Tips for Reading Essays and Popular Articles 

As a rule, the goal of the author of an essay is to get readers to understand their viewpoint and/ or connect with them emotionally. The goal of an article is to inform readers about an event, situation, person or idea. Unless an essay or article is really long, try to simply take notes on the document itself– i.e. write in the margins or on sticky notes you place next to information you want to mark. If the essay or article is in electronic form and you don’t want to print it, see if you can use an online note-taking app of some kind.

Step 1: As you read the essay or article, mark the following types of information:

1. Things that confuse you (places where you aren’t sure what the point is)
2. Places where it seems the author is making an important conclusion
3. Places where it seems the author is justifying or providing reasons for their conclusion
4. Any sentences that give you clues about the structure of the article. Below are examples:
   • Number sentences:  i.e. “There are three reasons by we should change XYZ law . . . .” Sentences like this tell readers that the author will likely list and discuss each reason.
   • Comparison sentences: “Similar to,” “different from” or “There are important similarities/ differences between X and Y” indicate that an author’s purpose is to compare and contrast two or more things.
   • Cause/ Effect: “X caused Y” or “X led to Y . . .” shows that the author’s purpose is to show how one thing caused another.
   • Process: “The first step is to . . . . .” or “The first thing that needs to happen is  . . .”indicates that the author wants you to understand process. 
5. Anything that reminds you of another source you are reading for class.
6. Anything that touches you personally because you can relate to it

Step 2: Come up with a color coding or a symbol system for each type of information above. For example, if something confused you, put a question mark by it. If something seems to be an important conclusion, write “conclusion” beside it, etc. Or, if you like colors, highlight all confusing things in yellow, all conclusions in pink, etc. 

Step 3: When you are done reading the essay or article ask yourself this question: “What major conclusion or conclusions does this author come to?” and/or “What do they want to persuade readers to believe or do?”

Once you’ve answered the question that seems the best fit for your article, make a list of reasons why you believe this is the author’s main conclusion. Here is a made-up example: let’s say you read an article that makes the point that American school lunches are very unhealthy compared to the school lunches offered in other parts of the world and that has led to a series of health and behavior issues for school children. You could write something like this:

Main Conclusion: American School lunches are unhealthy compared to many other countries and this has led to health issues.

Reasons the author gives to support this conclusion:

• America spends less on school lunches than other countries, which results in low quality foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
• American children have higher rates of obesity than children in other countries.
• American children suffer in greater numbers from behavioral problems than children in other parts of the world.
• These behavior problems can be linked to diet.

Tips for Reading Scholarly Articles 

Scholarly articles have unique features and a unique function. As you already learned, they are hard to read because they are written for a professional audience. However, it helps to read these challenging articles if you understand how they work. Scholarly articles have a certain structure—and you can use it to help you figure out what the article is doing. In the next pages, you will read about the structure of these articles as well as suggestions about how to read each part.

The first step in successfully reading a scholarly article is to give yourself enough time. Even a short scholarly article might take longer to read than you think it will. If you think you can read a scholarly article in just an hour or two, rethink that. Give yourself opportunities to read the article in stages, and even read it multiple times.

Parts of a Scholarly Article

Most scholarly articles have distinct parts. Some common parts are:

•  The title
• The abstract (A short paragraph at the beginning that summarizes both the studies the authors did and what they learned from them
• The introduction
• Methods (Descriptions of studies or experiments the authors conducted)
• Discussion/ Conclusion (The authors sum up what they learned and why what they learned is important)

Step 1: Read the Title

Scholarly articles sometimes have long titles and words you don’t know. If you don’t know the words in the title, look them up—and make sure to read all the definitions of the word since sometimes a word means something in “regular English” but something else in a scholarly article.

Next, re-write the title in “plain English.”

Step 2: Read the Abstract

Most scholarly articles have an abstract– a paragraph-long summary at the very beginning of the article, usually labelled “abstract.” It includes information about what the authors hoped to learn, how they went about learning it and what their major conclusions were. The reason authors write abstracts is so that other researchers can read that one paragraph and decide whether or not they want to read the entire article.

Read the abstract, and when you are done, do the following:

• Make a statement about what you will learn in the article
• Write two questions you expect/hope the article will answer
• Write between 1 and 5 words you think you need to know the definition of in order to understand this article
• If possible, compare your ideas about what will be in the article with a classmate.

Step 3: Read the Introduction

Most scholarly article have an introduction—and the point of the introduction is usually to do two things:

• Summarize a bunch of research on the topic. The author of the article does this so you can see them as an expert who has done a lot of research, and also to sum up in a few pages what the current research on that topic is.
• Explain why the scholarly article is important. Authors usually write something to help you understand how their article fits into the research. For example, let’s say that you are reading an article written by authors who are researching how social media affects children. Let’s say the researchers notice there is a ton of research about how social media can harm teen girls’ self-images, but they notice very little research has been done on younger children, so they have decided to study girls who are 8-10 years old. They will explain in their introduction that their research matters because it focuses on a group that has not been studied very much.

