Identifying Attributes

By the end of this library assignment, you will be able to:

• identify the attributes of a scholarly article,

• comprehend the purpose of those attributes,

• and gain a preliminary understanding of the article.

During your time at school, you will be expected to use scholarly articles in classroom discussions and when writing research papers. This tutorial will help you effectively read articles in the history and certain interdisciplinary fields.

Sometimes it can be challenging to tell the differences between various types of articles, especially if you are finding and using them online. Journals can focus on one discipline or span several disciplines (interdisciplinary).

If you are using the article in your own research or paper, you will want to take note of the full citation information—author, article title, journal title, issue and volume, date published, page numbers.

In preparation for reading a scholarly article in the humanities or interdisciplinary studies, it is helpful to glance over the article and locate several key features or attributes, which are introduced below.

Noting and considering these attributes doesn't take a lot of time, but will provide context for the article you’ll be reading.

Attributes commonly found in humanities and interdisciplinary articles may include:

• Abstract

• Author

• Title

• Acknowledgments/Notes

• Journal information

• Images/Figures

• References