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How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
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Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it depends on the literature. I almost never read the introduction, unless I am unclear on the motivation for the work from the abstract. The fundamental problem with abstracts and introductions is that they're sales content . You can't trust them. The only thing you can do is decide if you wish to read further, and see if the paper says what they claim it says. For that, an abstract is sufficient about 99% of…
In the literature I spend the most time with (archaeology/anthropology), the abstract is often focused on the broad applicability of the research to the field, which I either don't care about or already know (often both). The last line/paragraph of the introduction contains the specific contributions/findings of the paper. If and only if that's reasonable might it be worth investing the time to read further. I only r…
Yeah, we come from very different fields. But I'll say this:
> the probably-not-computer-literate author(s) used and miss the details hidden outside the data in the explanatory text (e.g. samples were processed by throwing away all bits we couldn't identify!) that make the time spent useless.
This is super common in my own field, and it's top-five indication that the paper is bad. If I can't understand how they manipulated the data, unless I have some specific other interest, the entire paper goes in the trash. There's no excuse.
For example, it's pretty routine in biology and medicine to see high profile papers that invent some wild/complex "statistical pseudo-control", instead of actually doing a good experiment (which is hard, and probably why the question is unpublished). These papers are basically never worth reading.
See also: not using conventional statistical tests, not including uncertainty estimates, not using standard/vanilla models before jumping to crazy stuff. Not to be too glib, but "we entered the data into SAS/Excel/R/Matlab" is like a bright, flashing warning sign that you're about to see a clown show.
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#23> As editor-in-chief of Science....Generally, I start with the corresponding editors' summaries, which are meant for someone like me: a science generalist who is interested in everything but dives deeply only into one field. Next, I check to see if someone wrote a News article on the paper. Third, I check to see if there is a Perspective by another scientist. This says so much about the volume of absolute crap that g…
I wouldn't rule it out entirely - a good news article can add context (e.g. via interviews with authors) that is otherwise not generally part of the paper itself
but.... why is that? if scientific papers were written well (and i'm implicating the science publishing guidelines + accepted culture of scientific writing in that, not just individual authors), shouldn't they self-contain their context to the level that they are comprehensible? note, i'm not talking about spin - that doesn't belong. but if basic comprehension of the paper requires reading secondary sources, isn't that a fundamental problem in how scientific papers are written? (i'm asking this as a person with a phd and post-doc, working as a data scientist now but i have read many many scientific papers). I'll note - older papers (1960's, 1970's, etc.), do seem to include more color and more explanation. some modern papers do too. but many are dry and kind of incomprehensible.
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#24This misses the best skimming trick I learned from an advisor: After you read the abstract, read the last couple lines/paragraphs of the introduction. That's where you'll find the authors best summary of the paper's contributions and novelty. For instance, the first paper that popped up with some random search terms [0]: The present paper attempts to provide a structured and comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art…
Maybe it depends on the literature. I almost never read the introduction, unless I am unclear on the motivation for the work from the abstract. The fundamental problem with abstracts and introductions is that they're sales content . You can't trust them. The only thing you can do is decide if you wish to read further, and see if the paper says what they claim it says. For that, an abstract is sufficient about 99% of…
Yeah it depends heavily on the field and sometimes on the subfield.
Also the approach I use depends on how much I know about the field. If I know less, I weight the introduction more. If I know a lot, I skip almost all the sales and stage setting content. E.g. if it's a psych paper, often I jump directly to the results and only read other content if the results look reasonable. And so on.
So, I guess my only real point is that it's hard to take advice for how best to read a paper from someone (like your advisor) who knows the field much better than you do. You should probably gather as many tricks from the advice as you can, but maybe don't treat it as gospel and do lots of experimenting.
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#25> As editor-in-chief of Science....Generally, I start with the corresponding editors' summaries, which are meant for someone like me: a science generalist who is interested in everything but dives deeply only into one field. Next, I check to see if someone wrote a News article on the paper. Third, I check to see if there is a Perspective by another scientist. This says so much about the volume of absolute crap that g…
I guess you didn’t read the article very closely. The Science editor was talking about Science News (note the capitalization) which is a well respected information resource.
