Reading a scholarly article can feel difficult and, above all, slow at first. This reading guide is intended to speed up the reading of articles and reduce the anxiety that often accompanies reading them.

This reading guide is written for traditional economics articles and is not necessarily suitable for all situations. Use the reading guide as a starting point - the more you read this type of articles, the more clearly you will develop your own style of reading them. You should be able to complete points 1 and 2 in about 15 minutes. Items 3 and 4 may require more time, but they are not always necessary. Have a good reading time!

Reading chart to help you skim

Scanning and skimming are essential when reading scholarly articles, especially at the beginning stages of your research or when you have a lot of material in front of you.

Many scholarly articles are organized to help you scan and skim efficiently. The next time you need to read a scholarly article, use the following chart based on the structure of a scholarly article IMRD as a guide:

Read / skim in this order:	While asking yourself:
1. Abstract	What is the article about? Is it relevant to your research? Can you find good concept definitions on it?
2. Introduction	What is the main research question?
3. Discussion / Results	What are the key findings or answers to the research question?
4. Methods	How was research or analysis conducted?
5. Conclusion	What are the key conclusions? What might be some implications for future research?

1. Before jumping into the text, check the following:

Headline - All keywords are typically already present in the headline. The subtitle often indicates the methodological or theoretical approach used in the article.

Name of the journal/magazine - Consider what kind of journal it is. This will give you an idea of the perspective from which the phenomenon is likely to be approached.

Year of publication - Is the article new or old? Articles over a decade old are usually only read if they represent a major turning point in the academic debate, present revolutionary new methodologies or have otherwise become classics in the field.

Authors' names - The order of the authors' names tells you who they think was most important in the writing process. If the names are in alphabetical order, the authors have decided that all are equally important.

2. Start by quickly skimming through the article

But read the abstract of the article carefully. Reading the abstract carefully will allow you to glance at the other parts more quickly. Pay attention to the keywords and main arguments used in the abstract. Keywords are also sometimes listed separately below the abstract. When properly reading the article you can focus on the parts of the text where these keywords are used or main arguments are discussed.

Next, take a look at the introduction chapter of the article. From the introduction, you should try to get a sense of the broader phenomenon of the article and how its topic relates to the larger context. In other words, why it is worthwhile for the author to write about this topic and for you to read something about it.

Next, you should skip to the end of the article and look at the conclusions chapter. Make a note of the main new findings mentioned by the authors and the conclusions derived from them. Later, when you read the rest of the article, you can ask yourself whether you think the authors have done a good enough job of explaining these findings.

Finally, take a look at the middle sections of the article. Read all the subheadings, as well as any table headings and hypotheses separated from the text. Try to outline some general features of the article. Is it an empirical or conceptual article? Is the approach qualitative or quantitative? What research methods have been used? Is the article based on a particular previous concept or framework? See e.g. is one previous publication clearly outperforming the others?

3. Read the article carefully

In particular, focus on the points that you think are most relevant to the main arguments and findings of the article.

Think about how the parts of the text build up the overall picture of the article. In other words, how do the arguments presented in different parts of the text support the main argument and underpin the main findings?

Look carefully at what sources the authors refer to. These will help you to deduce what academic debate they hope to pursue. By reading the list of sources, you can find out which journals the authors consider relevant.

Stop to inspect the figures and tables. Think about what information the authors want the figure or table to convey. In the "arrow-box" images often used in business journals, pay particular attention to the directions of the arrows and consider whether there could be other arrows.

4. After reading the article, ask yourself at least the following questions:

What is the main argument of the authors? How do they justify their arguments?

Do you think the authors' main argument is logical? Do you agree with them?

Do you think the research approach is appropriate to the topic of the article? Could the authors have used a different methodology? How would this have affected the conclusions?

How does the article compare with other articles you have read on the subject? Which ones do you consider to be the most relevant?

What are the most significant new findings in the article? How do they benefit different professionals? In other words, who are they of interest to (e.g. academic researchers, business leaders, public sector decision-makers) and how?

How has the rest of the scientific community reacted to the article? To do this, you can check e.g. Google Scholar to see which recent articles refer to the article in question. You can also find interesting comments and reactions to the article in question in blogs and other less scientific sources. Discuss the article with other students.

Watch the following short video as a tutorial describing how to read a scholarly article:

The video How to Read a Scholarly Article by Western Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

This reading guide is based on the English-language reading guide by Professor Peter Klein of the University of Missouri, which can be found at.

http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2010/08/31/how-to-read-an-academic-article (Linked to an external site.)