Reading a scientific paper is quite a frightening task. I had no idea of their existence until I took my first Biology course. Week one in General Biology left my lost and confused, and it was all because of scientific papers. Each week we were to perform an experiment and then report on it in scientific paper format. This was my first taste of what a scientific paper consisted of. A few classes later I ran into Cell and Molecular Biology. This monster of a class had us read long, complicated scientific papers. The reading of these left me exhausted, brain-dead, and pretty much lost. With huge words, complicated figures, and abbreviations, these papers seemed to be presented in a new English dialect. With time I learned how to read scientific papers. Here are my tips for reading complicated scientific papers!
1. Forget that time even exists
If you are a time crunch and you want to read a scientific paper, DON'T! Reading and fully understanding these papers will take hours.
2. Break it down into sections
If you understand what the purpose of each section is, you can better interpret the main ideas.
- Title
- This tells you the main idea, what the paper will be about
- Authors
- Where the authors work and their title can help you interpret the purpose and setting of the paper. For example, if work is done by medical doctors then it will most likely have references to something dealing with health.
- Abstract
- Short, but complete summary of the article.
- Introduction
- This section is important because it shows the real-world application and importance of the research. It also sets up the hypothesis with questions and observations.
- Methods
- This is the most detailed of all the sections. Here is where you will run into abbreviations and acronyms and equipment with names that seem crazy strange. Its purpose is to act as a recipe, so that if you wanted to replicate the experiment you could.
- Results
- This is where data and information that was collected is shown using graphs and tables. There typically isn't much interpreting of the data in this section, mostly just straight up data.
- Discussion
- This is the core of the paper. Here the scientists explain the importance of the results. The go back and support or disprove the hypothesis as well as answer the questions of pertinence to the real-world.
3. Translate as you go
This is where it becomes time consuming. As you move through the sections, take the time to look up words and terms you don't understand. Then reword, rewrite, and summarize the section how you understand it.
I found these questions in an article, which I will be posting the link to at the end of this post.
1. What were the scientists looking for? What question (or questions) did they ask?
2. What methods did they use to answer their question?
3. Did the researchers compare two or more things? Did they look at some factor over time? Did they use a technique to identify something new?
4. What answers did the scientists come up with? Why do they think their answers are important?
5. What are the limitations of the findings? Do the results apply in all cases? Are there things to watch out for?
2. What methods did they use to answer their question?
3. Did the researchers compare two or more things? Did they look at some factor over time? Did they use a technique to identify something new?
4. What answers did the scientists come up with? Why do they think their answers are important?
5. What are the limitations of the findings? Do the results apply in all cases? Are there things to watch out for?
Now that you have these tools, go out there and READ, READ, READ! You can do it! For other tips, and a more in depth look at the sections, check out these links below!
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