The Abstract

Start with the Abstract

The first step in reading a scholarly article is to read the Abstract. Abstracts are always found at the beginning of an article and provide a basic summary or roadmap to the article. The abstract tells you what the article is about, and what the primary finding of a study or experiment was.

Sometimes library databases allow you to see the abstract while you're searching for articles, and you can review it as necessary to determine if the article is relevant for your research.

Here is an example from the Scopus database, using Scopus' Hide abstract / Show abstract button.

In our example article, we learn that machine learning was applied to AV traffic control in a warehouse and performed better than human control.

Click NEXT to move on to the Conclusion.