BIO-1201 / BIO-1301: Science Research

Reading a Scientific Journal Article

Scientific journal articles are structured and follow a specific pattern:

• Title, Authors & Affiliations
  (title of the paper, the authors' names - many scientific studies have multiple authors - and contact information, and their institutional affiliations - usually a university or laboratory)
• Abstract
  (summary)
• Introduction & Literature Review
  (explanation of purpose of the study, goals and questions to be answered, plus review of previous related research)
• Methods
  (how the study was conducted)
• Results
  (factual presentation of the results of the study, including data)
• Discussion
  (analysis and interpretation of the results, whether they supported the initial hypothesis or not, how the results compare to similar studies)
• Conclusion
  (statement of your overall findings, description of the contribution this research has made to the field of study, ideas for what aspects merit further study)
• Acknowledgements
  (credit to any organizations who provided funding or other contributions to the authors' research endeavors, if the project was grant-funded, it will be indicated here)
• References
  (list of sources cited)

See Anatomy of a Scholarly Article (NCSU Libraries) for a visual representation.

Don't Read Scientific Articles Start to Finish

- At least not to begin with. Pre-read sections of the article to determine if it fits with your research topic.

Start with the abstract - this is your first indicator as to whether or not the article will be relevant for you. If it passes that test, go on and read the introduction to see what the study covers. Then skip down to look over the discussion/conclusions to see the authors' main findings. Save the methods and results to read last, after you've digested the previous sections and decided that this article is actually relevant. These sections may be the most difficult to understand. Don't forget to check out the references to get an idea of how much previous research has been done in that area, and to help identify other studies to follow up on.

This order will depend, of course, on what you're looking for - if you need data, then going straight to the Results section makes sense. As you get more familiar with your area of study and the research methods used, you may find yourself gravitating to the Methods and Results sections first, so you can digest the process and the data before reading the authors' interpretations.

How to (Seriously) Read a Scientific Paper

by Elisabeth Pain - Science Magazine, March 21, 2016, doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a1600047
Advice from university professors, doctoral candidates, and practicing scientists on how they read scientific papers

Anatomy of an Article and Article Dissection

by Karla Moeller for Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences "Ask a Biologist" program, June 27, 2014

How to Read a Scientific Paper

Visual tutorial walks you through why scholarly journal articles are important, and how to approach reading them.

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