Environmental Studies

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

1. Examine the structure and format of the article.
2. Most scholarly, peer-reviewed articles have the same or similar structure.
3. 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)

• Read the abstract and conclusion first, as these have the main points.

• Read the discussion next. This will give you a longer report on the findings and their implications.

• 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.