How to Read Psychology Journal Articles

Reading journal articles can be intimidating for those who are new at it. This guide will walk you through a typical article, pointing out what you can expect to find in each section, and help you get the most out of your reading. It is focused on empirical journal articles, which are those that report on a specific study. Summaries and other types of articles will need to be read somewhat differently.

Things You'll Need

• An article
• You may also want:
• A highlighter
• A place to take notes (pen & paper or computer)

Instructions

Overview

1. Read the title, authors’ names and affiliations, and the date of publication. You want to know how old the article is, and it may be informative to know whether the authors are professors, clinicians, or work in another field. You may also notice that you’ve read articles by one or more of the same authors before.

2. Read the abstract. This will give you a brief overview of the entire article. If you are not required to read the article, it will give you a sense of whether it is worth investing the time to read the details (i.e., will this article tell you what you need to know, or should you keep looking for a different one?).

3. Consider what you expect the article to tell you based on the title and abstract. If the study addresses multiple issues, which are you most interested in? This will help you know what you need to pay close attention to, and what you might prefer to skim.

First Read-through

1. Skim the introduction. You will be looking for three main things here. The first is why did they the study. The authors will usually refer to psychological theory and/or previous finding to lay out why their study is important and why it needed to be done. The brief version of this rationale can frequently be found near the beginning and again near the end of the introduction section, with a more detailed summary of prior work situated in between.

2. Locate in the introduction the specific question(s) the authors wanted to answer and what they expected to find (the hypotheses). Some articles will have both, others will have only one or the other. They will usually be specified in detail at the very end of the introduction section or in a separate section immediately following it.

3. Identify in the introduction any previous relevant work that you may want to read. This can be very helpful, especially if you have not yet been able to find much work on the topic on your own.

4. Read the methods section. This section will tell you what they actually did. Initially, pay particular attention to the participants subsection, including how many people participated in the study, how were they selected, and what were their characteristics.

5. Skim the procedures subsection to get a rough idea of what was done. Was there an experiment? Observations? Surveys? Did everything happen at one point in time, or were participants followed over time, and for how long?

6. Skim the measures subsection, which will tell you what assessments were used to get the data (e.g., if they were interested in IQ, how did they test it? If they were interested in depression, did they ask people if they were depressed? Look at their medical records? Perform a diagnostic exam?) Initially, you will probably want to go through this subsection fairly quickly to get a rough idea whether they assessed what you are most interested in in a way that seems reasonable.

7. Look at the results section. This section reports in detail the statistical tests the authors used to answer their research questions. If you are not familiar with statistics, this section may be difficult to follow. The key point to keep in mind if that is the case is that a “significant” effect, difference, or association means one that would not be reasonably expected to occur by chance alone.

8. Read the discussion section. This is the final section of the paper, and will typically restate the most important results without the statistical details, and put them into context. This section may be the most helpful one to read carefully on your first time through. Look for: What are the answers to the research questions spelled out in the introduction? Are the results consistent with previous research on this topic? How do the authors explain why they found what they did.

9. 1. Begin with the introduction (the first section of the article, not always labeled). You will be looking for three main things here. The first is why did they the study. The authors will usually refer to psychological theory and/or previous finding to lay out why their study is important and why it needed to be done. The brief version of this rationale can frequently be found near the beginning and again near the end of the introduction section, with a more detailed summary of prior work situated in between.2. The second piece of information to look for in the introduction is the specific question(s) the authors wanted to answer (the research questions or aims) and/or what they expected to find (the hypotheses). Some articles will have both, others will have only one or the other. They will usually be specified in detail at the very end of the introduction section or in a separate section immediately following it.3. The final important thing to look for in the introduction is any previous relevant work that you may want to read. This can be very helpful, especially if you have not yet been able to find much work on the topic on your own.4. The methods section will tell you what they actually did. Initially, pay particular attention to the participants subsection, including how many people participated in the study, how were they selected, and what were their characteristics (how old they were, how diverse in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, level of education, or other factors relevant for the specific topic).5. Next you will want to skim the procedures subsection to get a rough idea of what was done (was there an experiment? observations? surveys? Did everything happen at one point in time, or were participants followed over time, and for how long?).6. The measures subsection will tell you what assessments were used to get the data (e.g., if they were interested in IQ, how did they test it? If they were interested in depression, did they ask people if they were depressed? Look at their medical records? Perform a diagnostic exam?) Initially, you will probably want to skim this subsection fairly quickly to get a rough idea whether they assessed what you are most interested in in a way that seems reasonable.7. The results section reports in detail the statistical tests the authors used to answer their research questions. If you are not familiar with statistics, this section may be difficult to follow. The key point to keep in mind if that is the case is that a “significant” effect, difference, or association means one that would not be reasonably expected to occur by chance alone. 8. The discussion section is the final section of the paper, and will typically restate the most important results without the statistical details, and put them into context. This section may be the most helpful one to read carefully on your first time through. Look for: (1) What are the answers to the research questions spelled out in the introduction? (2) Are the results consistent with previous research on this topic? (3) How do the authors explain why they found what they did, (especially any results that went against their hypotheses, conflict with prior work, or are counter-intuitive)?

Final Steps

1. Read the introduction more thoroughly, paying particular attention to identifying theories or studies that you would like to read more about.

2. Look more carefully in the methods section at how they assessed those constructs that you are most interested in. If you are planning your own study, you may get ideas for what kinds of assessment you would like to use. If you are just interested in learning about what’s been found about a particular topic, you will start to get a sense of how much similarity there is in the ways different authors have assessed the same thing.

3. Read the results section more carefully to identify any details or qualifications that may have been glossed over in the discussion.

Tips & Warnings

• When you come across references to other articles that you may want to read, flip to the back and highlight it in the references section. That way, when you are done, you can easily begin collecting those highlighted articles to read later.

• In most research, when an association is found between 2 variables, we cannot conclude that one causes the other. Most authors will not try to do this within the article, but be careful not to interpret the findings this way when it is not warranted. The exception to this rule is when an experiment was done where participants were randomly assigned to different conditions. Then, you can typically conclude that the variable being manipulated by the researchers (the independent variable) caused a difference between groups on something else (the dependent variable).