How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)

How to read and write in health sciences (Lessons 3 & 4)

Lesson objectives:
In this lesson, you will learn:
- skimming and scanning for speed reading
- how to read a scientific article effectively
- making inferences in reading
- how to write an abstract

1. Skimming and scanning

1.1. Purposes of reading and the use of reading strategies

We vary our speed and way of reading depending on the type and purpose of reading. For leisure
reading, one can afford to read slowly, whether actively or passively; for academic reading,
however, it is important to be able to read effectively, knowing what we read for and achieving
that in the shortest time possible.

Skimming and scanning, both involving rapid eye movements, are two essential reading
strategies. They are used for different purposes: skimming is reading rapidly in order to get a
general overview of the material; scanning is reading rapidly in order to find specific facts.

We use _____________________ in previewing, reviewing, determining where a text is worth

reading, or when trying to find source material for a research paper.

We use ______________________ in research to find particular facts, to study fact-heavy topics,

and to answer questions requiring factual support.

1.2. How to skim a book

i. Think about your own reading practice. How do you normally get an overview of a book? Are
there any particular steps that you follow?

ii. Below are some suggested steps in skimming a book. Can you fill in the missing words?

Step 1: Read the _________________________________ or chapter overview to learn the main

divisions of ideas.
Step 2: Glance through the ______________________________ in each chapter. Read also the
headings of charts and tables if there are any.

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Step 3: Read the entire ________________________ paragraph and then
the _______________ and _______________ sentences only of each following
paragraph. For each paragraph, read only the first few words of each sentence to locate
the main idea.
Step 4: Stop and quickly read the sentences containing ______________________ indicated in
boldface or italics; read the entire sentence when you think you have found something
significant.
Step 5: Read chapter _____________________ when provided.

1.3. Scanning to locate information

If after skimming you decide that the material will be useful, go ahead and scan:
Step 1: Decide on a few key words or phrases that you will search for.
Step 2: Look for only one keyword at a time. If you use multiple keywords, do multiple scans.
Step 3: Let your eyes float rapidly down the page until you find the word or phrase you want.
Step 4: When your eye catches one of your keywords, read the surrounding material
carefully.
If you are scanning for information to answer a specific question, the question itself supplies the
keywords.

2. Reading for research

2.1. How to read a scholarly journal article

Before watching the video, can you complete the following suggested steps in reading a
journal article based on your own experiences?

i. Before searching for useful articles, have a clear topic statement or

________________________________ in mind. Identify some search key words.
ii. The first step is to read the _________________________ to help you decide whether the
article is relevant to your topic.
iii. Make note of _________________________ that the professionals are using. These may be
useful for future searches.
iv. Then read the _________________________. Scan quickly over the sentences and look for
key ideas. Highlight or underline them.
v. Skip to the _________________________ section which tells us the discoveries of the study.
vi. Go back to the _________________________ section. Glance at the statistics tables to get a
quick visual overview of the results. Then read the narrative descriptions for details and
interpretations of the figures.
vii. Read the _________________________ section which tells us what kind of research was
done, how it was conducted and details about the participants.
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viii. Note the ___________________________ recommended at the end of the discussion.
ix. If you wish to read on the topic in more details, check out the list of _____________________
and _____________________ provided.

2.2. How to read and comprehend a scientific research article

Similar skills discussed above can be applied to reading for scientific research. What
do you think would be the answers to the following questions?

a) What can you learn from a scientific research article?

b) When you start researching a topic, what sources do you turn to for general information?

c) What is the least effective way to read a research article?

d) What sections are most articles divided into?

e) What is the most effective way to read an article?

f) After reading each section, what should you ask yourself?

g) Complete the following table about the purposes/functions of each section:

Section Functions/Purposes
Abstract

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

h) What are the key places to look for the main points of a scientific article?

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 How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)
2.3. Reading strategies for reading tests
Skimming and scanning are indispensable skills for speed reading, particularly in reading tests.
These skills may help improve your reading fluency further when applied with the SQ3R reading
strategies.

Answer the following questions about the SQ3R strategies, based on information on the following
website: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/sat/new-sat-tips-planning/sat-reading-test-
strategies/a/sat-active-reading-strategies-part-1-sq3r

i. What does this website provide tips for?

ii. What does SQ3R stand for?

iii. After skimming the passage and the questions, what does the author suggest you do before
you read the passage?

iv. What should you do while you are reading?

v. When do you “Recite”?

vi. What do you do when you “Review”?

vii. What do you think is the main purpose of “Recite” and “Review”?

