jennifer raffFrom vaccinations to climate change, getting science wrong has very real consequences. But journal articles, a primary way science is communicated in academia, are a dissimilar format to newspaper manufactures or blogs and crave a level of skill and undoubtedly a greater corporeality of patience. Here Jennifer Raffhas prepared a helpful guide for non-scientists on how to read a scientific paper. These steps and tips will be useful to anyone interested in the presentation of scientific findings and heighten important points for scientists to consider with their own writing do.

My post, The truth about vaccinations: Your physician knows more than than the University of Google sparked a very lively discussion, with comments from several people trying to persuade me (and the other readers) that their paper disproved everything that I'd been saying. While I encourage you lot to go read the comments and contribute your ain, hither I desire to focus on the much larger result that this argue raised: what constitutes scientific authority?

It's not merely a fun bookish problem. Getting the science wrong has very real consequences. For example, when a community doesn't vaccinate children because they're afraid of "toxins" and think that prayer (or diet, practice, and "clean living") is enough to forestall infection, outbreaks happen.

"Be skeptical. Simply when you get proof, have proof." –Michael Specter

What constitutes enough proof? Obviously everyone has a unlike answer to that question. But to form a truly educated opinion on a scientific subject area, you demand to become familiar with current research in that field. And to practise that, you have to read the "primary research literature" (often just called "the literature"). Yous might have tried to read scientific papers before and been frustrated past the dense, stilted writing and the unfamiliar jargon. I recall feeling this mode!  Reading and agreement research papers is a skill which every single doctor and scientist has had to larn during graduate schoolhouse.  You can learn it likewise, just like whatever skill information technology takes patience and exercise.

I want to aid people become more scientifically literate, and so I wrote this guide for how a layperson can arroyo reading and understanding a scientific research paper. It's appropriate for someone who has no background any in science or medicine, and based on the assumption that he or she is doing this for the purpose of getting abasic understanding of a paper and deciding whether or non it's a reputable report.

The type of scientific paper I'thousand discussing here is referred to every bit a primary enquiry article. It'south a peer-reviewed report of new research on a specific question (or questions). Another useful type of publication is a review article. Review articles are also peer-reviewed, and don't present new information, but summarize multiple primary research articles, to give a sense of the consensus, debates, and unanswered questions within a field.  (I'm non going to say much more about them here, but exist cautious about which review articles yous read. Recollect that they are only a snapshot of the inquiry at the time they are published.  A review commodity on, say, genome-wide clan studies from 2001 is non going to be very informative in 2013. And then much research has been washed in the intervening years that the field has changed considerably).

Before you begin: some general communication

Reading a scientific newspaper is a completely different process than reading an article about science in a weblog or newspaper. Not only do you read the sections in a unlike social club than they're presented, merely you also have to have notes, read it multiple times, and probably become look upwards other papers for some of the details. Reading a unmarried newspaper may take you a very long time at outset. Exist patient with yourself. The procedure will get much faster as you gain experience.

Most master research papers will be divided into the following sections: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusions/Interpretations/Give-and-take. The guild will depend on which journal it's published in. Some journals take additional files (chosen Supplementary Online Data) which incorporate important details of the research, but are published online instead of in the article itself (make sure you don't skip these files).

Before you begin reading, accept note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. Some institutions (e.thou. University of Texas) are well-respected; others (e.m. the Discovery Constitute) may appear to be legitimate research institutions but are actually agenda-driven. Tip: one thousand oogle "Discovery Institute" to see why y'all don't want to use it as a scientific authority on evolutionary theory.

Also accept note of the journal in which it's published. Reputable (biomedical) journals will exist indexed by Pubmed. [EDIT: Several people have reminded me that not-biomedical journals won't be on Pubmed, and they're admittedly right! (thanks for communicable that, I apologize for being sloppy here). Check out Web of Science for a more complete index of scientific discipline journals. And please experience free to share other resources in the comments!]  Beware of questionable journals.

As you read, write down every single word that you don't understand. You're going to have to look them all up (yep, every ane. I know it'due south a total pain. But you won't understand the newspaper if you don't sympathise the vocabulary. Scientific words take extremely precise meanings).

how to read a sci paper

Footstep-past-stride instructions for reading a primary inquiry article

1. Begin by reading the introduction, not the abstract.

The abstruse is that dense commencement paragraph at the very commencement of a paper. In fact, that'southward oftentimes the but part of a paper that many not-scientists read when they're trying to build a scientific argument. (This is a terrible practise—don't do it.).  When I'm choosing papers to read, I decide what's relevant to my interests based on a combination of the championship and abstract. But when I've got a drove of papers assembled for deep reading, I always read the abstract last. I do this because abstracts contain a succinct summary of the entire paper, and I'chiliad concerned nigh inadvertently becoming biased by the authors' interpretation of the results.

2. Identify the Large QUESTION.

Not "What is this paper about", but "What trouble is this entire field trying to solve?"

This helps you lot focus on why this research is being done.  Expect closely for prove of agenda-motivated research.

3. Summarize the background in five sentences or less.

Hither are some questions to guide you:

What work has been done earlier in this field to answer the Large QUESTION? What are the limitations of that work? What, according to the authors, needs to be done side by side?

