Reading and Citing
How to Read a Scientific Article
Don't try to read the entire article, from start to finish, all at once. Instead, take a step-by-step approach.
- Read the abstract. The abstract is a brief summary of the article. It should give you an overview of what the paper is about and what the authors' research accomplished. If the content of the paper does not seem to meet your expectations and will not help you answer your questions, you may want to choose another article.
- Skim the article. Look at the section headings and any figures or tables, taking time to read the captions.
- Go back and carefully read the entire article, section by section. Write down any questions you have about the article while you're reading it; that way, you can see if the authors answer your questions later in the article. Focus on the Introduction, Results, and Conclusion, and don't get bogged down in the Methods section.
Note: Look up any words that you don't understand. Use a science dictionary for scientific terms. If you still don't understand some concepts in the article, even after reading it several times, ask your instructor for help.
Pechenik JA. c2001. A short guide to writing about biology. 4th ed. Boston (MA): Longman. 318 p.
Elements of a Scientific Article
The title of the article, the authors' names, and the authors' addresses are usually the first prominent parts of the article.
The authors' addresses are provided to show their affiliation with a particular research institution and allow other scientists to contact them regarding their research:
The abstract is a paragraph summarizing the content of the article. Read the abstract first to see if the article will be useful to your research.
The introduction presents the research question being asked. It explains the context of the research and often discusses previous work that was done on the topic.
The methods section (sometimes called materials and methods) discusses how the research was conducted. It explains what materials were used and what procedures were followed to perform an experiment.
This section presents the results of the research. The information is often presented in a table or chart format and show statistical calculations performed on the data.
In the conclusion, the authors explain how the results of their research have addressed their research question. They may suggest where further research is needed.
The references section presents publications that the author cited in his or her work. Read the articles the author has cited to find out more about your topic.
One of the most important aspects of the research process is evaluating the quality of sources to determine their reliability and usefulness. Depending on the topic of your research, you will encounter many types of potential resources, including books, articles and websites. But not everything that you find on your topic will be suitable.
The following resources will help you evaluate the quality of a source:
- Evaluating Information Tutorial from UNC-CH Libraries. It discusses the criteria for evaluating books, articles, and websites, and includes helpful checklists.
- Evaluating Resources from the Duke University Libraries lists criteria for evaluating resources.
- The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources From New Mexico State University; this guide includes links to examples of both "good" and "bad" websites.
- How to Critically Analyze Information Sources from Cornell University. A quick guide to help you determine the relevance and authority of a resource.
- Evaluating Information Found on the Internet from Johns Hopkins University Library. A useful guide to evaluating web and other Internet resources for scholarly purposes.
As you write your assignment or paper, you'll be using information that you obtained from other sources and integrating it into your work. When you use someone else's words or ideas (or their pictures, charts, etc.) in your work, you must give credit to that author by citing the original source of the information. For information on how to cite, please see our Citing Information Tutorial.