Reading & Note-Taking
Once you find text resources, it can be intimidating to sit down and read them. Below are some methods to help, but you can also always ask your instructor or a librarian to understand difficult concepts.
How to Read Academic Writing
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Try Predatory Reading - You don't have to read every word of every book and article! The "predatory reading" strategy will help you read to find the information you need and save you time.
- Check out the article "How to Read Academic Writing" by Phil Ford, and as a shorthand, save this sketchnote by JEANNETTE DI BERNARDO JONES.
Taking notes is a crucial part of the research process. Be sure to take notes in your own words. If quoting, always use quotation marks and write down the page number. This practice will help you avoid accidental plagiarism.
Use Zotero to keep track of your sources and your notes!
Zotero is a browser tool that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free. Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Word or OpenOffice. Learn more here!
The Anatomy of a Scholarly Article
Scholarly articles within the arts and humanities read more like essays than articles in the sciences. Scholars are not conducting research experiments on participants but rather are making logical arguments based on the evidence they have; this evidence will largely be primary and secondary source texts including books, articles, manuscript materials, musical scores, performances, or recordings.
Keep in mind that authors are writing for other experts in their field, so they may be challenging to read and include terminology and jargon from the discipline.
There's not a standard format for these kind of articles, but the following sections are generally included in scholarly articles in the arts and humanities. These sections won't be clearly marked, in fact, each article you read will have different section headings set by the author(s) and editors.
| Abstract | This brief summary is usually included, though not always. |
| Introduction | Usually pretty long and gives a lot of background information for the topic being studied. Thesis statement will be found here, although it is not limited to one sentence. The Introduction may also include a Literature Review. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | The discussion likely runs through the entire article and does not have a separate section. The conclusion might not be as neatly wrapped up in a humanities articles as in the sciences. Things might be a little unclear. |
| Works Cited | List of resources used by the author(s). |
