How to Read Research PDF
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Uploaded by VersatileEuphonium1953
Westmont College
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Summary
This document provides a guide on how to read research papers, focusing on quantitative research. It covers various aspects such as finding relevant articles, understanding different sections within a research paper (e.g., introduction, methods, results, discussion), and evaluating statistical tests. Furthermore, the document emphasizes the importance of critically evaluating various parts of a research paper to identify strengths and weaknesses.
Full Transcript
How to Read Research Depends on type! For this class, we are going to focus on quantitative research Step 1 – Finding the article Class project On-going/Keeping up with the literature Go to conferences/interact with people who have similar interests Beware the pitfalls! Information over...
How to Read Research Depends on type! For this class, we are going to focus on quantitative research Step 1 – Finding the article Class project On-going/Keeping up with the literature Go to conferences/interact with people who have similar interests Beware the pitfalls! Information overload… Journals don’t replace real-world experience Download and save relevant articles for later Share on social media yourself? Organization of a Research Paper Title Abstract Separate Sections for: Introduction (Background) Methods Results Discussion and Conclusions References Institutional Affiliation Grant Support/Sources of Funding/Conflict of Interest Step 2 – Read the title Scientific articles tend to have descriptive titles Step 3 – Read the Abstract (or don’t?) Summary of Intro, Methods, Results, discussion But, it is a summary – does not contain all information Experienced vs Inexperienced reader On to the actual paper - Introduction *If you read the abstract, start with the methods* Updates existing understanding of the topic. Rationalizes the study Concludes with study aim and research question. Make note of acronyms! Methods Read carefully! Participant information Techniques/protocol and equipment Statistics Key Statistics Points This is why you have to take Stats!!! Two key statistical tests Test looking for similarities Correlation/Regression (R2 value) Test looking for differences T-test/ANOVA (p-value) P-value = probability value Results Two parts Text Tables/Figures Misleading graphs examples… Another issue of scale Another issue of scale Check out this y-axis… Do you see any issues? Incomplete data issue Only telling part of the story… Only telling part of the story… These numbers don’t make sense… Deliberately misleading? Discussion Speculation is usually permitted. Authors compare their work to others’ work. Explains why authors work might be different from others Should contain limitations/shortcomings Ends with conclusions tested in the study and confirmed by the statistics (should be the same as the abstract) Other considerations Three-pass model Statistical vs Clinical Significance Process of acquiring new information and creating knowledge is complex! Need to read scientific reports IT TAKES PRACTICE!!!