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#26> As editor-in-chief of Science....Generally, I start with the corresponding editors' summaries, which are meant for someone like me: a science generalist who is interested in everything but dives deeply only into one field. Next, I check to see if someone wrote a News article on the paper. Third, I check to see if there is a Perspective by another scientist. This says so much about the volume of absolute crap that g…
I guess you didn’t read the article very closely. The Science editor was talking about Science News (note the capitalization) which is a well respected information resource.
OK, first...Science News is trash. Absolute trash. Maybe it's better than e.g. the current NY Times Science reporter (who is so incompetent that it's mind-blowing), but it's still just not worth reading, except maybe on the toilet. They can (and do) say nonsensical stuff all the time.
(edit: I just realized that you might be suggesting that "News" in the quote refers only to "Science News". I don't agree, but even if so, it doesn't change anything about my argument. If you are editor-in-chief of a scientific journal, you shouldn't be delegating your analysis to reporters, no matter where they work. If you aren't experienced/knowledgable enough to see why a paper is important from the work in front of you, give it to someone who can. And if you don't want to do that, then reject it.)
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess you didn’t read the article very closely. The Science editor was talking about Science News (note the capitalization) which is a well respected information resource.
OK, first...Science News is trash. Absolute trash. Maybe it's better than e.g. the current NY Times Science reporter (who is so incompetent that it's mind-blowing), but it's still just not worth reading, except maybe on the toilet. They can (and do) say nonsensical stuff all the time. (edit: I just realized that you might be suggesting that "News" in the quote refers only to "Science News". I don't agree, but even if…
Well, I don’t agree with your opinion of Science News, but that’s OK. What I was pointing out is that she was indeed referring to Science News (and also Science Perspectives) as sources for her reading and understanding of a paper.
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, first...Science News is trash. Absolute trash. Maybe it's better than e.g. the current NY Times Science reporter (who is so incompetent that it's mind-blowing), but it's still just not worth reading, except maybe on the toilet. They can (and do) say nonsensical stuff all the time. (edit: I just realized that you might be suggesting that "News" in the quote refers only to "Science News". I don't agree, but even if…
Well, I don’t agree with your opinion of Science News, but that’s OK. What I was pointing out is that she was indeed referring to Science News (and also Science Perspectives) as sources for her reading and understanding of a paper.
Maybe that was implied by the capitalization of "News", but regardless, it's the same argument.
Reporters are not scientsts. The whole thing is like a hilarious public announcement that the editor in chief of Science has Gell-Mann Amnesia.
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it depends on the literature. I almost never read the introduction, unless I am unclear on the motivation for the work from the abstract. The fundamental problem with abstracts and introductions is that they're sales content . You can't trust them. The only thing you can do is decide if you wish to read further, and see if the paper says what they claim it says. For that, an abstract is sufficient about 99% of…
Yeah it depends heavily on the field and sometimes on the subfield. Also the approach I use depends on how much I know about the field. If I know less, I weight the introduction more. If I know a lot, I skip almost all the sales and stage setting content. E.g. if it's a psych paper, often I jump directly to the results and only read other content if the results look reasonable. And so on. So, I guess my only real poi…
It's certainly true that it depends on the subfield and somewhat on your level of experience in that field. But the approach I outlined works pretty well, generally, and only serves to underscore how bad many papers are.
For example, I'm not going to be able to pick up a paper from CERN and do most of the steps I outlined, but if I did do that, and found an obvious statistical anomaly in the first table, well...now I'd have something interesting to ask about and dig into.
Re: How to (seriously) read a scientific paper (2016)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the literature I spend the most time with (archaeology/anthropology), the abstract is often focused on the broad applicability of the research to the field, which I either don't care about or already know (often both). The last line/paragraph of the introduction contains the specific contributions/findings of the paper. If and only if that's reasonable might it be worth investing the time to read further. I only r…
Yeah, we come from very different fields. But I'll say this: > the probably-not-computer-literate author(s) used and miss the details hidden outside the data in the explanatory text (e.g. samples were processed by throwing away all bits we couldn't identify!) that make the time spent useless. This is super common in my own field, and it's top-five indication that the paper is bad. If I can't understand how they manip…
Unfortunately, most of the foundational papers in the field did exactly that, usually without explicitly stating. It was pretty much the standard of practice for all bone analysis prior to ~2010 or so when microstructure analysis became a practical thing. Similar issues in other types of samples exist and it's still common today, it was just what came to my mind as the first example.