How to Read a Scientific Paper

I remember the point in my graduate training when I realized that I was capable of reading and understanding scientific articles outside my field, even those that involved methods and terminology I was not familiar with. This was quite a revelation to me at the time because I was under the misapprehension that, once I completed my training, I would only be able to critically review papers in my own field or closely related fields.

What changed my mind was a course I took (plant biochemistry) in which the professor assigned published articles on a variety of topics to us to read and discuss. Quite a few of the papers involved molecular and other techniques that were as mysterious to me as the process of flying might be to an elephant. Being a conscientious student, however, I endeavored to teach myself how to read and understand scientific papers about unfamiliar topics. To make a long story short, I developed a procedure not unlike the one recently posted by Jennifer Raff, a Research Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Texas (which I'll get to in a moment).

With my method, I was able to effectively critique all the assigned papers and to enthusiastically participate in class discussions (we were graded on our class participation). I discovered that not only could I hold my own with the rest of the class (mostly biochemistry grad students who were more familiar with such articles), I was able to point out critical flaws in the studies that no one else saw. My strong background in statistics was particularly useful in poking holes in experimental designs (to my surprise, most of the assigned papers reported no statistics whatsoever, not even standard error bars). When the professor began calling on me for my assessment of a paper's experimental approach and whether the conclusions were supported by the data, I knew I would never wonder again whether I could understand any scientific paper and whether its findings were valid.

If someone with scientific research training can feel inadequate when faced with an unfamiliar topic, imagine how non-scientists must feel–particularly science writers who are assigned the task of writing a newspaper or magazine article about a new discovery reported in a scientific journal. To help such folks, Jennifer Raff has written a nice blog post called "How to read and understand a scientific article: a guide for non-scientists".

Her post is not only a good guide for non-scientists, it is an excellent primer for science students and even scientific researchers wanting to improve their skills at reviewing papers.

How Do You Illustrate A Ph.D.?

Or more accurately, how do you illustrate the process leading to a Ph.D. and what that degree means in the scheme of things.

Below is a reproduction of "The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D." by Matt Might.  He has a website chockfull of lots of information for the graduate student, from how to get into graduate school in the first place to how to get a great reference letter.  There is even advice for those of you who have managed to graduate and get a job.

Here's the guide, which is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License (meaning that you can use and modify for non-commercial purposes, but need to attribute the author).

Using Barcodes at Scientific Conferences

You may have noticed that some people are incorporating mobile barcodes (QR (quick response) codes) into their presentations and posters. Instead of handing out flyers or reprints that people invariably lose (or throw away) on the way home, you can insert a custom barcode on a corner of your poster, which when scanned with a smartphone, will direct the user to your website or other URL where they can access the information of interest (your profile, a reprint, a detailed method, a pdf of your poster or presentation).

This option not only saves a few trees, it leads people to other information about you and your work. The image inserted into this post is a barcode I generated at one of the websites that provides the service for free.  When scanned with a barcode scanner, this takes someone directly to this blog.

You can also download a barcode reader for your smartphone.  Then you're all set to provide a direct link on your poster to additional information about you or your work and to access similar information provided by others via barcodes on their posters. On your professional website (you have one, right?), you simply set up a page that contains the relevant information and use the page URL to generate the unique barcode.

You can also use barcodes on your business card or your CV to direct people to your website. Another use for barcodes at conferences is to direct job hunters to a website with detailed information about applying.  Instead of posting a flyer listing a long URL that people may not copy correctly, add a barcode that they can scan with their phone.  Just generate a unique code for the webpage advertising the job, fellowship, or other item of interest and add it to the flyer.

Not everyone has a smartphone, however.  To help these people out, you can use a shortened URL instead of a barcode.  Note the text just below the barcode in the above image.  This is a shortened URL that is automatically generated along with the barcode.  If you copy and paste that text into your search engine address line, it takes you to my blog.  You can also generate a short URL at sites such as Google url shortener.  Here is a short URL for my last post: http://goo.gl/arVsx.  This shortened version of the original URL (http://www.womeninwetlands.blogspot.com/2012/08/self-plagiarism.html) is much easier for someone to copy and to tweet.

Have any of you readers used barcodes yet?  If so, how have you used them?