Read a science journal article. Library of Congress

You may think you’ll never need to read a scientific or medical journal article. But consider for a moment being faced with a new medical diagnosis, or you discover unusual chemicals in the soils of your backyard, or you even just want to know once and for all if global warming really exists. It then becomes evident that the need to read and comprehend a little basic scientific literature becomes quite important

Anyone can understand a scientific journal article if they follow a few tips on how to approach it. High school students, graduate students, practicing physicians, engineers, economists, policymakers, journalists, homemakers, historians, tradespersons, artists, musicians, retirees and spiritual leaders can gain valuable information if they are able to decipher scientific research as it is presented in the multitude of journals across a spectrum of research disciplines.

Practical applications to one’s life or trade could drive some to research science literature. But there’s another good reason to peruse the peer-reviewed journals, at least once in a while. Just a fraction of what’s reported in journals ever makes it into the popular science press. Often popular science topics are reported on again and again, while other equally worthy research never sees the light of the media day. The reasons why science journalists (and their editors) decide to cover one topic over another are diverse, and I won’t get into that this time. But believe me when I tell you that you are missing a lot if you don’t dig into the original research papers every now and then.

So, if you’ve never thumbed through the pages of a subscription-only journal like Nature or Science, or scrolled down the pages the online Public Library of Science open access journals, you might be a little overwhelmed by what you find. Even the most well designed scientific journals tend to be text-heavy and illustration-light.

Regardless the journal, scientific papers do contain the same sections, though not in the same order. The sections should be reminiscent of your science fair project display boards: Title, Authors, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Papers also containfigures, illustrations, photographs, diagrams, tables, graphs and charts scattered throughout, though not necessarily adjacent to the text to which it relates. The paper ends with acknowledgments, a reference list and possibly even supplemental material that can include tables of raw data, additional charts and sometimes even short movies or recordings.

It might seem the most logical approach would be to read the paper from start to finish, from title to reference list. But this is neither the most effective nor the easiest way to understand the content of scientific articles. They can’t be read like People magazine or Cooks Illustrated, though Cooks Illustrated comes pretty close to following the journal article format.

The first few times I attempted to read a journal paper, I tried to read from beginning to end. This was also back in the day when nothing was online and you had to page through journal index volumes to find what you wanted. It was a nightmare. By the end of the methods section I had lost interest.

These days, people wanting to find original research articles can do so from the comfort of their home computers. We are a nation spoiled by access to research, so let’s not waste our resources. Here is my recommended method for reading a scientific paper, based on personal experience, the suggestions of a couple of excellent professors and a few external resources. Try it, and then modify it to suit your own learning style.

Title, Authors and Date
Well, of course you are going to read the title. However, if you find the title hard to understand, you may want to find another paper on the same subject. Consider these two examples. Are you more likely to read and understand, “Exposure to Diesel and Gasoline Engine Emissions and the Risk of Lung Cancer” or “GST genotypes and lung cancer susceptibility in Asian populations with indoor air pollution exposures: A meta-analysis” ? Both of these articles talk about how pollutants from vehicle fuels can lead to lung cancer. One has a simple and broad title. The other paper is much more specific and technical. If given the choice, I always pick the article with the title that makes sense to me. Similarly, who the authors are may determine how well you may be able to understand the writing. Did you see the researcher interviewed on television or hear her on the radio? Her paper may be easier to read than a research you’ve never heard of. Some library databases list how frequently an author has been cited by other scientific papers. You can bet that if another scientist is referencing her work, then other researchers found the research important as well as understandable. Lastly, make note of the date of the article. This seems silly, but an article on genetics written just a couple of years ago may be complete obsolete and therefore useless, except for background.

Abstract
Even if I don’t know the author or fully understand the title, a quick read of the abstract should help me decide whether the paper is truly relevant to my interests. The abstract, if it is well written, ought to tell you practically everything you need to know about what happened in the scientific study in about 100 to 150 words. It won’t give you needed background, but if you already know a bit about the subject, it should tell you the entire paper in a nutshell.

Discussion
Once I’ve determined that the authors have anything to say to me, I skip all the way to the discussion section. If the abstract has not told me enough, I sometimes have to also read the introduction to gather a little more background about the subject before I skip to the discussion. But if I have a handle on the basic ideas, I cut straight to the chase. The discussion is the meat of any research paper. You might need to stop and look up a term or two, but if you read this section closely you will have invested the greatest time on the most important part of the research. Understand the discussion, and you will have understood the heart of the investigation. This section may be divided into subsections. Think of any subsections as take home messages or bullet points that the authors are trying to highlight.

Conclusion
Next, I read the conclusion, which is typically a short section and much less technical than other parts of the paper. This section addresses questions such as: Did the researchers prove their hypothesis? Where the results what they anticipated? What questions remain unanswered? What study needs to be done next to answer those questions? What could this research mean to my everyday existence? The conclusion section is where many science journalist find the lead to his or her story, and it should be where you go to find out why you shouls even care about this research.

Figures
At this point I take a few minutes to look over the figures. I read the captions and see if I can make sense of the authors are trying to show. Did the data trend upward or downward? Did it produce expected results? What does it say about any outliers? If the diagrams and charts are thoughtfully designed, they will tell you more than you could ever read in the methods or results.

Methods, Results, Supplemental Materials, References, Acknowledgments
Given my typically short attention span, the other sections of a scientific paper are lucky if I give them a second glance. This would not be the case, for example, if the method WAS the important news, as it would be in a journal such as Nature Protocols. If I want to dig further into a subject, I will check out the reference list for previously published papers. If I want to see if their results jive with their figures or match up to another similar paper, I will pore over the results. If I want to find out if a chocolate company supported some research on the anti-cancer properties of cacao beans that will be listed in the acknowledgments. Occasionally, I will browse through the supplementary materials, which are typically posted elsewhere online. I look for audio or movie files here that can provided added dimension not possible in a printed journal article.

So next time you hear something about the medical claims of the acai berry or that the magnetic poles earth are set to reverse in two years, do yourself a favor and look up the subject in a scientific journal. You may have to read an article three or four times before it will become comprehensible to you. But in the end, you will be surprised at just how much you will actually understand.

[Note: This Information 101 article is intended to help you better comprehend scientific articles from peer-reviewed journals. You should not, however, blindly accept what is published in any journal article as the absolute truth. Every article puts another piece in the puzzle of our knowledge, but scientists are people, and they make mistakes too. Remember, we used to think the Sun revolved around the Earth.]

Does every science journal article still look like jibberish (see right)? Keep practicing. (Credit: JePoirrier)

Additional resources: How to read a scientific paper, Arizona State University,
How to read a scientific article, Florida International University, Reading scientific papers, Stanford University
 

Special thanks to Karen Wells, PhD, adjunct professor of pharmacology and physiology at the University of Georgia and adjunct professor of biochemistry and neurobiology at The Johns Hopkins University for being the first person to ever teach me a systematic method of reading a science paper.