2. Organization of a Scientific Article
• An article layout
– Title
– Abstract
– Introduction
– Materials and Methods
– Results
– Discussion
– Conclusion
– Tables and Figures
• Table titles and Figure legends
– References
3. Reading a Scientific Article
• Effective reading or Selection of an article
– Title and Abstract
• How relevant the title is?
• Connection between the title and the abstract.
Relevance of the article
– Introduction
• Scan the initial paragraphs.
• Put emphasis on the concluding paragraphs.
• Understand the logical flow between earlier studies
and the present one.
Rationale of the article
4. Reading a Scientific Article Contd..
– Tables and Figures
• Read the titles of the table and/or figure legends.
• Relationship with abstract.
Workflow of the article
– Conclusion
• Identify the achievement, correlation and the future
prospects.
Take home messages
Serve Your Purpose
Acceptance or Rejection of the Article
5. Reading a Scientific Article Contd..
Article is closely related with your purpose
– Results and Discussion
• Most important section of an article.
• Identify the novel elements discussed in this section.
• Understand the relationship and the context of the
study.
Depth of the article
– Materials and methods
• Identify the newly developed method.
• Source of the materials.
– References
• Look when it is required.
Quality and compactness of the article
6. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article
• Type of the article
– Individual experiment type.
– Cohort or population based study.
– Randomized control and trial study.
– Review article
• Narrative
• Systematic
• Meta- analysis
7. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article contd..
1. What questions does the article address?
2. What was the research design? Is it
appropriate?
3. What are the main conclusions of the article?
4. What evidence supports those conclusions?
5. Do the data actually support the conclusions?
6. What is the quality of the evidence?
7. Why are the conclusions important?
These questions are specifically for individual
study, cohort study and random trial study
NOT for Review article
8. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article contd..
What questions does the article address?
– Type of questions
• Descriptive: What is there? What did the authors
observe?
• Comparative: How does it compare to other
organisms/animals/population? Are the findings
general? Reproducibility and applicability?
• Analytical: Underlying mechanism of action or the
story behind the study?
9. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article contd..
What was the research design?
Is it appropriate?
• The design of the study can answer the addressed
question
• The statistical strength of the design and relevant
statistical analysis
• Correct use of an animal model/ cell-line or proper
use of a computer simulation
10. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article contd..
What are the main conclusions of the article?
• Did the authors properly answer the questions
mentioned in the abstract section?
• Relevant outcome of the study
What evidence supports the conclusion?
• The rationale of drawing the conclusion
• Does the primary experiment supports the point?
11. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article contd..
Do the data actually support the conclusions?
• Do the authors properly interpret the obtained data?
– find the logical connection
• Do the data actually support/reject the hypothesis?
• Do the authors had covered required sample size to
reach the statistical significance?
Statistics is Important
12. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article contd..
What is the quality of the evidence?
• The methods used in the study is well established
• A new method should be published on a peer-
reviewed journal first..
• The methods are reproducible.
• Materials?
13. Critical Reading of a Scientific Article contd..
Why are the conclusions important?
• Do the conclusions make a significant advance in
your knowledge?
• Do the conclusions help in the advancement of
future scientific research?
• Do they lead to new insights, or even new research
directions?
14. Critical Reading of a Review Article
Narrative or Classical Review
• The “traditional” or “classic” review
• Articles used in the review are chosen by the
author.
• Author may be biased- Major concern.
Systematic Review
• Comparative analysis…most common for
analytical methods
• Should include both inclusion and exclusion
criteria.
• Should support with the scientific evidences.
15. Critical Reading of a Review Article Contd..
Meta analysis
• Close to systematic review.
• Often deals with numeric data.
• Uses statistical/mathematical methods to
combine numerical data from various earlier
studies
16. Writing a Scientific Article
• Writing Structure
– Analysis
• Before writing anything, Analyze Your Data!
• Identify the key concepts
• Target the audience, do audience analysis.
• Indentify the actual technical material.
– Design
• Organize all information and data
• Group the key concepts.
• Structure the layout.. (Tables and figures)
17. Writing a Scientific Article Contd..
– Implementation
• Write…edit…edit…edit…
• Strive for accuracy and clarity
• Emphasize the central idea
• Identify the ‘Junks’….delete them
– Publication
• Choose the Journal
• Read the instructions to the authors.
• Maintain the style and proper format
• Select reviewers and editor.
• Submit for publication.
18. Writing a Scientific Article Contd..
INTRODUCTION
METHODS
MEMORY GAME TITLE
RESULTS
REFERENCES
MATERIALS
ABSTRACT
Image Courtesy: http://www.joconl.com/article/id23578
19. Publishing a Scientific Article
• Select a specific Journal
– Choose the quality of the Journal
• Impact factor
– Quality of the journal in a specific field of study
– Calculating Impact factor:
» Citation of recent items/Number of recent
items. (last year Vs current year)
• Immediacy Index
– How the journal is currently operation
– Calculation of Immediacy index
» Citation of recent items/Number of recent
items. (current year Vs current year)
20. Journal Databases
General database
• PUBMED
• WEB of SCIENCE
Specialized database
• Food and Nutrition :
– Food Science and Technology Abstracts (FSTA)
– Agricola
– CAB Abstracts
– SCOPUS
– FoodNetBase (for e-books)
– CINAHL
– EMBASE
– Natural Standard
– SCOPUS
22. Article of Future
ELSIVIER
• A medical and health science publisher.
• Predict the trend of the future articles.
WEBLINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded
&v=1dXkmgkYuEg
23. Class Activity
– Tweet about THREE new things you learn
today.
– Respond to ONE another students tweet.
– Tag #ALES204, @JessL, @iJoykaustav
