A Great Study Tip I Learned the Hard Way

If you are starting college this fall or you are currently attending, studying will be or already is a big part of your life. There are ways to study more effectively and spend time doing other things then reading forty page scholarly articles or seemingly endless textbook chapters. Through years of studying the hard way, I found a quick and efficient way to read the long reading assignments that you will or already receive from professors.

What are scholarly articles?

Reading scholarly articles is different from reading magazines or newspapers. Magazines and newspapers are formatted differently. The key information is listed in the beginning of a newspaper article and details trail in importance the closer you get to the end. The best way to describe the format of scholarly articles is an essay. The introduction sets out the main idea for the article and the argument that the author plans to make. The body of the article provides evidence to prove the author's point, and the conclusion lays out the findings or proof that the argument has been made. Scholarly articles are articles that professors usually provide links to, that range in length from twenty to sixty pages or can be found in textbooks.

How do you read them faster?

The fastest way to read scholarly articles is to first, read the introduction that is usually one to three paragraphs and will contain the author's argument. Identifying the argument is the most important part of reading a scholarly article. If you properly identify it, make a note of it, and you are half way through your study time. After you have identified the argument, skip to the conclusion of the article that is usually labeled as lastly or in conclusion. These last few paragraphs contain a summary of the major points laid out in the article. Once you find them, make a note of them, and you are then 75% done with the article. Lastly, go to the main body of the article. Flip through it and find where the text is separated into sections. In a textbook, this is usually identified by a lack of indention in the next paragraph that is seperated from the previous text by a few blank spaces. Read the first paragraph of each new section. If you do this, you have an excellent grasp on what the author has set out to argue. For me, this method of reading textbooks and scholarly articles cut my study time in half. Where it would usually take me an hour or more to read these articles (because overall they are long and tedious) I can read scholarly articles in thirty minutes or less. With all of the classes that you take in college, any way you can cut study time will become invaluable.