Athletic Training

Research articles can be dense and intimidating, even to expert researchers. Below are some tips from librarians and researchers on how to best tackle reading through a research article, and more importantly, understanding it!

With practice, you will find the techniques that work best for you! Until then, remember to breathe, have patience, take notes, and ask for help when you need it.

Not all articles are created equal. The type of article and study design makes a difference in terms of the quality of the information. The image below provides a visual of the best types of articles at the top and lower quality articles at each level down. Filtered information is another way of saying secondary articles. Unfiltered information is another way of saying primary articles or experiment studies.