This short powerpoint helps new university students to understand how academic journal articles are structured, and ways that they can quickly and effectively make sense of an article.

1. UNDERSTANDING
JOURNAL ARTICLES
FALL 2011
PREPARED BY CELIA EMMELHAINZ
NAZARBAYEV UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

2. OVERWHELMED?
• We’ve heard many students ask for “shorter
articles” when researching a topic. Are you also
overwhelmed with 25-page journal articles?
Don’t be!
• You don’t have to read every word in an article, but
you do need to understand how articles work and
which sections are most important.
• In this presentation we’ll discuss a sample journal
article, so you can read and understand an article
quickly!

3. CITATIONS
• This is important if you decide to use any info from
the article in your paper. Make sure you cite the
article (in this case, Mehrotra 2011) in your text so
that you don’t get in trouble for plagiarizing.
Full info for the
article is often in
small print at the
top or bottom of
the first page:

4. ABSTRACTS
• Each article varies, but most have some
combination of these elements:
• Abstract: A 100-200 word overview of the article, and may
tell you the argument or conclusions.
• Read carefully; if it doesn’t sound related to your paper topic,
this may not be the article you want!

5. INTRO AND BACKGROUND
• Introduction: tells why article is important and gives some
history on the topic.
• At the end of this section there should be a paragraph
with the main results of the article, plus an outline of the
rest of the article! Very useful!
• See next slide!
• Previous Literature/Background: This may be included in
the introduction, and will cite other research on the topic.
• Good if you’re looking for more articles on the same
subject!

6. ARTICLE INTRODUCTION: EXAMPLE
• See this? The author tells us the main point of his
article, then says how he’ll defend it in the rest of
the article!

7. DATA AND RESULTS
• Methods/Data/Results. If the author did new research, here
they say how they did it and what results they got.
• This is only important if you’re specifically interested in their
study. Not for a short research paper.
• Analysis (or) Discussion. The author analyses or discusses
their results.
• Also useful only if you need to understand their research and
conclusions in depth. Not as useful for a basic research paper.

8. CONCLUSION
• Conclusion: A well-written conclusion will quickly sum up the
arguments of the author and may also talk about the issues
in general.
• A very important section! If you are going to read an article,
make sure you look at the end of the discussion and the
conclusion!

9. REVIEW
• If you only have a short amount of time to look at an article,
make sure you look at the abstract, introduction, and
conclusion.
• The beginning and end of each section or paragraph can also
help you understand what the authors say.
• Read all of the best articles on your topic, but its okay to
skim the less relevant articles to learn the basics about
them.
• And don’t be threatened by long articles! A few good
articles can give you a lot of information to discuss in your
papers.

10. QUESTIONS?