Learning Outcomes for this Module

• LO2: Critically assess information sources in pursuit of various purposes.  
• LO3: Ask thoughtful questions.  
• LO6: Reflect upon your own research process. 

Tools

What You’ll Need	What We Used
Forum for discussion	Padlet
Tool for group annotation of an article	Hypothesis

How to Credit Us

Except where otherwise noted, the lesson plans on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. 

To credit us for this module/lesson plan, cite the following: 

Newman, J., Ward, S.K.L. (2025, June 9). Reading strategies module. LIBR 100 OER. https://lib100oer.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2025/06/09/reading-strategies/

Student sleeping in Hunter College Library, 1988. From The Wistarion, pp. 112-113, 1988, Archives & Special Collections, Hunter College Libraries, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York City. https://www.flickr.com/photos/hunter_college_archives/24719642252/

Module Introduction

One step that is often overlooked in the research process is reading the sources you’ve found to successfully understand and extract the information you need. In your college career so far, you may have already encountered difficulties reading academic/scholarly sources. These sources are generally written for experts, so it can be overwhelming to try to understand them if you don’t have the relevant background or expertise. For several reasons, reading an academic article from beginning to end the first time through may not the best strategy. In this module, we will think about strategies for making sense of scholarly journal articles. We will also think about when and how other kinds of sources might help us to understand concepts that we are not experts on.

This module consists of the following parts:

1. Read “Anatomy of a Scholarly Article”
2. Watch “How to Preview a Text”
3. Read and take group notes on a scholarly article (asynchronous group work – 6 points)
4. Read or Listen to a News Story
5. Read Encyclopedia Entries Related to the Topic of the Study
6. Write a reflective Padlet post (individual work – 4 points)

Part 1 – Read “Anatomy of a Scholarly Article”

Read the page “Anatomy of a Scholarly Article” from the Research Toolkit created for Hunter College by Wendy Hayden and Stephanie Margolin. (You do NOT need to do the activity at the bottom of the page)

Note that not all scholarly articles will feature all–or any–of the elements listed in the Anatomy of a Scholarly Article. Those elements are most common in the sciences and the social sciences. Articles in the arts and humanities sometimes have an abstract (though often they don’t), and they rarely have labeled sections like “Introduction,” “Conclusion,” etc.

Part 2 – Watch “How to Preview a Text”

Watch the video “How to Preview a Text” (3.5 minutes) from Excelsior University’s Online Reading Lab.

Part 3 – Take Notes Together on a Scholarly Article (6 points)

In this activity you will practice reading a scholarly article and take notes on it (asynchronously) with a group.

Please make sure you follow the instructions below in order to get full credit for this activity. You need to make at least 3 total comments (described below) on this article in order to get full credit.

1. We do not want you to read the full article, but to employ some reading strategies from earlier in this module. Using some strategies you’ve read about, read/skim this article and make a minimum of 2 comments about any of the following (highlight the relevant section of text and leave your comment). IMPORTANT: Please note that if you want to comment on the same question that another student has already answered, then your comment must add something new to the conversation (not just repeat what the other person has written):
   • What section(s) of the article are the most important for your understanding of the content? Why?
   • What can you learn from the title of this article?
   • What can you learn from the list of authors of this article?
   • What did the authors set out to learn in this study? (What was their research question?)
   • What did the authors do to find an answer to their research question? In other words, how did they conduct this study?
   • What did the researchers learn by performing this study?
   • What did the authors learn about this topic from other researchers? In other words, what past ideas and research are they building on?
   • What keywords can you identify that are important to the understanding of this article? Why are they important?  
2. In addition to the above 2 comments, identify and make at least 1 comment on something that you don’t understand about this article.

Link to the article

Link to “If I Fits I Sits: A Citizen Science Investigation into Illusory Contour Susceptibility in Domestic Cats (Felis Silvestris Catus)”

Full APA citation for the article used in this activity

Smith, G. E., Chouinard, P. A., & Byosiere, S.-E. (2021). If I fits I sits: A citizen science investigation into illusory contour susceptibility in domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus). Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 240, 105338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105338.

Part 4 – Read a News Story about the Same Study

Read (or listen to) the following news story, which originally aired on the National Public Radio (NPR) show All Things Considered and has been transcribed into text. You are not required to annotate this article.

Cats Take ‘If I Fits I Sits’ Seriously, Even If The Space Is Just An Illusion

APA citation for this news story

Cats take “if I fits I sits” seriously, even If the space Is just an illusion [Radio broadcast transcript]. (2021, May 10). In All Things Considered. National Public Radio, Inc. (NPR). https://www.npr.org/transcripts/994262792

Part 5 – Read Two Encyclopedia Entries Related to the Topic of the Study

1. Wikipedia entry on “Illusory Contours”
2. Entry on “Visual Illusions” in the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience

(You are not required to annotate these sources)

APA citations for these encyclopedia entries

Wenderoth, P. (2009). Visual illusions. In Binder, M.D., Hirokawa, N., Windhorst, U. (eds) Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi-org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_6356

Illusory counters. (2024, June 7). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_contours

Part 6 – Reflection on Reading Strategies

Please CHOOSE ONE of the following prompts and respond to it in a post on the Padlet:

1. Was your strategy for reading the news story different from your strategy for reading the scholarly article? Explain how and why.
2. Wikipedia is a generalized encyclopedia while the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience is what we call a specialized encyclopedia. What differences do you notice between the two? Which one was more useful to you? Who do you think the other one would be useful to?’
3. We asked you to identify things you didn’t understand in the scholarly article. Describe a strategy you would use to help yourself understand one or more of these points.
4. How might the different source types you read in this module (scholarly journal article, news story, entry from Wikipedia, entry from a specialized encyclopedia) be useful in different ways as you attempt to learn more about the topic?

Be sure to include your name on your post to get credit for your work.

Link to Padlet

Extra Resources (Optional)

These resources are for those who would like to learn more about reading and note-taking strategies.

Reading strategies

• “Guidelines for Critical Reading,” from the Hunter College Rockowitz Writing Center
• “‘Predatory’ Reading,” from: Patrick Rael, Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students (Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin College, 2004). This blog post for history students discusses strategies for how to read scholarly articles in fields like history and the humanities.
• “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources,” by Karen Rosenberg. This chapter from the open textbook Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2 discusses strategies for reading college-level material.
• “How to Use Questioning to Improve Reading Comprehension (video),” from Excelsior University Online Reading Lab
• “Inferencing: Learn to Make Inferences While you Read (video),” from Excelsior University Online Reading Lab

Annotating texts

• “Annotating a Text,” from the Hunter College Rockowitz Writing Center
• “Annotating Texts,” from the Learning Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• “Annotation Tips (videos),” from Excelsior University Online Reading Lab

Note-taking (in-class)

• “Effective Note-Taking in Class,” from the Learning Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• “Successful Note-Taking: A Guide for Students,” from ACUE (The Association for College & University Educators)