2.4. Note-taking to facilitate skimming and scanning skills in reading tests

You are going to watch a video clip about how to summarize a paragraph of a passage in
a reading test to make it easier to locate the right information for answering the questions.
After watching it, answer the following questions:

i. Where in the paragraph can you find its main idea?

ii. How does the presenter choose words to highlight/underline?

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iii. After reading the paragraph, what does the presenter do?

iv. Do you think you should read in the same way for your study or research? Why/Why not?

Practice 1

a) Suppose you have to write an essay titled “Improving student performance: An outline of
recent research”. Read the following text, underline the key points and make notes on
the margin.

Sleep and Memory Your notes

In many countries, especially in hot climates, it is the custom to take a
short sleep in the afternoon, often known as a siesta. Now it appears
that this habit helps to improve the ability to remember and therefore
to learn. Researchers have known for some time that new memories
are stored short-term in an area of the brain called the hippocampus,
but are then transferred to the pre-frontal cortex for long-term storage.
They now believe that this transfer process occurs during a kind of sleep
called stage 2 non-REM sleep. After this has occurred the brain is better
able to take in new information, and having a sleep of about 100
minutes after lunch seems to be an effective way to permit this.
Research by a team from the University of California sought to confirm
this theory. They wanted to establish that a short sleep would restore
the brain’s ability to learn. A group of about 40 people were asked to
take part in two ‘lessons’; at 12 noon and 6 pm. Half the volunteers
were put in a group which stayed awake all day, while the others were
encouraged to sleep for an hour and a half after the first session. It was
found that in the second lesson the second group were better at
remembering what they had leant, which indicates that the siesta had
helped to refresh their short-term memories.

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 How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)
The most effective siesta seems to consist of three parts: roughly 30
minutes of light sleep to rest the body, followed by 30 minutes of stage
2 sleep which clears the hippocampus, and finally 30 minutes of REM
sleep which is when dreams are experienced; possibly as a result of the
new memories being processed as they are stored in the pre-frontal
cortex. This process is believed to be so valuable that some researchers
argue that a siesta can be as beneficial as a full night’s sleep.

(Kitschelt, P. (2006). How the brain works. Berlin: Freihaus, p.73)

b) In no more than 100 words, summarize the main ideas from the text above with the help
of your notes.

3. Making inferences in reading comprehension

To fully understand the meaning of a text, which is often implied, a good reader always makes
“educated guesses” based on observable details, interpreting them using his or her prior
knowledge and experiences. This is what we call making inferences.

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For example:

Hundreds of students flooded into the lecture hall in which the dean’s farewell lecture was held.

Facts:
A farewell lecture was held in a lecture hall. Hundreds of students attended.

Inferences:
- The dean is a college dean (you rarely call a room in a school ‘lecture hall’).
- The dean is very popular among the students (attending lecture is usually not a popular
activity for students).
- The dean has been working in that college for quite a long time (popularity takes time
to accumulate).

As you can see from the examples above, making inferences requires you recall relevant prior
knowledge on the topic. However, on the other hand, we cannot let inferences go too far and
become illogical and unrealistic. Our prior knowledge may help in understanding the context, but
it can also stop us from seeing the real picture if we are influenced by stereotypes or biases in
our minds. For example, we may assume that

- the dean is an old man with white/grey/not much hair. (Why not a middle-aged woman?)
- the dean is about to retire. (Why not moving to another college?)

To avoid misinterpretation, we need to be very careful not to read too much into the text, going
beyond what is given or implied.

Practice 2: Evaluating inferences

To start with, let us practise classifying information derived from a text into 5 categories:

1) facts --- definitely true

2) mistakes --- definitely false
3) inferences that are probably true
4) inferences that are probably untrue
5) not in text --- not enough information from the text to decide its truthfulness

Read this parable and then decide which category each of the following statements belongs to.

