Article
pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Reading Journal Articles for Comprehension Using Key Sentences:
An Exercise for the Novice Research Student
Nicole S. Bennett* and Brett F. Taubman
Department of Chemistry, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina 28608, United States
S Supporting Information
*
ABSTRACT: We have incorporated an active-learning assignment, Reading
Papers Using Key Sentences, in an upper-level Introduction to Chemical
Research course. Although key sentences are typically used to help authors
write with clarity and organization, we have found that this assignment helps
students improve upon and practice reading journal articles for comprehension.
A recent survey of the Fall 2011 class shows that on a scale of 1−5 (1 = not at
all; 3 = somewhat; 5 = very much), students found that the key sentence
assignment helped them to identify key words and concepts, understand the
author’s point, and evaluate information. Students have reported that the
exercise helped them to prepare slides for their final oral presentation; we have
also observed improvement in their average grades on the midterm reading
assignment exam since we started doing the key sentence assignment in the Fall
of 2010.
KEYWORDS: Second-Year Undergraduate, Upper-Division Undergraduate, Curriculum, Communication/Writing,
Student-Centered Learning
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INTRODUCTION: READING COMPREHENSION
The current emphasis on improvement of a student’s ability to
think critically as a primary learning outcome of higher
education in chemistry has led to the inclusion of journal
article reading assignments in a variety of chemistry seminar
and lecture courses. What once was considered a capstone
(senior-level) experience has become commonplace in secondand third-year courses and “journal clubs” have been formally
adopted as an important component of the undergraduate
research experience. However, there are several challenges for
students as they learn to read journal articles with
comprehension and there are few practical methods available
to aid instructors in teaching this invaluable skill.1
The technical writing style and a profusion of jargon can
make approaching chemical literature difficult for the novice.2−4
Moreover, students may not have the content knowledge
necessary to understand the multitude of concepts contained
within an article. Student dissatisfaction with journal reading
can be exacerbated by an expectation on the part of the
instructor that they have both the time to do thorough reading5
and the ability to comprehend what they read at a high level.2
A survey of the literature reveals several commentaries that
address poor reading comprehension in the first year, as
students make the transition from high school or a two-year
college to a four-year college.6−9 One can also find exercises
that address teaching first- and second-year students how to
search primary literature and summarize articles that are easy
for them to comprehend,10,11 but there is a limited number of
articles that address high-level reading comprehension and
propose simple activities that can be used in small and large
© 2013 American Chemical Society and
Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
classrooms alike. As a result, students often receive informal
and sometimes contradictory training on how to read journal
articles and end up devising their own methods for reading that
may not meet instructor standards.
Wilson describes the four levels of reading comprehension in
order of increasing complexity as follows:3
1. Literal: students have a clear understanding of the
meaning of the assigned material and can describe it in
their own words.
2. Inferential: students are familiar with the assigned
material and can make connections to their knowledge
base beyond what is literally stated.
3. Evaluative: students weigh the reliability, importance, and
usefulness of the assigned material.
4. Creative: students transcend the assigned material by
developing their own ideas.
Typical exercises may require students to read an article
while answering leading questions, or to define unfamiliar terms
and concepts followed by discussing their responses in a group
or writing summaries.4,12−15 Such activities foster slow and
deliberate reading, which is essential for low-level, literal
comprehension,1,6 but may not require students to infer or
evaluate what they have read.
Hodges has reported a three-step variation on the exercises
described above, in which students read an article as they
answer questions about key concepts followed by discussion, do
research and report on these concepts, and then participate in a
Published: April 22, 2013
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Figure 1. Using the key sentence to summarize information for a presentation. (Example quoted from ref 21.).
peer-lead final discussion of the paper.16 Through this method
students become immersed in the assigned article and work
together to transcend literal comprehension. However, this
process is time-consuming and takes three class periods to
complete.
Recently, Bogucka17 has developed a reading exercise for
advanced students in which they read sections of articles
(Introduction, Discussion, Methods, etc.) and then discuss
them. An alternative critical reading process published by
Purugganan18 involves skimming the entire article for structure,
followed by a more close reading while taking notes and
generating questions for each section. Though Purugganan
mentions that students should look for words and phrases that
indicate the author’s main points, both of these methods focus
on the purpose of each section and how they contribute to the
article as a whole. The first is best suited for a small class, while
the second requires the students to work on their own. We
have created a two-part exercisein-class, individual and outof-class, groupthat calls for the students to discover the
author’s intent paragraph by paragraph by looking for key
sentences. This assignment can be used for any class size.
survey of a highly specialized topic. For the midterm, students
are provided with a journal article in the second week of the
semester and instructed to read it carefully, make notes, and
search for information that will help them to better understand
the paper. In subsequent class meetings, they are given a series
of lectures on the nature of chemical literature, searching the
literature, and how to read journal articles; however, the
midterm article is never discussed in class. The students are
allowed to bring the article and any additional information they
have accumulated, including their notes and references, to the
midterm exam. The exam itself is designed to test the students’
comprehension of terminology (standard nomenclature,
abbreviations, and definitions), key chemical concepts,
analytical and instrumental techniques, and the relevance of
data presented in the paper.
