How to Read Scientific Papers (for the layperson)
Wouldn’t it be great if scientific papers were written so that everyone could understand them? We could refer to factual scientific data when someone makes a false claim, or we could use scientific papers to sort out fake news. Unfortunately, reading a scientific paper is not the same as reading a news article or blog post. They are confusing and hard to read, even scientists need to go through a lot of training to be able to read papers effectively, but this guide will make them easier to read.
If you just want to quickly scan a paper without diving deep into the study, I recommend you start with reading the abstract to get a brief summary of the study, then look through the figures and look at the data, and then the discussion/conclusion.
If you want to take a deeper look at the paper to understand the study, here’s a simple guide for how to read scientific papers for the non-scientist:
Start with the Abstract
Don’t just read the abstract and ignore the rest of the paper. The abstract is great because it will provide you with a summary of the whole paper, but it probably won’t give you all the information you need. Skim it to get an idea of what…
