Reading a Journal Article Critically and Effectively

Contributed by Bart Johnson, Landscape Architecture
 tep.uoregon.edu/resources/exchange/research/readingjournalarticles...

Active Reading

An overall principle of efficient, high comprehension reading is to read actively, that is, ask yourself questions and paraphrase as you read.
Oftentimes, simply paraphrasing the fundamental concepts in your own words as you read helps you put the material into a more comprehensible form. You don't need to stop reading to do this, just maintain a running commentary to yourself (mentally or out loud) as you go along.
The following sections describe a number of techniques to improve both reading efficiency and comprehension, as well as to improve your ability to creatively incorporate the material into your own thinking, research or applications. Like any skills, these take time to develop. You will need to invest some effort in learning and practicing them, but there can be substantial payback over the course of your research and professional work.
Some of the techniques may become part of your repertoire of reading skills that you continue to apply consciously, while others may become ingrained as "behind the scenes" practices.
Although this may seem to be an involved process just to read an article, you will find that the time spent on the preparatory stages and on comprehension techniques pays off in terms of your ability to synthesize the material faster and with deeper understanding. You will find these methods particularly useful when you have to sort through a large volume of references, papers, books, etc. in a short period of time, and need to determine which ones to read and with what level of detail. Moreover, if you are searching the literature for particular types of information, they will help you home in on the appropriate material rapidly and glean the material you need most.
Some of the following materials are drawn from a booklet prepared by the National Institute of Reading Development (1981), others are drawn from other courses and personal experience.

The Overall Strategy

1. Preview
2. Determine function ----> structure
3. Decide which sections to read and with what level of comprehension
4. Select the techniques you will use to read each section

Reading an article or a journal or a book does not have to be an all or nothing process of starting at the beginning and pushing doggedly through to the end. Rather you can approach it in a problem-solving fashion, using the article preview to derive the function and structure of the article, which then allows you to decide whether to read further, and if so, what parts you will read and what techniques you will use. In turn, this allows you to efficiently derive the information or concepts that are most useful to you. In particular, it will help you to avoid the awful process of slogging through a difficult article, unsure of what the author is saying and wondering how you will ever get through it. Typically, we are taught one way of reading in elementary school and then left to our own devices, despite the fact that it makes sense that you would read material for your work differently than you read a novel for pleasure.

Previewing the Article

The first step in effective reading is to determine what the author wants to communicate (function) and then discover how the article has been organized (structure) to achieve the function. Understanding as quickly as possible what the author is trying to communicate and then figuring out how they have organized the material to do so allows you to read more efficiently, to glean what you need to know from the article, and to enhance your comprehension of new concepts or material.
Having done this, you will be better able to:

1. Decide if the material is worth reading further
2. Determine which sections need to be read and with what degree of comprehension
3. Focus your attention on what the author is trying to say

During the preview don't worry if you don't fully understand the material - this is simply a goal-directed survey of the article. However, you will want to recognize and make mental note of concepts or vocabulary you don't understand but that appear to be important. By the end of the preview, you should be able to condense the article into one or two sentences that summarize its main message.

Gleaning function and structure

A number of active reading techniques can be used to decipher the function and structure of an article. At first, you may want to experiment with different techniques and combinations to find which work best for you. As you become comfortable with these methods you may want to use them as a toolbox of techniques that can be applied creatively depending on your goals in reading the article, the type of material it contains and how it is structured, and the level of comprehension you require.
At any point during or following the preview, you may decide that you have read enough of the article either because it is not relevant to your needs or because you have already learned enough from it.

Steps of the preview

1. Locate and read any information about the author(s): Who are they? What do they do? Where do they work? What is their position? The answers to these questions can give you keys to their purposes and backgrounds and to possible motivations, intentions and bias'.
2. Read the abstract to glean the overall purpose, results and conclusions of the paper. A good abstract will provide a succinct summary of the most important information.
3. Read all headings. Begin to dissect the structure of the paper by reading all the headings. Look for the logical structure of the paper and try to anticipate the flow of ideas or argument.
4. Examine the tables and figures to understand their main points. Graphs in particular, often summarize a great deal of written material. ("A single picture is worth a thousand words").
5. Read the introduction, perform a first line skim and read the conclusions. Next, go back and read the introduction in full. Then read the first line of each paragraph of the article, until you reach the conclusions, which you should also read in full. In a well-written paper, you will find that the first lines actually read fairly coherently to give a broad overview of the paper's content and flow.

