Criminology

Discovery Search

Search for books, articles, online resources, and more!

Reading scholarly articles is challenging.  Follow these tips as you peruse your articles.

Start by examining the structure and format of the article. Most scholarly, peer-reviewed articles have the same or similar structure. Many contain data and findings.

• Abstract (summary of the whole article
• Introduction (why they did the research)
• Methodology (how they did the research)
• Results (what happened; identify the findings)
• Discussion (what the results mean)
• Conclusion (what they learned)
• References (whose research they read)

1. Read the abstract and conclusion first, as these have the main points.
2. Read the discussion next. This will give you a longer report on the findings and their implications.
3. At this point, if you're sure the article has what you need, start at the beginning and read the whole thing through, taking notes as you go.