Scholarly Articles and Active Reading

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When starting to write a research paper, scholars tend to read a lot of different articles. To do this effectively, scholars start by finding the readings they find most interesting and relevant to their topic. Then, they take a closer look at these through "active reading," or reading to intentionally interact with and understand the text.

Before reading:

• How do you focus best?

  • Make sure you're in a nice environment where you can spend some time with the text. Where do you like to read? You can try a spot at home or somewhere else, like the library, a coffee shop, or even the Writing Center. 

• What do you want to lear or take from the text?

  • Are you looking for more sources? Try looking at their literature review or citations for articles that stand out to you. 

  • What does their conclusion say about their research?

  • Are you comparing theis to another article? What sections match up?

  • Are you looking for facts and statistics, opinions on a debated topic, models for your paper, or theories you can use for your research?

• Are you reading to make your own research paper?

  • When developing research, scholars typically read others' texts to get an idea of how they want to write their own.

  • What sections and headings do you keep seeing?

    • How did the author break down their paper?

    • What are the titles of the headings?

    • Are there similar headings in the other articles you've read?

  • Take notes on the parts of the argument you think are interesting or useful for your paper. What would you put in your annotated bibliography?

    • Does it echo something from another paper?

    • Does it make you question something you haven't thought about or make a claim you don't entirely agree with?

  • Remember: Research is just a very long conversation. The articles you read are part of the conversation, and by making your own research, you're joining it, yourself. In your notes, try responding to the text as if you're talking to the author. 

• As you read (and re-read):

  • What are the key ideas and claims the author references or makes?

    • Does the author seem to agree? Do you agree?

    • Does the author question or challenge other's views?

    • Does the author identify a problem? Do they talk about solutions?

  • Engage with the text!

    • Rephrase: By putting what you've read into your own words, you are better able to remember and understand it. Try to identify key ideas and claims.

    • Respond: Check in with yourself as you read. Does a section resonate with you? Why? Does the reading make you think of something specific? Remember to talk back to the text as you go along, even as you use other skills, like rephrasing.

• After Reading:

  • Play with the author's ideas.

    • Repurpose: After reading the article, try to think about how your interests can apply to it. Try writing an explanation of how the reading does (or does not) apply to something else or how you could use it in another situation.

• Additional Tips:

  • Scholarly tests are often full of unexplained references to other texts, dense prose, and insider terms specific to the discipline. This can make them seem harder to understand, especially when you're reading about an unfamiliar discipline. 

    • Unexplained references: typically used as examples to support a claim.

      • Do you understand the claim on its own?

      • Look it up for addiotional clarity.

    • Dense prose: Sections that use very specific language to describe an idea.

      • Read a little further. Is there somewhere the ideas are repeated more clearly.

    • Specialist/insider terms: Common words used in specialized ways.

      • Do you need to define the term to understand the argument?

      • Can you find it in a specialized, discipline-specific dictionary?

      • Try "smurfing"

        • Mark the word as a "smurf" each time it shows up, then use context clues to understand the basic meaning after you see it a few times or after finishing the articles.

  • Other tools you can try:

    • Dual-response journaling

    • Mapping (function outline)

    • Freewriting

    • Conversation