did you use JSTOR? A journal page?  One of the research institutions I mentioned?  Or someplace else? 

ADVICE FOR READING JOURNAL ARTICLES

A.  Don't feel pressured to sit down and read the entire article from beginning to end.  Very few readers do this.  Instead, researchers bounce around the article to find what they are looking for.

B.  Don't be intimidated

Don't let the length of the journal article intimidate you, nor should you be intimidated by the loquaciousness of the author's writing.  Academic professors often use fancy jargon (like loquaciousness).  It makes the reading longer and sometimes confusing, but you can still understand what the researcher is getting at.  Especially if you understand the structure that I explain below.  Here is a funny example of how writing gets more complicated even though it says the same idea:

Simply put - read through the jargon and decipher what you can.  If necessary, look up the words you need to know to understand the main point, but don't be intimidated by the length or the wording of the article.

C. Understand the structure
Most of the research articles have a similar structure.  Once you understand the structure, it is easier to find what you need and make sense of the article.  Sometimes these sections will even be labeled for you.

Primary Source Structure for Sociological Research

Once you choose a specific article to read, note that most research articles have a format that looks like this:

  

Abstract - A summary before the actual article, usually in italics or set off from the actual article.  Not all articles have this, but most do. 

                                                         

Introduction - The beginning of the research explaining what the author set out to study and why it is important.  

                                               

Literature Review - This is often confused by students for being the actual research, but it is just a review of previous research that has been done.  This section might point out previous research that informs the author's research or shortcomings of the previous research that the author hopes to address.  Karen Sternheimer explains the literature review here on the Everyday Sociology blog.

Methods - This explains how the author gathered data.  It might include multiple methods such as surveys, ethnography, existing data, etc...

Data/Stats - The author will make sense of the data that they gathered.  For quantitative data, the analysis might be complex such as regression analysis,  or a discussion of p-value.  Don't let the complicated discussion of the statistics intimidate you.  You can make sense of the data without understanding all of the statistical jargon.

Conclusion - After the explanation of the methods and data, the author will summarize the data and make sense of it.  Finding this section will help you understand what the most important parts of the research was.  

Discussion/moving forward - This section is sometimes at the end of the article suggesting either future research or policy implications.

For more on how to read journal articles see this post.

Now, try to label each section (if they are not labeled already).  Understanding this structure should help you understand the research efficiently.     

3.  Did your article have all 7 sections that I explained above?  Were you able to find them?

Using the structure above, try to give a quick summary of the research.  You can jump around to the sections that are relevant to quickly discern what the research is about.  I recommend reading the abstract first (if there is one), otherwise try the introduction and conclusion.

4. Give a quick summary of the research.

Using your notes and/or my post from yesterday, examine both the general type of research and the specific method of research that the article uses.

5.  What general type of research is this and why?  (qualitative or quantitative or both?  Longitudinal?  Cross-sectional? Cross-cultural?

6.  Use the notes from yesterday and find the specific research method(s) that the researcher uses.  Which method(s) does the researcher use?  Explain a little about how they gathered their data.