Books can be previewed in similar fashion to articles. In this case, read:

1. All materials on the front and back covers (inside and out)
2. All introductory materials (introduction, preface, table of contents, etc.)
3. End material (conclusion, epilogue, author's notes, etc.)
4. Chapter 1 (if necessary)

Function and structure

By this point you should be able to answer the following questions about the article: What is the purpose of this paper? What are the main points? How do the pieces of this paper fit together? What is the flow of concepts? How are they linked?
If you wish, you can write out (or create mentally) an information map for the article to show how the material is organized and how the sections or concepts interrelate.
Practice using article previews as a means to discover article function and structure until it becomes second nature. However you approach it, or however you may adapt the techniques to your own style, the act of developing an overall picture of the article, and of deconstructing its conceptual organization will dramatically improve your efficiency and comprehension for reading technical or academic literature.

Reading Further

Now comes the time for some important decisions:

• Do you read further?
• If so, do you want to read the entire article, or just certain sections?
• Of the parts you are going to read, which will you prioritize for high comprehension and which ones do you just need the gist of?

However you choose to proceed, remember to read actively, asking questions and paraphrasing in your own words. What is the primary question/issue addressed? Is it explained clearly? Do the methods fit the question? Consider the quality of the arguments: Are they convincing? Are they to the point? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methods, results and conclusions? Always keep your goals in mind: what do you want to get out of this paper?

Skimming, comprehension and concentration techniques

Skimming techniques

Purpose: To move quickly through the material with only broad comprehension of what is being discussed.

• The first line skim, described above, is one way to get the broad picture of an article without reading every word. There are other speed reading techniques that allow you to read selectively. In general, they specify different ways of accelerating the pace of your reading, picking out bits and pieces of the most relevant information as you go to get the gist of what is being said, and helping you to recognize when something really important to you is being said so that you may slow down and read more carefully.

Tellbacks

Purpose: Helps comprehension and long-term recall. Also helps you identify when something needs rereading due to low comprehension.

• To do a tellback, pause in your reading and "tell back" to yourself as much as you can remember. Don't worry about the order of the material, just begin to recall details and then let links emerge to other details. Doing tellbacks aloud increases effectiveness.
• Use a tellback whenever enough material has been read that you are feeling saturated or uncertain. The more difficult the material, the more frequent the tellbacks. The frequency will also depend on how much comprehension you need. This technique is very useful for difficult material.

Overt comprehension

Purpose: Builds comprehension skills. Serves as a concentration aid.

• "Excellent comprehension is (in part) the ability to express the meaning of a passage in your own words, using only what is necessary of the author's vocabulary." (NIRD 1981)
• To practice the overt comprehension technique, maintain a running commentary and summary of the main ideas as you read. In this way, you enter into a kind of dialogue with the material. This not only increases comprehension, but also it helps you to concentrate on the material when you are simply not attentive, when the material is difficult, or when there are distractions that make it difficult to focus.
• Performing a few pages of this technique is a good way to start off reading, using it to gear up into high comprehension reading.

Additional Reading Suggestions:

• Read with a dictionary. If you don't understand a word, look it up.
• Keep a glossary of unknowns, either words or concepts that are unclear.
• You may want to use a highlighter and to write notes in the margins to capture, label or summarize specific material for later reference. It can be really frustrating to read a paper and then waste time rereading the whole thing just to find a specific piece of information. Your notes in the margin can be a record of the main points, your own questions about a particular section, or brilliant inspirations you get from reading the material.

Citations

National Institute of Reading Development. 1981. Speed Reading and Comprehension Training, Review Kit. San Francisco: San Francisco Institute.

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