For the final presentation, students are placed in small groups
and provided with a review article on a topic of general interest
to the group. The students are asked to read the article
individually and then divide it into sections as a team. Each
student is responsible for preparing a 15-min oral presentation
on his or her section of the article, while expanding on the
information provided by the authors by using references from
the review and searching the chemical literature. The final
presentation is graded based on the content, delivery, and
ability of the students to answer questions at the end. Both the
midterm exam and the final presentation oblige students to
read chemical literature with literal, inferential, and evaluative
comprehension, skills that even some of our best students have
difficulty acquiring.
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THIRD-YEAR COURSE
At Appalachian State University, all chemistry majors are
required to take CHE 3000 (Introduction to Chemical
Research) in their third year (18−24 students per semester).
The course has several components designed to expose
students to the first steps they will take when engaging in
chemical research. These include the following:
Searching the chemical literature using standard databases
Reading chemical literature to interpret and evaluate data
and results
Considering basic tenets of professional ethics and
responsible conduct in research
Learning standard chemical safety rules
The main objective of the course is for students to learn how
to read the primary chemical literature (communications,
articles, and reviews) mindful of organization, clarity, and
content. The final grade is based largely upon student
performance on a midterm reading assignment exam and an
end-of-the-semester oral presentation based on a literature
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READING PAPERS USING KEY SENTENCES
Since the Fall of 2010, we have integrated an active-learning
assignment into the course that allows students to practice the
first three levels of reading comprehension using key sentences
that articulate the main point, claim or idea of each paragraph.19
This method is usually used to help authors proofread articles,
as they write, and edit for clarity and organization.20 We have
found that the reader can use key sentences to help them better
understand the author’s meaning.
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Table 1. Results of the Student Survey Regarding the In-Class and Out-of-Class Exercises
The Out-of-Class Exercise: Critiquing a Journal Article Introduction Using Key
Sentences...
The In-Class Exercise: Finding Key Sentences...
Responsea
Survey Statement
Responsea
Avg (N = 20)
Survey Statement
Avg (N = 20)
1. Helped me to find keywords in a paragraph.
3.8
4.0
2. Helped me to find key concepts in a paragraph.
4.2
3. Helped me to determine how other sentences in a paragraph are
related to the key sentence.
4. Helped me to understand the point the author was trying to
make in the paragraph.
5. Helped me to evaluate whether or not a paragraph was wellwritten.
3.8
1. Helped me to find keywords in the first five paragraphs of
the article.
2. Helped me to find key concepts in the first five paragraphs
of the article.
3. Helped me to understand the point the author was trying to
make in each paragraph.
4. Helped me to determine how best to present the
information in each paragraph.
5. Helped me to evaluate which information was important
enough to place on a slide.
a
3.8
4.0
Scale was 1−5 (1 = not at all; 3 = somewhat; 5 = very much).
4.2
4.3
3.9
4.1
■
The In-Class Exercise (Literal and Inferential Reading):
Finding Key Sentences
ASSESSMENT
The Fall 2011 students were surveyed on the extent to which
the Reading Papers Using Key Sentences assignment helped
them to practice reading journal articles for comprehension on
a scale of 1−5 (1 = not at all; 3 = somewhat; 5 = very much).
As shown in Table 1, the students found the in-class exercise to
be especially useful for finding key concepts, and determining
how well written a paragraph is. The out-of-class assignment
was helpful to them in all areas, including finding keywords and
concepts, understanding the author’s point, and determining
how to organize and evaluate information for a presentation.
Students were also asked about how well the Reading Papers
Using Key Sentences assignment helped them to prepare for
the midterm and the final presentations (Table 2). In general,
In the first part of the assignment, students are provided with
four excerpts from published journal articles or books and
asked to read them carefully in class. The passages are scientific
in nature, but not so jargon-laden that students are stymied by
an inability to comprehend their literal meaning. Students
highlight the key sentence in each paragraph and answer the
following questions in a discussion:
Is the key sentence properly placed in the paragraph?
