How to read a journal article quickly

Script of video:

Scholarly journal articles often contain different sections, including an abstract, introduction, literature review, main body, discussion, conclusion, and bibliography and/or references. 

However, in order to save time and understand what the author is trying to say more quickly, it’s more efficient to hop around the article in a different order. 

Start with the abstract. An abstract is like a menu description that tells you what to expect from the article. 

Next, jump down to the end of the article and read the discussion and conclusion. These sections sum up the article. Reading the end of a journal article early won't spoil it for you;  it will help you decide whether you want to commit to the article and invest any more time in reading the whole thing. 

At this point, if the article seems like it might be relevant,  hop back to the beginning of the article and read the introduction. The introduction will reveal how the author is planning to approach the subject. 

By now, you should have a good feel for what the article is about, and you will find that the body of the article will include the finer details of the research. This section of the article may be organized by headings such as "methodology", "results", and "data".

The literature review section helps to position this new research into an existing context by revealing the other research that has been published on the topic.

At this point, if you still think that the article is relevant to your research, re-read the entire article a second time in chronological order.  Reading the article twice will ensure that you have a full understanding of the article and the author's message. 

While you're reading any article, ask yourself these questions:

What specific topic is the researcher studying?

What is already known about the this topic?

Do you agree with what the author is saying?

Does what the author says agree with other information you have found on this topic?

Finding answers to these questions will improve your comprehension of the article and help you to think critically about the topic.

Last, but not least, the bibliography or list of references will help you track down more relevant sources for your research.  

If you need more help with any of these strategies, visit one of our Research Help Desks.

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You might skim when you are...

• ...jumping to specific parts such as the introduction or conclusion;
• ...going over the whole text fairly quickly without reading every word;

Skim-reading, or speed-reading, is about reading superficially to get a gist rather than a deep understanding. You're looking to get a feel for the content and the way the topic is being discussed.

Skim-reading is easier to do if the text is in a language that's very familiar to you, because you will have more of an awareness of the conventions being employed and the parts of speech and writing that you can gloss over. Not only will there be whole sections of a text that you can pretty-much ignore, but also whole sections of paragraphs. For instance, the important sentence in this paragraph is the one right here where I announce that the important part of the paragraph might just be one sentence somewhere in the middle. The rest of the paragraph could just be a framework to hang around this point in order to stop the article from just being a list.

However, it may more often be that the important point for your purposes comes at the start of the paragraph. Very often a paragraph will declare what it's going to be about early on, and will then start to go into more detail. Maybe you'll want to do some closer reading of that detail, or maybe you won't. If the first paragraph makes it clear that this paragraph isn't going to be of much use to you, then you can probably just stop reading it. Or maybe the paragraph meanders and heads down a different route at some point in the middle. But if that's the case then it will probably end up summarising that second point towards the end of the paragraph. You might therefore want to skim-read the last sentence of a paragraph too, just in case it offers up any pithy conclusions, or indicates anything else that might've been covered in the paragraph!

For example, this paragraph is just about the 1980s TV gameshow "Treasure Hunt", which is something completely irrelevant to the topic of how to read an article. "Treasure Hunt" saw two members of the public (aided by TV newsreader Kenneth Kendall) using a library of books and tourist brochures to solve a series of five clues (provided, for the most part, by TV weather presenter Wincey Willis). These clues would generally be hidden at various tourist attractions within a specific county of the British Isles. The contestants would be in radio contact with a 'skyrunner' (Anneka Rice) who had a map and the use of a helicopter (piloted by Keith Thompson). Solving a clue would give the contestants the information they needed to direct the skyrunner (and her crew of camera operator Graham Berry and video engineer Frank Meyburgh) to the location of the next clue, and, ultimately, to the 'treasure' (a token object such as a little silver brooch). All of this was done against the clock, the contestants having only 45' to solve the clues and find the treasure. This, necessarily, required the contestants to be able to find relevant information quickly: they would have to select the right book from the shelves, and then navigate that text to find the information they needed. This, inevitably, involved a considerable amount of skim-reading. So maybe this paragraph was slightly relevant after all? No, probably not...

Skim-reading, then, is all about picking out the bits of a text that look like they need to be read, and ignoring other bits. It's about understanding the structure of a sentence or paragraph, and knowing where the important words like the verbs and nouns might be. You'll need to take in and consider the meaning of the text without reading every single word...

Approaches to skim-reading articles:

1. Pick out the most relevant information from the title and abstract – What type of article is it? What are the concepts? What are the findings?;
2. Scan through the article and note the headings to get an understanding of structure;
3. Look more closely at the illustrations or figures;
4. Read the conclusion;
5. Read the first and last sentences in a paragraph to see whether the rest is worth reading.

After skimming, you may still decide to reject the text, or you may identify sections to read in more detail.

