LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  1. Focus on the signposts that highlight an article’s structure

** Discovering signposts **

Go back to the article you skimmed, and highlight those words that sign post what the authors want to communicate. Sign post words are words that give structure, like:

because, since, given this argument, thus, therefore, hence, it follows that, consequently, nevertheless, however, but, in the first case, on the other hand

These are signposts which help you keep track of the structure of the introduction and discussion.

Here is an example of how a writer might use these words to build a skeleton for an article:

The literature suggests that … [claim goes here]. This suggestion generates at least two open questions. First… [question 1 goes here]. Second… [question 2 goes here]. However other research gives us reason to question these earlier results, generating contrasting questions… [contrasting questions go here]. These conflicting points therefore motivate our studies…[description of studies go here]

The words “suggest” and “however” and “motivate” make it easy to see where the argument is going. The writer is introducing one claim, and explaining what its implications are. Then, they introduce reasons to doubt that claim. The contrast between the initial proposal and the contrasting claim is the motivation that the writer is using to put forward their studies. You’ll want to put signposts like these in your own writing, to explain why you did the studies that you performed..