Reading an Academic Paper

When transitioning to university, there is an expectation that you are able to read an academic paper
or scientific journal, however, this may not be the case for everyone. For students, it is essential to be
able to read an academic paper, in order to write essays and conduct research, although, at first, it
can seem a rather unapproachable task. (Subramanyam, 2013)

The purpose of this document is to relieve some of the anxiety you may be facing when it comes to
reading an academic paper, and help you to overcome any barriers to making progress with your
assignments.

In order to begin doing research, you need to be aware of what it is you are trying to find out. For
example, if the question for your assignment was "Create a report outlining the bullying behaviours
of primary school children and provide effective preventative measures that can be put in place." you
would need to look for the key words first. For this question, your key words would be 'bullying',
'primary school children', and 'prevention'. These will help inform your search strategy and will serve
as a starting point.

Once you have searched for what you are looking for, look at the titles of each of the papers that are
on the page, find which ones seem to be the most linked to your topic area, and open several of
them into a new tab. While you are reading the papers, keep several questions in mind (Carey,
Steiner & Petri, Jr., 2020):

• What is it the authors want to know (what is their motivation)?

• What did they do (approach/methods)?

• Why did they do it that way (context within the field)?

• What do the results show?

• How did the authors interpret the results (interpretation/discussion)?

Begin by looking through the abstract, does the research appear to cover what you wanting to find?
If so, continue reading. If not, close the tab and discard the paper.

Next, you will want to skim through the introduction. You do not need to read this section word for
word as it will mostly be summarising previous research that has been conducted, and you will not
be able to reference it from this paper. If you find any sentences which interest you and appear to
mention something which relates to your question, make note of the reference number or citation,
and find them later on - some of these you may have access to, and others you will not.*

After skimming the introduction, move straight down to the discussion. This section will be of the
most importance to you as it has less references and will mainly be discussing the results of what
they have found. It is usually easier to skip the results and go straight to this section as it will explain
the results in better detail that can be easier to understand.

Make a note of the methods the researcher uses; you may find a literature review is a good place to
start your research efforts, as it will reference many papers which are linked to what you are
researching. Make note of whether the paper uses qualitative or quantitative methods, and how
they gathered their results, did they use surveys, focus groups, interviews, etc.
Remember to be critical when conducting your research. Are there other equally likely reasons for
what is observed? Does the study or the authors have any potential biases. Also remember to be
aware of your own biases, don't just look for research which affirms what you already believe, try to
find papers which differ from what you believe too, to show that you are considering alternative
points of view, this is what a critical thinker does (Carey, Steiner, Petri, Jr., 2020).

Try not to leave starting your assignment until the last minute, allow yourself time every day to make
progress towards your assignments, even if they are not due until the end of the semester. Even
doing just half an hour every weekday towards your assignment will have great benefits towards
completing them.

if you feel that the task is becoming overwhelming, don't let it overcome you, remember the
university is here to support you in getting your degree and they have the staff to be able to help you,
whether you find your mental health is suffering because of the stress or because you feel you need
some support in making progress with your essay.

The student info point tile on MyLTU should have information on getting support in most areas of
university life, including academic support. If you feel that these are still not enough to help you,
book a tutorial with someone in the learning hub and they should be able to help you. You can also
turn to your Peer Support Champions, a group of highly skilled students in many of the course areas,
and they should be able to help you move along with your assignments.

*If you find that a paper is unavailable but you think it would be beneficial for your assignment, use
the library page to request a resource, Library Request Form

Carey, M. A., Steiner, K. L. & Petri, W. A. Jr. (2020). Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper. PLoS
Computational Biology, 16(7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008032

Subramanyam, R. V. (2013). Art of reading a journal article: methodically and effectively. Journal of
Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, 17(1), 65-70. https://doi.org/10.4103/0973-029X.110733