Saving time whilst building knowledge: Here’s why students love Scholarcy!
Have you ever found yourself stuck, staring at a wall of text, wishing it could shrink down into 5 short sentences?
We’ve all been there! It seems like academic texts have been written in the most difficult ways possible!
It can seem like this is done on purpose, just to stop anyone who isn’t an absolute expert from being able to understand the content of the article.
While this isn’t exactly the case, academic articles do have to be written in a very specific way to ensure that there is only one correct way to interpret the results. Which is great for seasoned veteran academics, but what about junior researchers? Or undergraduates who are trying to get their heads around the new writing style for the first time?
Clearly something different needs to be done, and it doesn’t look like academic journals are changing any time soon!
What are the challenges that students face?
We spoke to students to see what they found challenging about their reading at university, and here are the challenges they face:
- Lengthy articles causing overwhelm
- Procrastination around starting
- Keeping track of articles, book chapters, and other reading
- Breaking down complex topics
- Citing the articles they have read
Making papers accessible
Scholarcy was invented for this very reason. Academic texts just aren’t accessible!
Scholarcy breaks down complex text into a clean reading, structured summary, that takes the stress out of reading and understanding complex text.
The key concepts section lets students quickly see important topics covered in an article or textbook. If a particular topic is confusing or new, it can be opened to reveal a definition and more background information that can clear up any confusion, or introduce the reader to a new concept.
Students can use Scholarcy’s Dig Deeper feature to enhance their learning, or fill any knowledge gaps – this also helps to build confidence around the text, since students can use their own words to gain a deeper insight to the work.
Figuring out what an article even talks about
The challenge of knowing what an article is even talking about is a common cause of procrastination. Dense walls of text can be a real challenge to break down, leaving many students more confused than when they started.
Scholarcy tackles this problem with its simple screening tools, designed to help students figure out what an article is about, and if it is worth spending time on.
The snapshot and key findings present a perfect, bite-sized summary, that helps students grasp the purpose of any article headed their way.
By giving you a step-by-step, guided introduction to the text, Scholarcy makes tackling the detail easier, arming you with answers to questions that might come up later.
Organising and citing literature
Keeping articles organised seems like an easy task, right? Just save them to your documents, and read them when you have time.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as that. Keeping track of which articles need to be read, which ones need revisiting, and the ones to be cited, is a tremendous task.
Plus, who knows which article ‘1-s2.0-S0160412019336347.pdf’ even is!
Scholarcy makes this simple. Each article is automatically renamed to its proper title, removing all the guesswork out of locating a saved article.
You also get the author’s name, publication year, citation count, and article headline. Tackling a reading list now becomes less intimidating, and leaves students feeling more in control.
Scholarcy integrates with any citation software too, making it as simple as the click of a button to cite an article.
No more staring at a blank screen, struggling to work out how to use citation guidelines. Bibliographies can be generated in one click, and in-text citations appear whenever they’re needed.
From reading to writing
So how does Scholarcy help you go from reading about an abstract topic in a paper, to writing about it in your own words in a report?
Aside from the structured summary which reveals the key facts an article presents, Scholarcy also includes handy analysis tools that show exactly which articles have been built upon, and which results were confirmed and contrasted.
Using Scholarcy’s Research Comparison feature, students can easily learn how an article fits into the wider field of research – perfect for when it comes to writing a literature review!
Scholarcy’s note-taking feature is also a lifesaver for students trying to summarise an article in their own words without distractions. The handy notes tab opens up in the same view as the article so you don’t have to lose your place whilst note taking.
University is full of challenges, but with Scholarcy, tackling the reading list doesn’t have to be one of them! Try Scholarcy for yourself, to find out why other students and researchers across the globe trust it as their number 1 reading and research companion.