How to read a scientific paper in most fruitful way?

 

Reading is an integral part of a researcher’s job. To get new ideas about a specific research problem or to acquire background knowledge about that it is obvious to go through the related previous research publications or books. Now, reading a research paper is not comparable to reading a fiction or non-fiction piece. A research paper use to contain several scientific terminologies, equations and theories which need much more concentration of mind and patience compared to reading a general piece of article.

Choosing a research article

Most of the time, for a researcher, it is not enjoyable to read a critical research paper if that is not written in a lucid way. Therefore, choosing a research article on a specific topic is also important so that the reader needs to put less mental effort to understand the theory demonstrated in it. A science research paper which is enjoyable to read is always admirable though these kinds of paper are less in number. To find out papers worth to read is also an essential part of research. Now, how to choose a good research article?

Generally, it is recommended that as a researcher one should wisely choose a paper which has the following characteristics:

1.       The paper should be directly related to your field of work.

2.       The paper should be published in a reputed journal instead of predatory journal.

3.       The paper should preferably be published with in ten years.

(Why this time frame is given? As in the field of science sometimes theories are modified or changed rapidly with exploration of the research topics with new technologies. In such cases recent papers declines the previous theories with better evidences and eventually establishes new theories. Therefore, if you fix the time frame of published papers within ten years you will be informed with much more new and updated theories. Though, some papers are ground breaking and are still important in the present era, after decades of publishing).

4.       The paper should have a clear abstract which is straight forward and describing all the results in brief and crispy way.

5.       The paper should have well-constructed figures and descriptive figure legends.

6.       The paper should preferably present a clear model of the theory.

Reading a research article

As I told previously that reading a research article is not like reading a feature in a popular social or film magazine or a story in a short-story collection. It needs considerable patience and concentration of mind. Moreover, it is always better to read a research article in a fresh mind, preferably in the morning, before starting your work in the lab. A researcher can fruitfully read a lot if he/she can fix one or a couple of hours per day before starting other work. An alternative time can be the lunch break. Though, it is depending upon the choice of the researcher’s mind. Generally, a research article has several sections, such as abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion. Though all these sections have their own importance in the article, a researcher may have his/her own technique to read the paper and that can be start from anywhere. Here, a recommended reading technique is given (though researcher can modify this as per their own comfort):

1.       Abstract is important. At the starting of reading a paper, the abstract should be read properly and the results and conclusion briefly described in the abstract should be understood.

2.       Next, results and discussion section should be focused, as these two are the mostly important in a research paper. Sometimes, result and discussion sections are merged and sometimes are separated. In both the cases, these two parts should be given most of the time of reading. Results section describes the experimental outcomes, where the experimental set up can also be assumed to some extent. These outcomes can be discussed in reader’s own mind to construct a model which can be further compared during reading the discussion section.

3.       Materials and method section is important for the reader if he/she will repeat the same experiment with or without modification. Specially, the details of the time points, measurements and equipment handling should be noted down properly while reading.

4.       Now the reader can focus on the introduction to understand the research gaps and how the authors worked upon those gaps.

5.       Apart from these, while reading, the style of writing, usage of language and terminologies, construction of figures and legends, all these should be noticed to develop the paper writing skill.