Before writing an academic paper, especially a PhD dissertation or thesis, one is required to read hundreds and hundreds of journal papers. This helps the student understand the intellectual debate in his topic of study as well as identify the existing gaps that are yet to be addressed.

Given the time constraints that PhD students face, the question that begs an answer is: should a student read each journal article word-for-word, sentence-by-sentence? Or is it OK to skip some sections? How to read journal papers quickly and effectively is one of the major concerns for PhD students.

There are two main reading strategies for academic papers and specifically for journal research papers that this article will discuss.

Structure of journal papers

Most journal papers are structured in a similar way:

• The first page has: the title of the journal paper, the authors, the bibliographical details (journal name, issue number, volume number, and date of publication), the keywords of the journal paper, and the abstract of the paper.
• The introduction section comes next.
• The methods section.
• The results section.
• The discussion section.
• The conclusion section.
• Some journal papers may also have a limitations section.
• Lastly, the reference list section.

Recommended reading strategy for novice students

The reading strategy used by PhD students will depend on the stage of research the student is at.

For a complete novice, it is advisable to start reading journal papers in the order in which the sections appear, that is, starting from the title to the abstract, the introduction, the methods, results, discussion, and lastly to the conclusion section.

The purpose of this reading strategy is two-fold:

• to help a new student learn the flow of information in a journal paper
• to understand the purpose that each section in the journal paper serves

After reading several journal papers and understanding the above two main points, the student can start using the second reading strategy described below. This reading strategy is considered to be the most effective and efficient in that it saves readers time and they are able to get the most important information from a journal paper.

Effective reading strategy for experienced students

Step 1: Read the title of the paper

At a glance, the title can give a reader some bits of information such as the variables of the study, the method used, the population of study, some results of the study. These details can tell a reader if the paper is relevant and worth reading or not.

If the title of the journal article shows some relevance, the reader should proceed to the abstract section.

The image below shows a sample of dissection of the title of a journal paper written by Gichu et al. (2018):

Step 2: Read the abstract

The abstract is a summary of the journal paper and contains information such as: the purpose of the study (why the study was conducted), the methods used in the study (how the study was conducted), the findings (results) of the study and conclusions from the results (the interpretation of the findings).

After reading this section, determine if the paper is relevant for your own research. If it is not, you may decide to stop reading at this point. If it is relevant, proceed to the discussion section.

Step 3: Read the introduction section

The purpose of the introduction section is two-fold:

• To stimulate the interest of the readers.
• To place the study in a broader context.

The most important parts of the introduction section are the background to the study, and the aims and objectives/research questions of the study.

After reading this section, you need to understand why the study was conducted in the first place, and how it fits into your study.

Step 4: Read the discussion section

The discussion section provides detailed responses to the research questions of the paper.

It also discusses how the study findings support (or contradict) previous studies conducted by other researchers on the same topic.

You do not need to read this section in depth, you can scan through and pick out the key issues that are relevant to your study.

Step 5: Read the results section

The results section may or may not have different sub-sections each discussing a specific finding. Read the subtitles to pick out the main findings from the study.

Next look at the tables, graphs and statistics and see if they support the discussions and answer the research questions.

Step 6: Lastly, read the methods section if necessary

This section is often the most difficult to read hence it is advisable to read last, if need be.

The methods section highlights the experiments (or research methodology) that were used, and how data was collected and analysed.

You can skip this section altogether or skim through quickly to take note of any important point that you can borrow for your study. Unless you intend to replicate the study, it is not necessary to read this section in depth.

Other important things to do while reading academic papers

Take notes while you read

Effective note-taking skills are important when reading academic papers. Taking short notes serves three main purposes:

• It helps you have a clear understanding of the paper. This is especially the case if you can take the notes without referring to the paper.
• It helps you avoid plagiarism if you can write the notes in your own words. Additionally, you can note some direct quotes which are relevant for your own study.
• It saves you time when you start writing your paper because you do not need to go back to the paper and read it again.

While taking the notes, also include the citation so that it will be easier to include the bibliography after you are done writing the paper. Most reference management softwares such as Zotero and Mendley can insert the bibliographies automatically.

Conduct reference mining

Reference mining, also called citation chaining, is a very useful technique for identifying other papers and articles that are relevant to your study and that you may have missed when searching for literature.

Each academic paper or journal paper has a reference list at the end. After reading the paper, look at the reference list and highlight all the references that may be relevant to your study.

Then search for the highlighted articles from journal databases and include them in your references library.

Conclusion

As a PhD student, you will read hundreds of journal papers and other academic articles in order to produce a high-quality dissertation. Reading journal papers quickly and effectively is a skill that develops over time. Not every detail in a journal paper should be read. What is important is information that is relevant to a student’s own research.

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