Two minute video on how to skim the key parts of a scholarly article to determine if it is relevant for your assignment.
Used with permission of Western University under Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)
Scholarly articles in the sciences follow a particular format. You may not always see every part labeled, but the content will include the following:
ABSTRACT – a summary of the article
INTRODUCTION – a brief explanation of the research topic and why this particular research was performed.
MATERIALS and METHODS – How the research was performed
RESULTS – The results of the research. An explanation of what happened.
DISCUSSION or CONCLUSION – What do the results mean? What is significant or important of them? What was learned?
REFERENCES – The research of others that was consulted in the writing of this article.
Below is an example article with each of the above elements labeled.
Not sure of the differences between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources? This guide provides definitions of each with examples.