For the updated version of this slideshow, link here: https://www.slideshare.net/khornberger/articles-from-scholarly-journals-peer-reviewed This slideshow helps researchers pinpoint the most useful information within a peer reviewed resource from a scholarly journal for their personal research.

1. Karen Hornberger
Library Media Specialist @ Palisades High School
Dissecting a
Peer Reviewed
Article from a
Scholarly
Journal

2. Peer reviewed articles from scholarly
journals can be very long and
intimidating
Did you know that you can focus
your reading and guide yourself to
important features within these
articles?
The following slides will help you
pinpoint the information from
any peer reviewed article from a
scholarly journal that will be the
most useful to your research…

3. First, locate one useful peer reviewed article from a
scholarly journal by reading abstracts for any that
might look helpful.
We use Advanced Placement Source as our
scholarly journal database:
Search: search.ebscohost.com
Provide: our username and password
Select: EBSCOhost Web
Select: Advanced Placement Source
During your search, select: Full Text and
Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals

4. Now locate the graphic organizer for
scholarly journal articles.
Here is a tiny url for you, if the
link above does not work:
http://tinyurl.com/jzwhv42

5. Step 1
– Record each of your main points/topics from within your thesis
statement in the Keywords from abstract which align to thesis
statement or outline section in the graphic organizer.
– Read the abstract once again and circle the main points from your
thesis statement or outline that you feel this article will support.
You can cross out any of the main points that the article will not
support. This allows you to identify which areas of your research
this article will help you with.
Note: If the article
doesn’t appear to fit the
scope of your research
and you LOVE this
article, you may want to
adjust your thesis
statement to include it.
Otherwise – discard this
article and look for
another.

6. Step 2
– On the graphic organizer, fill out the article title, journal title,
author name(s) and author(s) point of view/field of work
sections. If there is no author, it may be an organization.
Note: You can answer “point of view” by looking at the name
of the journal (for instance, is it a medical journal, with a
medical point of view? Is it a business journal, with a business
point of view?)
This will help you NOW
by understanding what
audience this
information was written
for.
This may help you
LATER, if you are
annotating your
bibliography and want
to explain that your
sources offer various
viewpoints that are
unique to each other.

7. Step 3
– If you will be expected to annotate your bibliography, look to the
author (or organization) biography at the end (or beginning) of the
article. Record important information about the author (or
organization’s) qualifications in the Achievements/Employment of
Author(s) section of the graphic organizer.
– Follow up with a Google Search to add to that information and add
any extra important details that you can find into the same section
of the graphic organizer.

8. Step 4
– Now you can jump straight to the conclusion of the article (there
may be a section heading indicating that it is the conclusion or it
may just be the final paragraph(s) of the article).
– Read the conclusion carefully and closely; record any important
statements that you can extract from the conclusion in the
General/broad statements to be made from the conclusion
section.
Additionally, you
might want to
record which
specific topic
heading each
statement
supports, to
help you
organize the
information.

9. Step 5
– Has the author made any predictions on how this information may
change in the future? If so, record these under:
Has the author made any predictions within the conclusion?

10. Step 6
– Have you run into any difficult vocabulary? Often in scholarly
journal articles, the authors use career specific jargon that can be
new to you. It is important that you learn what these words mean
so that you can comprehend the article.
– Record the word with a quick definition and/or a synonym in the
Jargon/Vocabulary to familiarize myself with section of the
graphic organizer.
Return to this
section of the
graphic organizer
whenever you
need to, so that
you can continue
to work with
difficult
vocabulary.

11. Step 7
– Now look through the article and find any sections that you plan to
ignore. There may be a methodology section or a limitations
section which will be of no use to you.
– You can even go as far as to make a copy of the article and black
these sections out for yourself to help you eliminate them and
help you focus on areas that you want to pay attention to.

12. Step 8
– Read each of the remaining sections within the article and record
the useful information from within (in your own words or using
direct quotations) into the Helpful quantitative (numbers,
statistics) information, the Helpful qualitative (beliefs/feelings)
information, the Inferences I have made while reading, or the
Important facts from this article sections.
If the article was very
qualitative or
quantitative, you may
want to make note of
this for your
annotated
bibliography.

13. Step 9
– Finally, in the Predictions/projections (long or short term) that I
can make based upon this information box, record how you feel
that this information may impact the world or a particular region
or community in the near or distant future.
– You may want to integrate that into your writing later on and it will
help you make predictions based upon certain trends that you
have noticed or research that has been conducted.

14. Congratulations!
Now you have properly dissected a challenging article. Consider
these articles often, as they tend be very informative!
Remember, no ONE article ever stands on its own during research, it
is the collection of articles that you will gather that, together, will
serve as the foundation to your research.
Good luck!