Robert Siegel

The Vaccine Revolution

READING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

FINDING A SUITABLE ARTICLE TO REVIEW:
Bibliographic sources
1. Reference lists - Once you find a single good article, you can use the reference list at
the end of the article to find an ever-expanding list of related articles. (See also Citation
Index below.)
2. Reliable journals - People will often page through two or three of their favorite
journals just to look for interesting articles and to generally keep up with what is going on in
science. Most libraries (and in particular, Lane - medicine, and Falconer - biology) have
designated sections where they display recent received journals.
3. Popular press - The press often receives advanced copies of journals even before they
are sent to scientists or libraries. One can get interesting leads on what will be coming
out. Remember, that only a miniscule proportion of findings reach the popular press so the
selection is often biased and/or sensationalized. However, this is the view that the lay public has
about science and medicine, so it is worthwhile to read on that basis alone. NEVER take the
findings presented in a newspaper article at face value. Always look up the citation for yourself
and see what it says. See if they got the message right. See how strong the evidence is. Certain
papers such as the New York Times are much more likely to get the facts straight. Others, such
as The National Enquirer should be assumed to be fictionalized and are of no value (except
perhaps as entertainment). You should realize that the headings for articles are NOT written by
the authors. They are written to catch the eye and to conform to space requirements. Therefore,
they are even more likely to contain erroneous statements, even for an article that is accurately
written.
4. Colleagues, professors, and friends. Because no one person can possibly screen the
literature, this is an excellent way to find out about interesting articles.
5. Current Contents - This is a journal that consists of the table of contents reprinted from
a number of other journals. This is a way of rapidly perusing the titles of a large number of
articles in order to decide which ones bear further scrutiny.
*
6. Citation Index - To me this is one of the most valuable resources there is. It allows one
take take a reference "forward in time". It is a compilation of all the articles that were referenced
by recently published articles. Therefore, if you find an excellent article from two years ago,
you can look that article up and see what other articles used it as a reference in the past month for
instance. This is a way to find a more recent article on the same topic.
7. Compilations of Abstacts - In concept, these are like Current Contents. In this case,
however, they are published less frequently, and they contain not only the title of the article but
the abstract or summary as well.
1. Index Medicus
2. Bioabstracts
8. Computer searches - This is a good way to go if you know what topic you want to
study, but you do not have a good starting place. It is imperative to do an appropriate job of

restricting the search topic or you will end up with more references than you know what to do
with, most of which will be extraneous.
9. Web searches - Very hit or miss as far as quality, however, I have been very impressed
at the ability to locate hard to find trivia, comprehensible pictures and diagrams, and human
interest aspects of a scientific story. Remember that different search engines will produce
different results. For example, I have found Lycos to be more useful than Yahoo. Web Crawler
will search using a variety of search engines at the same time.

READING SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES

There are many appproaches to reading scientific articles. Those of you who have had
significant experience reading such articles will have developed a style of you own. For those of
you who have not, I will discuss one approach.
One does not read a journal article like a novel or a newspaper article. There are several
reasons for this:
1) The information is too dense to comprehend it with a simple reading.
2) You may be interested in a specific aspect of the article rather than the entire
thing. The special structure of such articles allows one to find the desired section
more easily.
3) Understanding of one part of an article will often require backward or forward
reference to another part of the article.
*** For adequate understanding of an article, you should be prepared to read an article at
least two, three, or four times. You will often be amazed to discover that what seemed
completely incomprehensible on the first reading, appears to make perfect sense on subsequent
readings. You should be comforted to know that even experienced scientists must read articles
over and over again. Furthermore, there will be things you simply do not understand because 1)
you do not have the adequate background, 2) they are just too complicated, or 3) they simply do
not make sense. Do not overlook this last possibility simply because you see something in print.
You should be prepared to do some work in order to acquire sufficient background for
adequate understanding of an article. This will include:
1) looking up points made in the references;
2) looking things up in textbooks;
3) looking up words in dictionaries (particularly biological and medical dictionaries);
4) asking questions of people who may know.
In general, people do not try to conquer every article they encounter. There are simply too
many articles and it would require too much work. They tend to go through a sequential process
of studying the article - all the while deciding whether or not to give it further attention. The
decision is based on several factors:
1) Whether the article is of sufficient interest
2) Whether the article is relevant to their work
3) Whether the article is of general importance
4) Whether the article is if high quality and or accurate
5) Whether the article is clearly written and accessible at least after reasonable amount of
effort
6) Whether the article is "meaty"
7) Whether the article is short.

Some

specific suggestions:

Phase I: Screening the article

1) Read the title once fast looking for key words. Read the title slowly until it makes sense.
2) Look through the authors to see if there is anyone whose name you recognize, whose
work you know. This is an important process in trying to judge the quality of the data.
3) Look at the date. In molecular biology, where information is rapidly changing, the date
may be all-important. With policy issues, the date is less important than the quality of
thought. Bear in mind that there is a definite lag period between when the research gets done,
when the article gets written and when it gets published. In addition to the publication date,
many journals list the date when the article was received, and the date when the article
was accepted. Interestingly, journals that are refereed (see below) are more likely to be delayed
in their publication, but are less likely to contain inaccurate or frivolous articles.
4) Some articles have a brief list of key words. Although they are sometimes misleading (as
anyone who has done a computer reference search knows) they are usually quite informative and
should be looked at early on.
Phase II: Getting the punch line.
1) Read the abstract once fast looking for key words. Read the abstract slowly until it makes
sense.
2) Read introduction. The introduction is often the easiest part of an article to read. In some
cases, it is also the most informative - not so much in terms of presenting new information, but in
consolidating background information. Some authors will also present the punch line of their
research in a way that is easier to understand than the way it is presented in the abstract.
3) The introduction will often cite many of the references. This is an excellent time to begin
looking at them. The references are particularly informative if they contain the titles of the
articles being cited. You will want to go back to the reference page over and over again.
Phase III: Understanding the approach
1) Peruse the figures and tables. You will not understand them this first time through but
this will help you know what to look for when you actually read the article.
2) Go to the discussion. Read the first few paragraphs and the last few paragraphs. If it is
short and/or easy to understand, read the whole thing.

Phase IV: First reading

1) If you get this far you may wish to photocopy the article if you have not already done
so. The monetary investment will surely be trivial in comparison to the investment of your time.
2) Skim the abstract and the introduction once again. At this point you should be able to
have an adequate understanding of them.
3) Skim the methods section. The methods section will need to be studied carefully only if
you intend to use some of the procedures in your research.
Certain parts of the methods, such as where the chemicals were purchased or whence the viral
strains were obtained do not actually contribute to an understanding of the article and may be
safely omitted. Other parts of the methods may remain obscure even after the rest of the article is
fairly clear. For our purposes, the methods should be studied only in so far as they contribute to
the understanding of the rest of article.
4) Read the results section.
5) Read the discussion.
6) Study the figures and tables.
Phase V: Increasing understanding
1) Reread the article in its entirety. You may wish to read several times.
2) Be sure to write on the article. Circle words you do not know. Check important
points. Question things you do not understand or that do not appear to make sense. X-off things
that are wrong. Jot down further ideas or questions.
3) Consult the references. Look up points that were not fully explained.
Consult textbook to clarify points of general biology. Look up words that are unfamiliar.
4) Before leaving the article, reread the abstract once again.