Reviewing the use of academic journal articles in the undergraduate classroom by

2025-05-12 15:04:24 UTC

It’s been a big concern of mine!

2025-05-12 15:04:53 UTC

A lot! I teach a lot of undergrads.

2025-05-12 15:05:06 UTC

A lot, particularly in terms of if academic journal articles meet their info needs

2025-05-12 15:05:07 UTC

It’s always the thing instructors are insistent on, and students are panicked about so it’s on my mind!

It's definitely something I'm thinking about a lot.

2025-05-12 15:05:27 UTC

I exclusively work with undergrad students

Lots in slightly different context

2025-05-12 15:05:36 UTC

I teach in the law school, but similar - most students will be lawyers not academics, and rarely read academic articles again outside of specific contexts. So I have thought a lot about popular press vs academic pieces, and what to accept

2025-05-12 15:05:37 UTC

Too much emphasis on PR for minor papers/projects. Not enough critical thought around the issues with PR.

2025-05-12 15:05:40 UTC

Not much. I don’t interact with undergraduate students much.

2025-05-12 15:05:41 UTC

Almost on automatic pilot to use this language

Which level?

2025-05-12 15:06:09 UTC

Introducing to upper level undergrads with context on how to read them think that this is a good approach for joining the scholarly conversation

Not enough scaffolding of this as a topic with students. Not making the why transparent.

2025-05-12 15:06:40 UTC

2025-05-12 15:06:51 UTC

Unless they want to publish their piece, academic articles are not really necessary for law students to cite usually. However they have really helpful uses, such as understanding the background or an issue. So they do need to learn how to find them.

Xkcd

2025-05-12 15:07:32 UTC

https://xkcd.com/2456

Reading academic articles

2025-05-12 15:08:20 UTC

I assign this piece, which I think could be useful for undergrad readers as well, especially upper level in a reading intensive class https://miriamsweeney.net/2012/06/20/readforgradschool/

Students may not use them outside of college

2025-05-12 15:08:39 UTC

We teach students to use these for academic purposes but unfortunately access to academic journals is not something many of them will have beyond college. We should teach authentic forms of engaging with information to support lifelong learning outside of just academic environments.

High quality magazines

2025-05-12 15:12:43 UTC

Some disciplines have high quality magazines that cover their area (e.g., Popular Science), sometimes with content deprived from journal articles. But many disciplines don't. It would be nice if there were more of these.

Content level limit would be nice

2025-05-12 15:17:03 UTC

It would be wonderful if databases had content level limits. General, undergrad, etc.

Higher Quality Magazines

2025-05-12 15:21:48 UTC

It would be nice if there were more higher quality magazines. Popular Science sometimes takes journal articles and waters them down for wider audience.

Reading level limit

2025-05-12 15:25:17 UTC

Why can't we have a reading level limit in databases?

Similar to the chem paper example

2025-05-12 15:26:11 UTC

At a previous institution we did focus groups with students who for their Biology paper they went to JSTOR because they had success there in the past. While it had some biology papers, it clearly wasn’t where the student would hav been best served

Databases without context

2025-05-12 15:26:39 UTC

Sometimes students learn about JSTOR in writing courses and think it's good for everything.

2025-05-12 15:29:15 UTC

I like the thought of first introducing reading, and then introducing finding. Do you have any thoughts of how that works in a one-shot class? (Or if it can even work)

Opposite issue

2025-05-12 15:29:32 UTC

Some disciplines do the opposite and don't have students digging into scholarly literature much in their undergrad courses then are surprised students don't know how to do so as grad students.

BBC

2025-05-12 15:32:23 UTC

BBC has some quite excellent news about science. Sometimes authored by experts. Sometimes based on journal articles.

Education articles

2025-05-12 15:35:18 UTC

Sometimes you can find education discipline articles that address topics at a much more manageable level.

The conversation

2025-05-12 15:56:21 UTC

Reminded me that the conversation requires a peer reviewed publication but the articles are written in an accessible manner to a wide readership.https://theconversation.com/us