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 How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)
Trucks
A customs officer observes a truck pulling up at the border. Suspicious, he orders the
driver out and searches the vehicle. He pulls off panels, bumpers, and wheel cases but
finds not a single scrap of contraband, whereupon, still suspicious but at loss to know
where else to search, he waves the driver through. The next week, the same driver arrives.
Again the official searches, and again finds nothing illicit. Over the years, again the official
searches, and again finds nothing illicit. Over the years, the official tries full-body searches,
X-rays, and sonar, anything he can think of, and each week the same man drives up, but
no mysterious cargo ever appears, and each time, reluctantly, the customs man waves
the driver on.

Finally, after many years, the officer is about to retire. The driver pulls up.

“I know you’re a smuggler,” the customs officer says. “Don’t bother denying it. But damned
if I can figure out what you’ve been smuggling all these years. I’m leaving now. I swear to
you I can do you no harm. Won’t you please tell me what you’ve been smuggling?”

“Trucks,” the driver says.

(By Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms our Lives, 2007, pp. 3-4. Henry Holt Company.)

Statement Category
a) The officer has worked at the customs for many years. ______
b) The officer made a lifetime career out of searching for contraband from trucks. ______
c) The officer relies a lot on his sixth sense at his work. ______
d) The driver did something that caused suspicion in the officer. ______
e) The driver has already made a great fortune by the time the officer retired. ______
f) The moral of this parable, as intended by the writer, is “sometimes people miss the most
obvious as they concentrate too much on details”. ______

Practice 3: Making open-ended inferences

Read the following passage and discuss the questions that follow by making inferences.

The World’s Most Popular Drug

Caffeine is one of the most popular drugs in the world. It is particularly popular in the
United States. 90% of Americans consume it every single day. Over half consume more
than 300 milligrams (mg) of caffeine every day. It is found in coffee, tea, cola, chocolate,
and a variety of other things.

Most people don’t know how much caffeine they take in. They also do not realize it is an
addictive drug. It stimulates the brain in the same way as illegal drugs such as cocaine

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and heroin do. Although caffeine is not as strong as these drugs, it is still addictive. If you
must have caffeine every day, you are addicted.

Caffeine does not have the same effect on everyone. While some people can have three
caffeine drinks in an hour and be fine, others may feel nervous and jumpy after just one
drink. “Usually, a safe amount is no more than three eight-ounce cups, or 250 mg, a day,”
says one nutrition expert. She explains that when people have more caffeine than this,
they start to have problems. An ounce of chocolate and the average eight-ounce soft
drink both have about 25 mg of caffeine, much less than coffee.

Caffeine has some medical uses. Doctors use it as a heart stimulant. But most people
take it when they feel tired and need energy. They don’t realize that they are hurting
themselves. When the body is tired, it needs rest. Caffeine stops it from resting. Studies
show that too much caffeine can cause nausea, anxiety, headaches, and insomnia. So
when it comes to caffeine, the secret is to know what foods contain caffeine and to know
your limit:
Coffee – Coffee usually contains about 100 milligrams (mg) per six-ounce cup.
Tea – Typical brewed tea contains 70 mg in each six-ounce cup.
Cola drinks – Soda contains 50 mg per 12 ounce can.
Chocolate – Typical milk chocolate contains 6 mg per ounce.
Common pain killers – Some aspirins contain 32 mg per tablet.
Diet pills – Some have about 200 mg per tablet.
(Source: CNN Hot Topics 1, 2006, pp.152-153. Publisher: Thomson Heinle)

Questions:

a. The article points out a few things that many people are unaware of about their
caffeine consumption. What are they?

b. Why does the writer include a list of drinks that contain caffeine at the end of the
passage?

c. What is the writer’s message to the audience?

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 How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)
4. Writing the abstract
The abstract is the second most important part of the scientific article because, after the title, it
is the part often read and often the only other part read or available. Like the title, the purpose
of an abstract is to help readers decide whether to read the full article.

4.1. Typical lengths and types

The typical word limit for an abstract is _____________________ words. There are two main
types of abstracts: _____________________ and ______________________ abstracts.
Descriptive abstracts briefly describe the work done, mentioning the purpose, methods and the
scope of the research, normally in around 100 words. An informative abstract, in addition to all
the components above, includes the results and conclusions of the study. It is therefore longer
but normally no more than 10% of the whole paper.

