Making Journal Articles Accessible

It was great to hear from Dr Seebal Aboudounya, Associate Lecturer in the Political Science Department at UCL, who talked to us about why we shouldn’t assume that students who struggle with reading journal articles are at fault and suggested an innovative solution!

Time to make journal articles accessible for students and end ‘deficit thinking’: The challenges students face when reading academic articles and the ‘Sketch’ as a proposed solution

University students are frequently assigned journal articles to read. A typical university module requires students to read 2 or 3 journal articles per week. Multiply the modules by 4 (modules taken per semester) and that makes it between 8 to 12 journal articles per week. However, as many educators have probably noticed, journal articles are usually a difficult read for students. Many students find them a challenging read and here are three reasons why:

Not intended for a student audience

Journal articles are not written for university students. In fact, they are written for academics and experts in the field. Nevertheless, students end up reading much of the published articles because they form a central part of their modules and independent learning. However, because the student audience is not considered in the ‘making of’ journal articles, much of the foundational material required for understanding the rationale behind the article is omitted or briefly mentioned. For the academic or the expert, this is not an issue; they already know the literature and the field very well. For the student, this is usually a problem. How will they grasp what the article is about when they are unfamiliar with its building blocks or foundational material?

Information overload!

Academic journal articles provide a lot of information. In around 8,000 words, readers are exposed to an ocean on information. For the academic and expert audience, this is usually not an issue. Indeed, they would have come across a significant proportion of the content elsewhere. Moreover, because they already know the topic, they will be able to devote most of their attention to the new content; the contribution of the article. However, for the student, the story is different. From page 1, they are presented with new information. Add to this the theoretical framework, the discussion of numerous arguments in the literature, the (sophisticated) method(s) applied, the analysis and discussion of results etc. and you get a student facing difficulty in capturing the main key points in the article.

Text-heavy pages

Another issue with academic articles comes not from their content, but from their presentation. Journal articles are very text-heavy and rarely present information in other formats. Occasionally, a graph, a diagram or a table may feature in the article, but apart from

that, the reader is presented with strings of text. Moreover, the text itself is rarely presented in diversified formats. Coloured, underlined or italicised texts are hardly used despite the gained utility from doing so. Presenting text in a monotonous way can hinder the transmission of the key ideas to the reader.

Deficit thinking

When students express their concerns over the articles they read, ‘deficit thinking’ can unfortunately take place. The blame is easily placed on the student for not grasping the main points or not putting in the required time to read the article. Rather than recognising the structural problems inherent in academic article presentation, deficit thinking ignores those problems and instead seeks short-term solutions. When students express doubt over their understanding of an article, one quick solution is for the instructor to explain the article during seminars or office hours. However, the problem does not go away because in the next week, the same scenario repeats. Clearly something needs to be done to make articles accessible for students on a permanent basis and end ‘deficit thinking’.

What can be done?

One possible solution is the ‘Sketch’; an attachment of around 500 words to academic articles specifically designed for students. The ‘Sketch’ can have 2 main sections: a ‘background’ section and an ‘outline’. The Sketch is intended to be literally a sketch of the main points made in the article to aid its understanding. It can also include diagrams and visual or audio material (multimedia) to supplement it, along with the use of colour and diversified ways of presenting text. Because the Sketch really serves as a sketch of the article, it should not include the fine details one would expect in a complete painting, but rather, it should include the backbone or the foundations of the article.

The Sketch: Background and Outline

The ‘background’ section in the Sketch can contain the essential contextual information that are necessary for understanding where the article is situation in the academic literature and any necessary theoretical or methodological clarifications. The ‘outline’ section can then include a summary of the argument and the main points made in the article. This outline would therefore serve as a map for the students to help them navigate through the article and not get lost in its details. Together, those two sections of the Sketch would respond to the three issues identified with journal articles presentation. It’s important to note that the Sketch goes beyond the ‘abstract’ presented at the start of articles. In 150 words, an abstract cannot fulfil the functions of the Sketch; it is too brief to support students when they approach academic articles.

The way forward

It is recommended that scholars worldwide start ‘Sketching’ their articles. When they submit their articles, they should also attach a ‘Sketch’. As for the existing published articles, their authors or possibly a group of academic volunteers may come together and work on a grand ‘Sketching’ project to sketch existing academic articles worldwide. Editors of journals should also implement policies requiring the Sketch in order to make the published article accessible for a student audience.

The implications for enhancing student learning would be huge! Not only would the Sketch help students build more confidence as they approach their readings, it would also bring an end to the ‘deficit thinking’ arising when students face difficulties in engaging with journal articles. The Sketch also holds great potential for encouraging cross-disciplinary interactions amongst the academic community. With the Sketch, knowledge transmission and processing would be greatly enhanced, both across students and the scholarly community as whole. So what are we waiting for, let’s get sketching!