Does it clearly frame the point the author is trying to
make?
Do all of the sentences in the paragraph connect to the
key sentence?
Students learn quickly that a well-written paragraph relies
heavily upon the position and clarity of the key sentence, while
a poorly written paragraph may have an unclear key sentence,
more than one, or none at all. They also find that though all
students do not choose the same key sentence, searching for a
key sentence helps them to pace their reading, identify the main
point of a paragraph, and determine how other sentences in the
paragraph relate to it.
Table 2. Results of the Student Survey Regarding the
Usefulness of the Overall Assignment
Survey Statement: Overall, the reading papers using key
sentences assignment...
Responsea Avg
(N = 20)
1. Helped me to prepare for the midterm exam.
2. Helped me to prepare slides for the final presentation.
2.8
3.6
a
Scale was 1−5 (1 = not at all; 3 = somewhat; 5 = very much).
they found the assignment more useful for preparing the final
presentation than for studying for the midterm. This response
surprised us because a comparison of average exam grades for
the past three years shows that there has been a marked
improvement since we started using the key sentence
assignment in the Fall of 2010 (Table 3). Because the course
is team-taught, the midterm has been prepared by a different
professor each year (and in some years each semester) and the
article changes from semester to semester. However, the
The Out-of-Class Exercise (Literal, Inferential, and
Evaluative Reading): Critiquing a Journal Article Using Key
Sentences
Once the students have practiced finding key sentences, the
instructor provides a short tutorial on how to make slides for
oral presentations. Next, students are taught that because a key
sentence summarizes the information in a paragraph, it can be
used as the basis for organizing information on a slide (Figure
1). Students then receive an out-of-class, group assignment to
make slides using key sentences from the first five paragraphs of
a journal article. The assigned articles contain both new and
familiar content (organic and analytical chemistry concepts)
and have at least one table, graph, or figure in the first five
paragraphs so that students will have to make decisions about
how best to incorporate chemical data in a slide.
To complete the assignment, students must think about how
best to present the material from the first five paragraphs to an
audience of their peers. This includes highlighting key concepts
and then defining terms, relating those terms to what they
already know, and determining which data or figures are
important.
Table 3. Average Midterm Exam Grades for the Past Three
Academic Years
Academic Year
Number of Students
(N)
Midterm Exam
Averagea
2009−2010
2010−2011b
Fall
2011
24
36
35
20
72.3
74
82
82
2008−2009
a
Exam scores were out of a possible 100 points. bThe grades reported
for 2010−2011 cover the academic year of Fall 2010 and Spring 2011,
whereas those for Fall 2011 are from the following academic semester.
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(18) Purugganan, M.; Hewitt, J. The Cain Project in Engineering and
Professional Communication, Rice University, 2004. http://www.
owlnet.rice.edu/∼cainproj/ (accessed Mar 2013).
(19) Improving Clarity in Scholarly Writing: The Key Sentence Method,
University of Wisconsin−Whitewater, 2005. http://www.uww.edu/
learn/keysentence.php (accessed Mar 2013).
(20) Gray, T. Publish and Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar; Phillips
Brothers Printing: Springfield, IL, 2005; pp 43−45.
(21) Birch, N. J. Chem. Rev. 1999, 99 (9), 2659−2682.
general format of the exam remains the same; therefore, we
believe the comparison has some validity.
■
CONCLUSION
The ability to read chemical literature with a high level of
comprehension is a skill that impacts a student’s capacity to
learn advanced chemical concepts and communicate them
coherently. In turn, these factors will influence students’
aptitude to design experiments and perform chemical research.
We have devised a simple, easily adaptable, and effective
method for introducing students to the use of primary sources
using key sentences.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT
S Supporting Information
*
In-class and out-of-class exercises; a list of articles used;
examples of student slides. This material is available via the
Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.
■
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail: [email protected].
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
■
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank the following faculty members of the
A.R. Smith Department of Chemistry who have developed the
curriculum of CHE 3000 course over the past five years,
including: Michael Ramey, Carol Babyak, Al Schwab, and
Michael Hambourger. We would also like to thank the Fall
2011 CHE 3000 course students for their assessment of the
Reading Papers Using Key Sentences assignment. We are
especially grateful to Kimberly Coe, Deva Cordona, Christopher Eubanks, Zachery Gilbert, Bryan Morse, Matthew Roberts,
Brittany Trexler, and Alecia Woock for allowing us to use their
slides as examples for the Supporting Information.
■
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