4.2. Points to note in compiling an abstract

The instructions for authors usually specify the length of the abstract and whether it should be a
single paragraph or structured with a series of headings. Writing abstracts is challenging because
you have to select carefully both your facts and your words. Below are a few points to note:
a. Consider your ______________________ and adapt your writing in such a way that
readers will easily be able to get the main idea of your work.
b. Explain the ______________________ of your research: why you decided to conduct this
research; why it matters to you and could matter to others; how the research went and
what results it brought; why others should spend their time and effort reading your entire
work.
c. Explain the ______________________ and your research methods. Make the key claim,
argument or problem statement distinct from the details of the background.
d. Avoid copy-pasting from sections of your paper; it should be an _____________________
piece with new vocabulary and phrase structure.
e. Do not include sources and information _______________________ from or inconsistent
with the rest of the article. The conclusions given in the abstract should match those given
in the article.
f. Do not give any ______________________ or definitions or cite any references in the
abstract.
g. Keep it well-structured and logical, with ________________________________________
like an essay.
h. Try to avoid using ______________________ or abbreviations but define them if you use
them. There should also be no tables, graphs, sources and long quotes in the abstract.
i. Make sure abstracts are understandable on their own as they are often separated from
the full article.

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4.3. Similarities and differences between the Introduction and the abstract

Although one purpose of the introduction is similar to that of the abstract – to help readers
decide whether to read the full article by presenting selected information – the introduction has
more functions to perform: to prepare readers to understand your paper and to orient them to
your research by establishing the need and importance of the study, indicating in general how
you addressed the need, and telling readers what to expect from your article. To accomplish this
purpose, an introduction typically consists of the following four parts:
1. A background statement that provides the context for understanding the problem and
your approach to it;
2. A problem statement that describes the nature, scope, severity, or importance of the
problem or the gap in knowledge that stimulated your research;
3. An activity statement that details the research question, hypothesis, approach, or
activities that you undertook to investigate the problem;
4. A forecasting statement that tells readers what they will find if they continue to read the
article.
An abbreviated example:
[Part 1: Background Statement] In patients with atherosclerosis vascular disease, aspirin is
widely recommended to prevent myocardial infarction, graft occlusion after coronary artery
bypass surgery, and stroke. [Part 2: Problem Statement] However, aspirin is also associated
with prolonged bleeding. Patients are often asked to stop taking aspirin for several days before
undergoing bronchoscopy, to reduce the presumed risk of bleeding. The effectiveness of this
practice results in patients, for a short while, stop taking a medication with proven benefits,
and it can also delay the planned bronchoscopy if aspirin use is not stopped soon enough. [Part
3: Activity Statement] Thus, we sought to determine whether aspirin really does increase the
risk of bleeding after bronchoscopy. [Part 4: Forecasting Statement] In this article, we
describe a prospective trial of 138 consecutive patients undergoing bronchoscopy in which we
compared the number and severity of bleeding events in those taking aspirin with those who
were not.

The components of the introduction look similar to those of the abstract, but there are also some
obvious differences. What are the main differences between the Introduction and the Abstract?
Discuss this with your partner.

a. Abstracts are often read apart from the full article, so ________________________
_______________________________________________________________, whereas
introductions ___________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
b. Abstracts, which have word limits, __________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________, whereas
introductions, __________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
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 How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)

Practice 4

Identify the components in the sample abstracts below:

Abstract 1
Turner, K., Burns, T. & Tranter, S. (2018). An evaluation of the nursing care of renal transplant recipients: A qualitative study.
Renal Society of Australasia Journal, 14 (1), 21-25.

Due to the complexity of their medical management, renal transplant recipients are actively

encouraged to self-manage their own medication regimens, diet and lifestyle modifications

after transplant. Motivation for this study arose from comments made by hospitalised renal

transplant recipients regarding aspects of their clinical care that were not given high priority

by the ward nurses. The aim of this study was to investigate renal transplant recipients'

experience of the care they received while they were inpatients on the renal ward. In this

qualitative study the stories of 12 renal transplant recipients were used to evaluate how they

felt about their experiences as an inpatient. Patients felt that ward nurses did not understand

the importance of immunosuppressive medication and did not value the patient's opinion.

They also expressed a fear of contracting an infection. Renal transplant recipients have high

expectations about the care they receive when admitted to hospital. As a well-informed group

of patients, who would normally be managing their own care at home, renal transplant

recipients should be treated with respect and included in decisions about their care.

