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Reading Science Critically

Discover the complexities and benefits of critically reading scientific papers to contribute to the common knowledge base. Learn strategies to navigate through research articles effectively.

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Reading Science Critically

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  1. Reading Science Critically Debi A. LaPlante, PhD Associate Director, Division on Addictions

  2. First Sources • Reading primary sources can be daunting • Complexity of information • Researchers are marketing their ideas and findings • Time • Benefits • Current findings • Promotes and enables replication • Data (often)

  3. What is the Purpose of Scientific Papers? • Concisely report information, ideas, and innovation • Build the common knowledge-base • Contribute to scientific debate • Resume building

  4. Why is important to read science critically? • Peer-review is state of the art, but imperfect • Author bias • Unintentional errors • Conflicts of interest • Author self-marketing

  5. More challenges to understanding and evaluating scientific literature • Writing by scientists, not writers • Marketing: Trojan Ns • Marketing: Assertive Sentence Titles • Statistical versus Clinical significance • Publication bias • Tough to publish negative results

  6. Finding Articles • Citation lists of published papers • Select journals’ table of contents • Specialized search engines (e.g., Medline; PsycInfo) • Web searches (e.g., Google Scholar) • Personal referrals • Citation indexes (e.g., Social Science Citation Index)

  7. Components of Scientific Papers • Abstract • Introduction • Hypotheses or research questions • Methods • Participants • Materials • Protocol • Results • Discussion • Interpretation of results • Advances • Limitations • Conclusion

  8. How to get through a paper • Strategy depends on expertise • General approach: • Don’t read straight through • Read title and abstract • Skim Intro • Read results • Track back to Methods • Read Discussion

  9. Resources • Literature summary services • www.basisonline.org • http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/cesarfax.asp • Greenhalgh (1997) http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7103/305 • Zaccai (2004) http://pmj.bmj.com/content/80/941/140.full.pdf

  10. Is the study original? • Does the research advance what we know? • Bigger, longer, more substantial? • More rigorous? • New population? • Will it inform or change clinical practice? Greenhalgh (1997)

  11. Whom is the study about? • What was the recruitment method? • Representative and generalizable? • Refusal rate? Homogeneity? Random? • What are the inclusion criteria? • Disorder severity • What are the exclusion criteria? • Co-existing illness, other medication, English, literate • How “true to life” is the study setting? Greenhalgh (1997)

  12. Is the design sensible? • What was done? • Appropriate comparison groups? • What was the measured outcome? • Is there a sufficient description of the design? Greenhalgh (1997)

  13. Ambiguous Research Methods Greenhalgh (1997)

  14. Is systematic bias avoided or minimized? • Designs • Randomized trials • Non-randomized trials • Cohort studies • Case studies • Methods • Blind assignment and assessment • Validated measurement tools • Control confounding (e.g., baseline group differences) Greenhalgh (1997)

  15. Autumn Season Falling Leaves Student arrival to campus Confounder of the Season-Falling Leaves relationship

  16. Are the results credible? • Is there a sufficient sample size? • Are the results clinical significant? • How long is follow up? • Is the follow-up appropriate to the outcome? (e.g., post-operative pain versus pediatric growth patterns) • What is retention rate? Greenhalgh (1997)

  17. Take Away Messages • First Source publications provide important benefits to science and practice • Unintentional and intentional errors occur • Readers should read critically and not merely take such publications at face value

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