Part I: Dissecting a Scientific Research Paper
You may remember learning about the Scientific Method in grade school — a set of steps used to identify a problem, formulate a question, collect data, and form a conclusion. Medical researchers regularly use this process by asking and answering questions related to our health and well-being. They do this by conducting research studies. When a study is complete, researchers often share their study results by publishing scientific papers, or “manuscripts”, in peer-reviewed scientific journals. However, scientific manuscripts can be complex, difficult to read and understand, and even challenging to find.
It is also rare that research results are returned directly back to research participants and the general public in an easy-to-understand way. Many times, we learn about important study findings through news outlets — the New York Times, CNN, or NPR. By searching for and reading through original research papers, we too, can be seekers of scientific research findings. Reading through scientific papers not only helps us gather information about a topic and become more informed about the current research in the field, it also helps us develop our critical thinking skills and inform our decision-making.
In this series “Dissecting a Scientific Research Paper”, I’ll be breaking down the major sections of a manuscript. This will include looking at 6 standard sections:
- Abstract — a short summary of the entire paper
- Introduction — the section that provides background information on the topic and sets the context for the research, providing justification for the study that’s being discussed
- Methods — the section that outlines what the research study did and how it was done, including the types of information that were collected
- Results — the section where the research findings are presented
- Discussion — the section where the authors discuss their results and their interpretation of the findings, how the findings fit into what we currently know about the topic, and how the findings are new to the field
- Conclusion — the section that restates the main findings and final “take-away” for the reader
Throughout this series, we’ll walk through the paper “Smoking Cessation, Weight Change, Type 2 Diabetes, and Mortality”, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in August 2018. I chose this paper as an example because public health and disease-prevention are topics of interest to me. However, I encourage you to seek out papers that speak to your personal and professional interests, including health conditions you may want to learn more about.
First — where do we find scientific papers? Most journals now have online publications (as well as paper-based). Here are a few free online resources you can use to search for articles:
- PubMed Central
- Google Scholar
- Public Library of Science (PLOS)
- Open access journals
Some community libraries may also have limited access to journals. And if you’re part of a college or university (or you know a college student or employee), you may have free access to a variety of journals and articles through their library system. (Unfortunately, a lot of scientific journals require subscriptions or charge a fee to access their full-length papers.)
By the end of this series, you will have a better understanding of how to read through a scientific manuscript and feel empowered to seek out answers to questions you might have about a health condition and the research being done in that area.
Check out Part II where we dig in to the first part of a manuscript — the Abstract!
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Reference:
Hu Y, Zong G, Liu G, Wang M, Rosner B, Pan A, Willett WC, Manson JE, Hu FB, Sun Q. Smoking cessation, weight change, type 2 diabetes, and mortality. N Engl J Med 2018;379(7):623–632: doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1803626.
Read the remaining installments of this educational series by clicking below:
