Understanding Complex Research Papers

Are you afraid of reading large volumes of research papers?

Well, don’t be. Ann McNeal presents a four-step guide for reading a scientific paper: skimming, vocabulary, comprehension-section by section, and reflection and criticism. The above four steps not only improves the understanding of a paper but also increases the reader’s vocabulary and creativity. Before you start reading papers try to choose articles written by well-known authors, who have published frequently in leading journals. A regular reading habit and peek into well-known authors increases one’s critical thinking ability.

According to the guide any research paper basically is divided into four main sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. The following is an excerpt from the article:

Here are some questions that may be useful in analyzing various kinds of research papers:

Introduction

• What is the overall purpose of the research?
• How does the research fit into the context of its field? Is it, for example, attempting to settle a controversy? show the validity of a new technique? open up a new field of inquiry?
• Do you agree with the author's rationale for studying the question in this way?

Methods

• Were the measurements appropriate for the questions the researcher was approaching?
• Often, researchers need to use "indicators" because they cannot measure something directly--for example, using babies' birthweight to indicate nutritional status. Were the measures in this research clearly related to the variables in which the researchers (or you) were interested?
• If human subjects were studied, do they fairly represent the populations under study?

Results

• What is the one major finding?
• Were enough of the data presented so that you feel you can judge for yourself how the experiment turned out?
• Did you see patterns or trends in the data that the author did not mention? Were there problems that were not addressed?

Discussion

• Do you agree with the conclusions drawn from the data?
• Are these conclusions over-generalized or appropriately careful?
• Are there other factors that could have influenced, or accounted for, the results?
• What further experiments would you think of, to continue the research or to answer remaining questions?