Reading Scholarly Articles

During your studies at Trent many of your course instructors will be asking you to use scholarly articles for your research. It will be your responsibility to learn:

• what they are;
• how to find them;
• how to recognize them;
• how to read them; and
• how to use them in your research papers.

This page will help you with all these things.

What are scholarly articles?

Put simply, scholarly articles are articles written by scholars, covering a subject in the author's area of expertise, and published in journals, usually following a "peer-review" process.

The scholars are most often University professors, such as those teaching your courses. As well as teaching, professors are usually expected to actively pursue research in their subject area. They complete original research, write papers, and give presentations at international conferences. Their articles are published in academic (scholarly) journals.

A journal is an academic version of a magazine. Journals come in issues, which are sent to our Library on a regular basis (usually monthly). Several issues make up a volume (usually a year's worth). Our library subscribes to over 30,000 journals, which are constantly publishing new issues. Most of our subscriptions are for online journals, which we access over the internet without ever seeing a hard-copy (paper) issue.

The "peer-review" process ensures that no research or paper is automatically accepted as valid. Before it is published, several scholars in the subject area read the article and agree that it is worthy of publication. Unlike the Internet, where anyone can publish anything, scholarly journals strive to publish only legitimate, new research of interest to scholars.

How do you find scholarly articles?

This is something that takes a while to figure out. There isn't one easy way of finding all articles written on any topic. The method varies with the subject and topic you are researching, the depth of your research, and your familiarity with library resources.

Generally, an index is the gateway to journal literature. An index is an online database of article descriptions. When you want to find an article on a topic, you use an index to find out which journals have published articles of interest. Then you use your library catalogue to find out whether or not your library subscribes to the journals in question. It's a process that takes time and thought.

Almost all indexes are online, so if you have good keyword searching skills, you can find information about articles quickly. Online indexes often (but not always) link to the online articles, too. But they can only get you the articles for which you have legal online access, and those are usually the journals our library subscribes to. We subscribe to over 30,000 journals online, but not to everything. A few journals are in print, and you need to get them off the library shelves. Some journals just aren't available because we don't subscribe to them at all. You can still get these articles using RACER, but it takes a little more time.

Scholarly articles aren't easily located by using an Internet search engine such as Google. That's because the articles are only available to people or institutions who have subscribed to them, and Google can't provide access to them. (See more information about using Google.) The Trent Library spends over half a million dollars each year to obtain access to online articles and their indexes, and you will only have access to them as long as you are a student here. You'll even need to use the Proxy Server if you're not working on a campus computer.

There's a tutorial in the Library Skills Program that explains how to use indexes to find articles. You'll probably need to learn about using indexes in your first or second year of study at Trent.

How do you recognize scholarly articles?

There's an art to recognizing legitimate scholarly articles. Think of J-A-B-s-a to remember what to look for:

• Journal: Is it scholarly?
• Author: Is s/he a scholar?
• Bibliography: Is there a significant list of relevant references provided?
• Source: Did you find out about this article from a scholarly source?
• Abstract: Does the abstract describe authentic research?

See our tutorial about recognizing scholarly article with J-A-B-s-a. It provides more detail and examples on each of these criteria.

How do you read scholarly articles?

Scholarly articles are written for scholars to read, so they are NOT light reading. They are usually many pages long and complex. You need practice. The more you read them, the easier it gets.

1. Look for an abstract. It gives you a brief explanation of what the article covers. This helps you know if it's relevant to your topic. If it is, you still need to read the article for the details.
2. Look for a structure to the article. If it describes a study, you should see sections for:
   • a literature review, which explains what's already known about the topic;
   • a methodology, which explains how the study was carried out;
   • results, which include statistics and charts;
   • discussion, which interprets the results; and
   • conclusions, which tie in these results with what's already known and what still needs to be investigated.

   If it's not a study, it may be a review article, an interpretation, or analysis. They will still be structured and organized.

3. As you are reading, look for ways to tie in what you read with what you already know. This is how learning develops.
4. Look at the bibliography. It's full of ideas for other papers, books, and resources you might want to consult to further develop your understanding and research.

Trent's Academic Skills Centre has a guide for "Reading Critically and Efficiently". Take a look at it for further help.

There are 4 examples of scholarly articles on Reserve at the library that you can look at to see what they're like. They are available online or in print, so you can access them from home or in the library. Find them using TOPCAT, the library catalogue. They are listed under the fictitious course LIBR100, with Jean Luyben as the instructor. (This is also good practice in finding Reserve items in the library.)

The articles are:

"Effect of the Web on Undergraduate Citation Behavior : Building Student Scholarship in a Networked Age" by Philip M. Davis.

"Investigating the Practices of Student Researchers : Patterns of Use and Criteria for Use of Internet and Library Sources" by Vicki Tolar Burton and Scott A. Chadwick

"University Students' Perceptions of the Internet : An Exploratory Study" by Joann E. D'Esposito and Rachel M. Gardner.

"Information Illiterate or Lazy : How College Students Use the Web for Research" by Christen Thompson.

How do you use scholarly articles in your papers?

You can't use someone else's ideas as your own - that's called plagiarism. When you read papers and books, you get good ideas from them. Your responsibility in writing your paper, is to thread together those ideas in a cohesive way and come up with theories of your own. Always acknowledge where the ideas came from originally, using quotes and references in your paper. You'll see that done all the time in the scholarly articles you're reading. For more information on avoiding plagiarism, see the University's webpage on Academic Integrity.

Your course instructors will outline what referencing style you are expected to use for your classes. There are many different styles, and each is very specific. Buying a copy of the Trent Academic Skills Department's Notes on the Preparation of Essays in the Arts and Sciences will make referencing your papers much easier for you, and it is highly recommended. There are also several online sites to help you with referencing: see our webpage on Citation Guides. The publications of the various styles (Chicago Manual of Style, APA, MLA, etc.) are kept at the Library, but you may need to keep your own copy nearby.

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Last Modified: March 28, 2012
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