Reading Scholarly Articles in the Humanities^[1]

This page will introduce you to strategies for reading, understanding, and preparing to use journal articles and book chapters in humanities fields, like musicology. After this module, you’ll be prepared to do an efficient and effective read-through of articles you encounter in class assignments and research projects.

This page covers:

• common elements of articles in musicology and other humanities fields
• strategies for reading articles
• tips for annotation and note-taking

Major components of research articles

Humanities articles are a little less predictable in their format than articles in fields of the sciences. But there are patterns found in many articles, and ways to think about the content that can help you focus on the most important elements and read more efficiently.

Take a look at this example article; the annotations in Hypothes.is highlight some of the important elements outlined in the video. Another way to think about the core information you want to read for is laid out in this blog entry on How to Read Academic Writing.

Taking Notes

After you’ve scanned the article and you know what it’s about and how it’s organized, you can decide if it’s useful for your project. If so, you’ll want to go through it again to learn the details, look for specific bits of information or quotes, and consider whether you are convinced by the argument.

You’ll want to make note of all the big picture ideas, but you may also want to keep track of specific facts, details, quotes, and your own reactions. There are two standard ways to make note of all this as you read, and to make it easier to revisit what you’ve read when you begin to write your own paper. If you’re reading a paper copy, or have a good PDF reader, you can annotate, or write on and highlight, the article or chapter itself.