There are three key things I’ve taken away from reading academic articles in preparation for my thesis. The first, presentation is just as important as content. One can have the most exciting and innovative findings in the world, but if the findings are buried in unlabeled charts and figures or hidden in long, dense paragraphs, the point gets lost. For example, I read a paper from the International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, “Fill Me App: An Interactive Mobile Game Application for Children with Autism,” which had a lot of amazing content and an interesting subject, but it was difficult to read and the provided charts and figures were rather vague.
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| Taken from "Fill Me App: An Interactive Mobile Game Application for Children with Autism." |
The second takeaway seems rather obvious, but I learned that having a clear and defined structure for a research paper is highly important. Having a clean structure can allow for better readability, and can allow readers to scan and focus on key points to help understand the article.
The third takeaway is more specific to my topic of study for my thesis. For articles relating to the interaction between individuals with autism and technology in the space of a museum, case studies seem to be the most effective form of evidence. Another article I read, “Educational and digital inclusion for subjects with autism spectrum disorders in 1:1 technological configuration,” effectively used case study evidence throughout the article and, in my opinion, it made each of their assertions easier to understand. For each point they made about the interaction between an autistic child and a certain type of technology, the writers would include an anecdote from their research pertaining to a specific child involved in the study. I think this is a technique I may carry over into my own thesis.
As I've read more museum studies research articles, I discovered that they don’t all follow the same format or style, which surprised me. Throughout my time as a student, much of my experience with scholarly articles related to museums can be summed up in three words: dense, heavy essays. However, reading more contemporary work has shown me that the academic writing for museum studies can be just as diverse as the field itself. I look forward to making my own contributions to the field.
1. Marylene S. Eder, John Maruel L. Diaz, Joanne Ruth S. Madela, Marife U. Mag-usara
and Dhally Dith M. Sabellano, “Fill Me App: An Interactive Mobile Game Application for Children with Autism,” International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies 10, no. 3 (2016): 56-63.
2. Lucila Maria Costi Santarosa and Debora Conforto, “Educational and digital inclusion for subjects with autism spectrum disorders in 1:1 technological configuration,” Computers in Human Behavior 60 (2016): 293-300.
Felicia, great post. And, I second your point about structure. Headings and subheadings really help with structure and clarity. Sometimes, too, it's okay to repeat yourself a little bit. In doing so, you can reiterate a claim. Nice to see you branching out in sources, too.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you organized this post. With clear takeaways, you'll be able to smoothly integrate all that you've learned into your thesis.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the structure of an article can sometimes hide the most important points that you're trying to get across. As you stated, some articles that we've read can be very heavy and dense and it's often a struggle to make sure the readers are getting the most important and interesting information.
ReplyDeleteI can really see this happening if the reader is (in the case of your thesis topic) a parent of an autistic child who is not familiar with some academic styles of writing.