The five sentences part is a little arbitrary, just it forces yous to be curtailed and really think nigh the context of this enquiry. You lot need to be able to explain why this research has been done in lodge to empathise it.

iv. Identify the SPECIFIC QUESTION(S)

What exactly are the authors trying to answer with their research? There may be multiple questions, or simply one. Write them down.  If it'southward the kind of enquiry that tests one or more naught hypotheses, identify information technology/them.

Not sure what a null hypothesis is? Get read this, so go back to my last post and read one of the papers that I linked to (like this one) and attempt to identify the null hypotheses in it. Continue in heed that not every paper will test a null hypothesis.

five. Place the approach

What are the authors going to practise to respond the SPECIFIC QUESTION(Due south)?

6. At present read the methods department. Draw a diagram for each experiment, showing exactly what the authors did.

I mean literally draw it. Include as much detail as you demand to fully sympathize the work.  As an example, here is what I drew to sort out the methods for a paper I read today (Battaglia et al. 2013: "The first peopling of South America: New bear witness from Y-chromosome haplogroup Q"). This is much less item than y'all'd probably need, because it'due south a paper in my specialty and I utilize these methods all the time.  But if you were reading this, and didn't happen to know what "procedure data with reduced-median method using Network" ways, you'd need to look that up.

battaglia-et-al-methodsImage credit: author

You don't need to understand the methods in enough detail to replicate the experiment—that'southward something reviewers have to do—but you lot're not ready to move on to the results until you can explain the nuts of the methods to someone else.

vii. Read the results section. Write i or more than paragraphs to summarize the results for each experiment, each figure, and each tabular array. Don't yet try to decide what the results mean, just write down what they are.

You'll observe that, particularly in good papers, the bulk of the results are summarized in the figures and tables. Pay careful attention to them!  You lot may also need to go to the Supplementary Online Information file to discover some of the results.

 It is at this signal where difficulties can arise if statistical tests are employed in the paper and you don't have enough of a background to sympathise them. I tin can't teach you lot stats in this mail service, only hither, hither, and here are some basic resources to help y'all.  I STRONGLY advise you to get familiar with them.

Things to pay attention to in the results section:

  • Any time the words "significant" or "non-significant" are used. These have precise statistical meanings. Read more than about this here.
  • If in that location are graphs, do they have mistake bars on them? For certain types of studies, a lack of confidence intervals is a major red flag.
  • The sample size. Has the study been conducted on x, or 10,000 people? (For some research purposes, a sample size of ten is sufficient, but for well-nigh studies larger is ameliorate).

8. Do the results answer the SPECIFIC QUESTION(South)? What do you retrieve they mean?

Don't move on until you have idea about this. Information technology's okay to change your mind in light of the authors' estimation—in fact you probably volition if y'all're still a beginner at this kind of analysis—simply it'south a really good habit to start forming your own interpretations earlier you read those of others.

9. Read the conclusion/discussion/Interpretation section.

What exercise the authors call up the results mean? Do y'all hold with them? Can you come up upwards with any alternative manner of interpreting them? Exercise the authors identify whatever weaknesses in their own study? Practise yous run across any that the authors missed? (Don't presume they're infallible!) What do they propose to do equally a next pace? Do you lot agree with that?

ten. Now, go back to the offset and read the abstract.

Does it match what the authors said in the paper? Does information technology fit with your interpretation of the paper?

11. FINAL Pace: (Don't neglect doing this) What practise other researchers say near this paper?

Who are the (acknowledged or cocky-proclaimed) experts in this item field? Do they have criticisms of the study that you haven't thought of, or do they generally support it?

Here'southward a identify where I do recommend y'all use google! But do information technology last, so you are better prepared to think critically nigh what other people say.

(12. This step may be optional for you, depending on why you're reading a detail paper. Merely for me, it'southward critical! I go through the "Literature cited" section to see what other papers the authors cited. This allows me to amend identify the important papers in a particular field, run into if the authors cited my own papers (KIDDING!….mostly), and notice sources of useful ideas or techniques.)

UPDATE: If y'all would similar to see an example of how to read a science newspaper using this framework, you can detect one here.

I gratefully admit Professors José Bonner and Bill Saxton for instruction me how to critically read and analyze scientific papers using this method. I'thousand honored to accept the risk to pass along what they taught me.

I've written a shorter version of this guide for teachers to manus out to their classes. If you'd like a PDF, shoot me an electronic mail: jenniferraff (at) utexas (dot) edu. For further comments and additional questions on this guide, please see the Comments Section on the original post.

This piece originally appeared on the author's personal weblog and is reposted with permission.

Featured prototype credit: Scientists in a laboratory of the University of La Rioja by Urcomunicacion (Wikimedia CC BY3.0)

Note: This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the LSE Affect blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Delight review our Comments Policy if y'all have whatsoever concerns on posting a annotate below.

Virtually the Author

Jennifer Raff (Indiana Academy—dual Ph.D. in genetics and bioanthropology) is an assistant professor in the Section of Anthropology, University of Kansas, director and Principal Investigator of the KU Laboratory of Human Population Genomics, and banana director of KU's Laboratory of Biological Anthropology. She is also a research affiliate with the University of Texas anthropological genetics laboratory. She is keenly interested in public outreach and scientific literacy, writing about topics in science and pseudoscience for her blog (violentmetaphors.com), the Huffington Post, and for the Social Evolution Forum.

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