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CRJ 418/518: Criminal Justice Research Methods

Research Guide for CRJ 418/518

Reading & Analyzing your empirical journal articles

Reading scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles is a skill that you develop. Journal articles (particularly research articles) are organized in a way that facilitates a more selective reading process, i.e. skimming and/or reading sections in a different order. 

There is no single way to correctly read a journal article. Ask your professors - they'll each have their own way of breaking down and reading articles, both within and outside of their field. Below are resources and guidelines to help you:

When you're reading empirical journal articles, look for key information like:

  1. What are the main hypotheses?
  2. Why is this research important?
  3. What are the theoretical perspectives of the authors?
  4. What is the sample size?
  5. What are the study's independent and dependent variables?
  6. Were the research measures and procedures appropriate for studying the stated hypothesis?
  7. What were the key research findings? Is the evidence falsifiable?
  8. Are the authors' conclusions supported by the data? 
  9. Did the authors show any bias?
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