Understanding and Analyzing Empirical Articles
- Understanding Scientific Papers
- Reading as a Process
- Step 1: Preview the Scientific Paper
- Step 2: Read for Understanding and Analysis
- Step 3: Reflect and Take Notes
Understanding Scientific Papers
Reading as a Process
Step 1: Preview the source to get a sense of what it will offer
Step 2: Read for understanding and analysis
Step 3: Reflect and takes notes on the reading
Step 1: Preview the Scientific Paper
- WHAT did the authors want to find out?
- WHY did they want to know this?
- HOW did they answer the question?
- WHAT did they find out?
- SO WHAT? Why is this research important?
Step 2: Read for Understanding and Analysis
Each section of a scientific paper is carefully organized to present information in an expected format—as you become familiar with this standard structure, you’ll be able to easily locate the specific information you seek. Use the following descriptions and guiding questions to navigate each section as you read. You may also want to use our Template for Taking Notes on Scientific Papers to organize your notes after you read each section.
Introduction
A careful reading of the introduction is essential to understanding the reasons for and goals of a scientific study. In this section, authors provide an overview of the general topic, summarizing background information from the existing literature. The authors explain how their research adds to current knowledge and convey its importance. The introduction is also where you’ll find the research question(s) and expected answer(s)—in scientific papers, these answers come in the form of hypotheses and predictions (to learn more about these, check out our guide to Understanding Hypotheses and Predictions. Introductions often conclude with a brief summary of how the authors tested their hypotheses—a preview of the methods section.
Questions to Check Your Understanding
- What is the research question?
- Why should it be studied (what gap does this research fill)?
- How has it been studied before?
- What are the hypotheses and predictions?
Questions to Guide Your Analysis & Evaluation
- Is the question clear?
- How does the work compare to other studies in the field?
- Will this research contribute to our knowledge in an important way?
- Is the hypothesis justified?
Methods
Questions to Check Your Understanding
- How did the authors conduct the study or experiment?
- What materials and measures did they use?
- How did they sample the study area, subjects, or population?
- How did they analyze the collected data?
Questions to Guide Your Analysis & Evaluation
- Are the measures appropriate and clearly related to the research question? Do they adequately test the hypothesis?
- Does the sampling (e.g., study areas, subjects, participants) fairly represent the larger population of the study?
- Is the analysis appropriate for the data?
- Are there noticeable flaws in the method?
Results
Questions to Check Your Understanding
Questions to Guide Your Analysis & Evaluation
- Are enough data displayed to demonstrate the results?
- How do the findings relate to the hypotheses?
- Are the statistics appropriately presented?
- Did you note patterns that the author does not mention?
Discussion
Questions to Check Your Understanding
- Did the data support the hypothesis?
- If not, does the author explain why?
- How do the results compare to those of other studies?
- Are the findings significant?
- What are the limitations and applications?
Questions to Guide Your Analysis & Evaluation
- Did the authors interpret the results appropriately?
- Are you persuaded by the findings?
- How significant are the limitations of the study?
- Do the authors offer plausible applications for their research?
- Does the discussion reflect the major points from the introduction?
Step 3: Reflect and Take Notes
Taking notes while you read is time consuming and can even distract you from focusing on the ideas you are reading. Instead, separate the acts of reading and notetaking by reading a section or a few pages and then stopping to take notes. Make sure that your notes provide answers to the questions posed in each of the sections above. Again, you may want to use our Template for Taking Notes on Scientific Papers to organize your notes as you go.
After you have read and taken notes on the paper, be sure to reflect on it. How does it compare to other papers you’ve read on this topic? How does it relate to your experiment or research project? How might you use it in your course work, lab report, or paper?