How to read a scientific paper

Posted on July 18, 2008 by | 3 Comments

Here is a good example. Step-by-step.

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3 responses to “How to read a scientific paper”

  1. Bill K.'s avatar Bill K. | July 18, 2008 at 7:53 pm |

    Thanks for linking. I’m glad you like the post.

  2. PhysioProf's avatar PhysioProf | July 19, 2008 at 1:50 pm |

    The advice started out reasonable: first read the abstract, and then the figures and figure legends. It then veers sharply downhill. What about the fucking Results!? You know, where the authors tell you what they did and what they observed! If you go right to the “Conclusions”, “Discussion”, and “Introduction” sections without reading the Results, you are setting yourself up to buy into the marketing hype.

  3. Coturnix's avatar Coturnix | July 21, 2008 at 12:37 am |

    Lay-people read (and should read) the scientific papers differently. It is OK for laymen to skip over the hard parts. I start with Refernces, then dig through the Materials and Methods, then figures/results in parallel. I will read the rest only if it is really important for me. But I see why lay audience should do quite the opposite – their goals are different.