How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
1–10 of 63 posts
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#2This is a good guide, but I will tell you a trick that is faster, easier, and more effective:
read 2 or 3 papers.
All that effort you would put into doing these steps? Instead, read 1 or 2 other papers that the author refers to in the beginning.
Science is a conversation. When you read the other papers, even if you don't understand them at first, you will get a sense of the conversation.
Also, some writers are abysmal, and others are amazingly lucid. Hopefully one of the 3 papers you read will be the lucid one that will help you understand the other 2.
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#3[deleted]
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#4This is a good guide, but I will tell you a trick that is faster, easier, and more effective: read 2 or 3 papers. All that effort you would put into doing these steps? Instead, read 1 or 2 other papers that the author refers to in the beginning. Science is a conversation. When you read the other papers, even if you don't understand them at first, you will get a sense of the conversation. Also, some writers are abysma…
This is great advice. Even after becoming familiar with an area, I read some authors and get swamped by unexplained terminology.
Another simple trick is to look at the journal title. Articles in journals like "Trends in... " tend to be written for a broader audience, so often have clearer introductions. In general, the less specific the journal, the better the introduction will be for newcomers.
(Be aware that journals with lower word limits / shorter articles may have less rigorous introductions, for better or worse)
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#5Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these:
> Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations.
and
> Beware of questionable journals.
Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents.
Even more than that, dispensing advice along these lines perpetuates the myth that scientific fact is dispensed from on high. If that's the case, just let the experts do the thinking for you and don't bother your pretty little head trying to read scientific papers.
If the author's approach to reading a paper only works by checking for stamps of approval, maybe the approach should be reconsidered.
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#6I usually first start reading or glance over papers (and non-story books) from the end to the beginning before I read it the other way around. This has the following benefits for me:
- By knowing about the conclusion first I will better understand the motivation and why certain steps are being taken.
- I find out sooner if the paper (or book) is something I am looking for.
I like to read papers unrelated to my field to learn new thing to apply. To be honest, some papers still take me a long time to understand because they usually assume you already are researching the topic (for ex. certain terms, symbols and/or variables that are not being defined).
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#7I love how simple and clear this post is.
As a kind of weird aside, if anyone ever emailed me about any of my journal articles, I would 100% respond to them (assuming they weren't a machine). I think most of my colleagues would do the same (except for articles featured in a newspaper, which might garner a lot of weird emails).
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#8Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these: > Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. and > Beware of questionable journals. Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents. Even more than that, dispensing advice along…
They aren't shortcuts for the lazy, they're shortcuts for non-scientists who aren't capable of fully evaluating the science alone. If you're capable of objectively peer reviewing a paper, you're not the audience of this article.
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#9Why don't the authors do these 11 steps for us?
Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists
#10Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these: > Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. and > Beware of questionable journals. Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents. Even more than that, dispensing advice along…
I agree with you. Your comment totally reminded me of SCIgen [0].
[0] http://news.mit.edu/2015/how-three-mit-students-fooled-scien...