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Abstract 2
Matteo Luca, N., Glas, N. D., Sedrak, M. S., Loh, K. P., Liposits, G., Soto-Perez-de-Celis, E., … Ring, A. (2018). Use of cyclin-
dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors in older patients with ER-positive HER2-negative breast cancer: Young International
Society of Geriatric Oncology review paper. Therapeutic Advances in Medical
Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1758835918809610

The current standard of care for the management of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and

human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative breast cancer has been redefined

by the introduction of cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors. Although adults aged

65 years and older account for the majority of patients with breast cancer, limited data are

available about the age-specific dosing, tolerability, and benefit of CDK4/6 inhibitors in this

growing population. Older adults are under-represented in clinical trials and as a result,

clinicians are forced to extrapolate from findings in younger and healthier patients when

making treatment decisions for older patients. In this article, we review the limited age-

specific evidence on the efficacy, toxicity, and quality of life (QoL) outcomes associated with

the use of CDK4/6 inhibitors in older adults. We also describe ongoing trials evaluating CDK4/6

inhibitors in the older population and highlight that only a minority of adjuvant and metastatic

trials of CDK4/6 inhibitors in the general breast cancer population includes geriatric

assessments. Finally, we propose potential strategies to help guide decision making for fit and

unfit older patients based on disease endocrine sensitivity, the need for rapid response and

geriatric assessment.

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 How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)
Abstract 3
iménez-Sánchez, A., Albarqouni, S., & Mateus, D. (2018). Capsule networks against medical imaging data
challenges. In Intravascular Imaging and Computer Assisted Stenting and Large-Scale Annotation of Biomedical Data
and Expert Label Synthesis (pp. 150-160). Springer, Cham.

A key component to the success of deep learning is the availability of massive amounts of

training data. [Problem] Building and annotating large datasets for solving medical image

classification problems is today a bottleneck for many applications. [Potential solution]

Recently, capsule networks were proposed to deal with shortcomings of Convolutional Neural

Networks (ConvNets). In this work, we compare the behavior of capsule networks against

ConvNets under typical datasets constraints of medical image analysis, namely, small amounts

of annotated data and class-imbalance. We evaluate our experiments on MNIST, Fashion-

MNIST and medical (histological and retina images) publicly available datasets. Our results

suggest that capsule networks can be trained with less amount of data for the same or better

performance and are more robust to an imbalanced class distribution, which makes our

approach very promising for the medical imaging community.

Practice 5

Below is the original informative abstract of the article adapted for Practice Reading 1:

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 How to read and write in health sciences (Lesson 3)
Introduction:
Professional burnout has been described as a gradual erosion of a person and may be one of the
possible consequences of chronic occupational stress. Although occupational stress has been
surveyed among dentists in Hong Kong, no study has been published about burnout in the
profession. This study aimed to evaluate burnout among Hong Kong dentists and its association
with occupational stress.

Methods:
We surveyed a random sample of 1086 registered dentists in Hong Kong, which formed 50%
of the local profession. They were mailed an anonymous questionnaire about burnout and
occupational stress in 2015. The questionnaire assessed occupational stress, coping strategies,
effects of stress, level of burnout, and sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents.
Occupational stress assessment concerned 33 stressors in five groups: patient-related, time-
related, income-related, job-related, and staff-/technically related. Level of burnout was
assessed by the Maslach Burnout Inventory–Human Services Survey (22 items) with three
scores: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and personal accomplishment.

Results:
Completed questionnaires were received from 301 dentists (response rate, 28.3%), of whom
25.4% had a high level of emotional exhaustion, 17.2% had a high level of depersonalisation,
and 39.0% had a low level of personal accomplishment. Only 7.0% of respondents, however,
had a high level of overall burnout (high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalisation, and low
personal accomplishment). A high level of overall burnout was significantly associated with a
higher mean score for job-related stressors and lack of postgraduate qualifications (P<0.05).

Conclusions:
Patient-related stressors are the top occupational stressors experienced by dentists in Hong
Kong. In spite of this, a low proportion of dentists have a high level of overall burnout. There
was a positive association between occupational stress and level of burnout.
(277 words)
Rewrite the abstract in one paragraph. Write no more than 150 words.

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