Prof. Zwick - CJ205 Research Methods in Criminal Justice: How to Read and Summarize a Scholarly Article

An article that is not an original study, but summarizes original research (a secondary source), uses language that tells you it is discussing research someone else has conducted:

• "The findings suggests..."
• "They're acknowledging that..."
• "The researchers said..."
• "The researchers found that..."

Language that informs you that an article is original research:

• "We describe..."
• "We characterize..."
• "We use...
• "We also observed..."
• "We focused on..."

These phrases show the reader that the authors of the article are the same ones who conducted the study and are presenting their original research. Original research articles are often referred to as Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed or Professional sources.

Research studies are made up of the following sections:

                Abstract –

a summary about the study

an overview of previous research on the topic

Introduction / Literature Review –

what do the researchers already know about the topic from previous research?

what do the researchers want to find out in their study?

                Methods -

                                how the researchers will conduct their study

                Results –

                                data from the study

                Discussion / Conclusion –

                                what did the researchers find out?