Reading and note-taking

You won’t have time to read every source you find in full detail, so it’s important to use smart reading strategies to save time. These strategies help you understand your topic overall and focus on the important details when needed.

Navigating a journal article

Assessments often ask you to include academic research. Most of the time, this research comes from journal articles. Learning how to read these texts quickly is a useful skill. Most articles follow a similar format and use the same headings. This makes it easier to know which parts to focus on, so you don’t always need to read the whole article. Most articles have the following sections (though some of the headings might be slightly different):

Abstract (a summary of the article)

This is a short summary of the article. It includes how the research was done, what was found, and what the results might mean for the wider topic or field.

Read this:

• to quickly understand what the article is about. If it does not fit your assessment question, you can skip the rest of the article.

Introduction (why was the research done)

This section introduces the topic, explains why it matters, and shares the research question (what the authors are trying to find out) and the hypothesis (what they expect to find). It may also include a summary of past research and any background information that helps the reader understand the context of the research.

Read this:

• to understand why the research was done, what the authors were investigating, and to get an overview of the project
• together with the conclusion to get a quick summary of the article.

Literature Review/background (what is already known)

This section explains what other researchers have already discovered about the topic. This helps you understand the context of the study, common questions or problems in the field, and past findings that the current study builds on. Sometimes this section does not have a heading, but you can usually spot it because it includes lots of references to other studies.

Read this if:

• you want to know what earlier research the article is based on
• you are looking for other articles on the same topic.

Methods (how was the project done)

This section explains how the research was carried out. It includes how the data was collected (for example, through surveys, interviews, or experiments), how the data was analysed, and any problems the researchers faced. This information helps the reader to judge the quality of the research, its strengths and weaknesses. It also helps researchers to repeat the study, for example in a different country or with different participants.

Read this to:

• learn how the research was done
• compare the article with other studies that used different methods, for example, maybe they looked at health issues in a different country, or conducted an experiment in a different temperature setting
• check if the authors collected the right kind of data to answer their research question (sometimes that is not the case).

Results (what was discovered)

This section shows what the researchers found. The results can be shown in different ways, such as tables, graphs, written explanations, or quotes from interviews.

Read this to:

• find out what the research discovered.

Discussion (what it means)

This section explains what the results mean. It discusses whether the findings answer the research question and support the hypothesis.

Read this:

• to understand what the authors think their results mean, what the effects might be, and how things could or should change because of their findings
• to learn about any weaknesses or limits of the study
• if you are looking for ideas for your own research or want to know what questions still need to be answered.

Conclusion (summary and what happens next)

This section explains how the research fits into the bigger picture. It describes the strengths and weaknesses of the study and suggest ideas for future research. Sometimes this section also gives recommendations or suggest actions.

Read this:

• along with the introduction to get a quick overview of the article.

References

This is a list of all the literature the authors used and cited in the article.

Read this to:

• find other researchers who have studied the same or similar topics
• see if the article includes research from different fields (multidisciplinary research), or to check how recent the sources are by looking at the publication dates.

Skimming and scanning

Skimming is a reading strategy where you look over a text quickly without reading every word. It helps you focus on the main idea of the text instead of closely reading the entire text. Skimming is useful when you are searching for useful sources or trying to decide if a text is relevant to your assessment. It is likely that you will mostly use research articles for your assessment and that you will be skimming those, but this strategy also works for book chapters, books, webpages, and other materials you are finding in your literature searching.

Focus on these parts when skimming a research article:

• The abstract or summary
• The introduction or first few paragraphs of the text
• Headings and subheadings
• Any lists or bolded words
• Images, tables, or graphs
• The discussion or conclusion section
• Table of contents (for longer texts, books or book chapters)

These parts will help you quickly understand what the article is about and whether it is useful for your assessment. If your assessment requirements tell you that you need to use recent literature, or literature within a given timeframe, make sure you also check the publication date of the article.

Scanning is similar to skimming. It means looking over a text quickly without reading every word, but with a clear purpose. When you scan, you search for specific keywords or ideas from your assignment question and focus only on the parts that are most useful to you.

For example, scanning can help you quickly find out:

• if the research was done in Australia
• if a certain metal was used in an experiment
• if a specific research method was used
• or if the text includes other ideas that your assessment focuses on.

You can use CTRL + F (or Command + F on a Mac) to search for specific words in a document or on a website. This is a fast and easy way to check if the text contains what you are looking for.

Intensive reading

Intensive reading means reading very carefully so you understand the important ideas and the author’s argument. This is different from skimming or scanning. When you read intensively, you should read the whole source to get the complete picture. However, depending on the argument you want to make in your assignment, you might focus more on key parts like the introduction, conclusion, and sections about results or discussion.

As you read, remember your assessment question and thesis statement, if you have one. Think actively about what the text is saying and how it connects to your work.

When you ready an article intensively, you should also take notes from the text. For note taking tips, see the Note taking page in this guide. Reading intensively also means reading critically, see the reading critically page in this guide on how to do this.

Reading difficult texts

Sometimes, you will come across journal articles that are hard to read and understand. This can feel frustrating, and you might think it means you are not smart enough. However, it is more likely that the article is not well written, which makes it harder to understand. Even experienced researchers and scholars sometimes struggle with reading journal articles. Most of the time, you will need to read an article more than once to fully understand it. Reading it just once, even carefully, is usually not enough.

Here are some tips to help you read journal articles and other challenging texts: