Much of a scientists' work involves reading research publications so
as to stay up to date in their field,
advance their scientific understanding, review manuscripts or
gather information for a project proposal or grant application.
Because scientific articles are different from other texts,
they should be read differently.
Most research publications follow the well known IMRaD format.
That is an abstract followed by the introduction,
methods, results and discussion.
They have multiple cross-references and tables as well as supplementary material.
There are many approaches to reading scientific articles.
Those of you, who have had significant experience reading such
articles will have developed a style of your own.
For those of you who have not, I will discuss one approach.
Reading a scientific paper should not be done in a linear way from beginning
to end.
Instead, it should be done strategically and with a critical mindset,
questioning your understanding and the findings.
We do not read a journal article like a novel or a newspaper article, and
there are several reasons for this.
The information is too dense to comprehend it with a simple reading.
You may be interested in a specific aspect of the article rather than the entire
thing.
The special structure of such articles allows readers to find
the desired section more easily.
The understanding of one part of an article will often require backward or
forward reference to another part of the article.
For adequate understanding of an article,
you should be prepared to read an article at least two, three, four times.
You will often be amazed to discover that what seemed completely incomprehensible
on the first reading appears to make perfect sense on subsequent readings.
You should be comforted to know that even experienced
scientists must read articles over and over again.
Furthermore, there will be things you simply do not understand
because you do not have the adequate background,
they're just too complicated, or they simply do not make sense.
Don't overlook this last possibility simply because you see something in print.
In general, people do not try to conquer every article they encounter.
There are simply too many articles and it would require too much work.
They tend to go through a sequential process of studying the article,
all the while deciding to give it further attention.
The decision is based on several factors.
Whether the article is of sufficient interest, whether it is relevant to
their work, whether it is of general importance, whether it is of high quality.
Whether it is clearly written and accessible at least,
after a reasonable amount of effort, whether the article is meaty or short.
Here are some tips for reading and understanding research papers.
Quickly read the title once, looking for key words.
Read the title slowly until it make sense.
Look through the authors to see if there is anyone whose name you recognize,
whose work you know.
This is an important process in trying to judge the quality of the data.
Look at the date, in some areas where information is rapidly changing,
the date may be the most important thing.
Bear in mind that there is a definite lag period between when the research
gets done, when the article gets written and when it's get published.
In addition to the publication date, many journals use the date when
the article was received and the date when the article was accepted.
Interestingly, journals that are peer reviewed are more likely to be delayed in
their publication but are less likely to contain inaccurate or frivolous articles.
Never start reading an article from the beginning to the end.
Begin by reading the introduction, not the abstract.
The abstract is the dense first paragraph at the very beginning of a paper.
In fact, that's often the only part of the paper that many non-scientists
read when they are trying to build a scientific argument.
This is a terrible practice, do not do it.
When I'm choosing papers to read, I decide what's relevant to my
interests based on a combination of the title and abstract.
But when I've got a collection of papers assembled for
deep reading, I always read the abstract last.
I do this because abstracts contains a brief summary of the entire paper.
I'm concerned about unintentionally becoming biased by
the author's interpretation of the results,
besides the introduction is often the easiest part of an article to read.
In some cases, it also is the most informative, not so much in terms of
presenting new information but in consolidating background information.
Some authors will also present the punch line of their research in a way
that is easier to understand than the way it is presented in the abstract.
The introduction will often cite many of the references.
This is an excellent time to begin looking at them.
The references are particularly informative if they contain
the titles of the articles being cited.
You will want to go back to the reference page over and over again.
Then quickly scan the article without taking notes.
Focus on headings and subheadings.
Note any terms and parts you do not understand for further reading.
Study the figures and tables.
You will not understand them this first time though, but
this will help you know what to look for when you actually read the article.
Skim the methods section.
The method section will need to be studied carefully,
only if you intend to use some of the procedures in your own research.
Certain parts of the methods, such as where the chemicals were purchased,
or where the viral strains were obtained, do not actually contribute to
an understanding of the article and may be safely omitted.
Other parts of the methods may remain obscure,
even after the rest of the article is fairly clear.
For our purposes, the methods should be studied only as far as
they contribute to the understanding of the rest of the article.
Then read the results section, and then go to the discussion.
Read the first few paragraphs and the last two paragraphs.
If it is short or easy to understand, read the whole thing.
Look for key issues and new findings.
Read the abstract slowly until it makes sense, then read the article again,
asking yourself such questions, what the problem is the study trying to solve?
Are the findings well supported by evidence?
Are the findings unique and supported by other work in the field?
What was the sample size?
Is it representative of the larger population?
Is the study repeatable?
What factors might affect the results?
Examine graphs and tables carefully.
Try to interpret data first before looking at captions.
Elena BazanovaDirector of the Language Training and Testing Center