Do the following while you read the introduction:

• Underline or highlight three to five things you find interesting
• Put a star next to three to five sentences/ paragraphs you think get at a main idea
• Mark ANY words, sentences, phrases, etc. that help you understand the article’s purpose or help you understand the structure of the article. Here are examples of what to look for:
  • Sentences that give numbers: i.e. “There are three reasons why XYZ happens . . . “ or “this research explores the four reasons why students prefer online learning.”
  • Sentences that suggest a shift in thought: i.e. “For decades, educators have believed that suspending students is an effective way to punish them, but new research proves that it is harmful to students.” Or “The idea behind suspending students is that suspension will make them want to behave better, however, the opposite is often true.”
  • Words to look for include “but,” “however,” “in conclusion,” “on the contrary,” “on the other hand,” “in addition to.”

Step 4: Read the Rest of the Article

By now, you are probably at the “methods” or “methodology” section of the article. Different authors will use different titles, but usually, the section of a scholarly article that is just after the introduction focuses on how the authors did their research. There may be many subheadings in this section, and those will vary widely by the article, so focus on what the author’s purpose is in this part of the article.

Let’s pretend you are reading an article called “Rethinking School Suspension: Is the Punishment Worse Than the Crime?” The author of the article is arguing that suspending students from school is not a good way to punish misbehaving students. (Note: while there maybe research on this topic, this particular article is made up). There are three basic ways the methods or methodology sections can be set up. They are described below:

• The authors might describe and summarize qualitative studies the author(s) did themselves—Qualitative means that the author relies on non-numerical information (interviews, open-ended survey questions, journal entries written by the people who are being studied, observations) to make a conclusion or recommendation. If the author of our fictional article on school suspension interviewed suspended students or the educators who suspended them, that would be an example of a qualitative study. As you examine this section of your article, does it seem the author relied on interviews or open-ended survey questions?

• The authors might describe and summarize quantitative studies the author(s) did themselves. Quantitative means numbers. If the author focuses on quantitative research, they will determine what percentage of students who are suspended a certain number of days out of the school year earn low GPA’s, or don’t graduate from High School at all. They might explore if students who end up on suspension go on to get into more serious trouble, and, if so, what percentage and what kind of trouble– and they will use data to make their point. As you read your article, do you see lots of statistics? Some scholarly articles have several pages of data. If you haven’t had statistics, you won’t understand it. Don’t stare at it endlessly—staring at data won’t make it clearer. Get what you can out of it and move on.

• Summarizes a ton of research done by others, then makes a recommendation. Some scholarly articles don’t contain any studies the authors did themselves—rather, they use research already done. For example, a scholarly article about why suspending misbehaving students is a bad idea will summarize many articles or studies that explain why suspension harms students and how other ways of dealing with misbehaving students is better. If an article has summaries of other people’s research, it is called a literature review, which might be a confusing term since you probably associate literature with novels, poems and short stories.

Look through your article and decide if it seems to be mostly qualitative, quantitative or a summary of lots of other research. After reading it, what does the author basically seem to be saying?

Step 5 Read the General Discussion

At the end of the article, you will see a heading that might say “Discussion” or “Conclusions” or “Recommendations.” These sections of the article sum up the author(s) main points. Here is the type of information you will find in these sections:

• Major conclusions of the research or experiments.
• Things the author(s) would do differently if they had an opportunity to do more research or do the experiment again.
• Explanations of how this article fits into what else is being said about this topic. For example, if authors researched how nitrates affect ponds in northern Minnesota, but in their research, they find that most studies focus on lakes, they would explain that their research adds to our understanding of nitrates in different kinds of water sources.
• Ideas the author(s) have about what should be done now that we know what we know. For example, if authors were researching why students don’t complete college and 60% of non-completers they interviewed said they would have continued with college if they had more money, then the authors might recommend that schools do a better job helping students understand and get financial aid.

As you read these last paragraphs of the article, write down five statements/ conclusions the author(s) is making about this topic. If it helps, think of it like this: If you had to summarize the main ideas of this article for someone who hadn’t read it, what would you say?

4.4: Ideas for Using Reading Resources

If You Are A Tutor . . .

• With your student, read through the “Warm Up, Work Out, Cool Down Reading Steps” and talk to your students about which activities would be most helpful for them. Help them create a written plan that lists the activity or activities they chose for each step. When they return for a second meeting, ask them which activities they found useful, which ones weren’t and whether/ how they would like to change their reading activities in the future.
• Prepare to address how reading “works.” Many students will argue that Pre-reading and Cooling Down waste time—they simply need to get reading done. If your student says this, explain that pre-reading saves time because it helps them decide what is important and what to take notes on. The cool down makes information “stick” so they are less likely to need to re-read. Explain that their brain is like a potted plant. Plants need water, but if you pour too much water in at once, the water is wasted—it runs over the side of the pot or out the drain holes at the bottom since the soil can only absorb so much water. Their brain is like the soil. It can only hold so much information. If they keep dumping concepts into it, those concepts will “overflow” (be forgotten) and need to be re-learned. The cool down is one way to prevent this from happening.
• If your students are reading things that aren’t textbooks, use whatever is useful from this chapter in creating a specific reading plan for your students that includes a schedule– i.e. how many pages a day they will read, and goals i.e. using the notetaking strategies they learned about in this chapter.

If You Are Faculty . . .