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Lecture Six 1

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Lecture Six 1

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University: Abdelhafid Boussouf Mila

Department of Biology
Module: Techniques of Scientific Communication and Expression
Level: 2nd Year
Tutor: N. Bedjaoui

Lecture Five: How to Read and Understand a Scientific Article

Reading a scientific article is a complex task. The worst way to approach this task is to treat it like
the reading of a textbook—reading from title to literature cited, digesting every word along the way
without any reflection or criticism. Rather, you should begin by skimming the article to identify its
structure and features. As you read, look for the author’s main points. Generate questions before,
during, and after reading. Draw inferences based on your own experiences and knowledge. And to
really improve understanding and recall, take notes as you read.

1. Skim the article and identify its structure:

Most journals use a conventional IMRD structure: An abstract followed by Introduction, Methods,
Results, and Discussion. Each of these sections normally contains easily recognized conventional
features, and if you read with an anticipation of these features, you will read an article more quickly
and comprehend more.

Features of Abstracts

Abstracts usually contain four kinds of information:


• Purpose or rationale of study (why they did it)
• Methodology (how they did it)
• Results (what they found)
• Conclusion (what it means)
Most scientists read the abstract first. Others—especially experts in the field—skip right from the
title to the visuals because the visuals, in many cases, tell the reader what kinds of experiments were
done and what results were obtained. You should probably begin reading a paper by reading the
abstract carefully and noting the four kinds of information outlined above. Then move first to the
visuals and then to the rest of the paper.

Features of Introductions

Introductions serve two purposes: creating readers’ interest in the subject and providing them with
enough information to understand the article. Generally, introductions accomplish this by leading
readers from broad information (what is known about the topic) to more specific information (what is
not known) to a focal point (what question the authors asked and answered). Thus, authors describe
previous work that led to current understanding of the topic (the broad) and then situate their work (the
specific) within the field.

Features of Methods

The Methods section tells the reader what experiments were done to answer the question stated in
the Introduction. Methods are often difficult to read because of technical language and a level of detail
sufficient for another trained scientist to repeat the experiments. However, you can more fully
understand the design of the experiments and evaluate their validity by reading the Methods section
carefully.
Features of Results and Discussion

The Results section contains results—a statement of what was found, and reference to the data
shown in visuals (figures and tables). Normally, authors do not include information that would need to
be referenced, such as comparison to others’ results. Instead, that material is placed in the Discussion
—placing the work in context of the broader field. The Discussion also functions to provide a clear
answer to the question posed in the Introduction and to explain how the results support that
conclusion.

Atypical Structure

Some articles you read will deviate from the conventional content of IMRD sections. For instance,
Letters to Nature appear to begin with an abstract, followed by the body of the article. Upon reading,
however, you will see that the “abstract” is a summary of the work filled with extensive introduction
(for the purpose of catching the attention of a wide audience), and the next paragraph begins a
description of the experiments.
Therefore, when you begin to read an article for the first time, skim the article to analyze the
document as a whole. Are the sections labeled with headings that identify the structure? If not, note
what the structure is. Decide which sections contain the material most essential to your understanding
of the article. Then decide the order in which you will read the sections.

2. Distinguish main points :

Because articles contain so much information, it may be difficult to distinguish the main points of
an article from the subordinate points. Fortunately, there are many indicators of the author’s main
points:

Document level

 Title
 Abstract
 Keywords
 visuals (especially figure and
table titles)
 first sentence or the last 1-2
sentences of the Introduction

Paragraph level: words or phrases to look for

 surprising
 unexpected
 in contrast with previous work
 has seldom been addressed
 we hypothesize that
 we propose
 we introduce
 we develop
 the data suggest

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