Tips for skim reading PEER-REVIEW ARTICLES, from your friendly public health scientist
0. Types of peer-review articles:
Research articles: I have a hypothesis, I did my own research to reject or accept the hypothesis
(Systematic) reviews: I read a whole of bunch of existing articles and wrote a summary of their findings
Meta analysis: I took data from a whole bunch of exisiting research to reject or accept a hypothesis (more data=more participants=more likely to represent real life=closer to the truth)
Commentary/correspondence: I have a strong opinion on something, usually to call for more attention in a research area (always topical)
Case studies/series: I found something interesting that maybe significant to a larger group of people but I don’t have enough data to prove it, especially if it’s time sensitive
1. What am I looking for? (no, I don’t mean the topic)
Depending on the outcome of your need, you may be only focusing on either the Methods section, the Results section, or Discussion, or Conclusion. For example, are you looking for how to measure PTSD (methods) or what is the rate of PTSD in a community (results)
Introduction/background: what is the topic and what questions will this paper answer (based on existing literature)
Methods: how I did my research (the measurement tools, type statistical analysis, who I did my research on)
Results: What I found (percentages, rates, odd ratios, relative risks, confidence intervals, regressions, etc.)
Discussion: Explanation for what I’ve found and how it compares to existing research (more existing literature which may or may not support the results)
Conclusion: What direction is my research and what should the next step be (the gap in research, limitations in the research)
1a. Narrow your scope of research
Have a simple inclusion or exclusion criteria
Is there time frame to when the research has to be published by (e.g. 2000-2018)?
Is it about women only, men only, children under 5 only, excludes people with A and B?
At least a certain sample size (e.g. must have 400 participants)?
controlled or not controlled environment (e.g. fieldwork or lab-based)?
Locations specific (e.g. countries, districts, continents, counties)?
2. Read the goddamn abstract
If it describes what you are looking for, download the pdf. This ensures what you are looking for is in the article so you don’t waste your time reading the whole damn thing. The abstract should describe everything in the first bulletpoint. DO NOT RELY ON TITLE
If the abstract doesn’t give you a taste of what you want, skip it, it’s probably not worth reading
2a. Skip the intro/background
If you know what your topic is, skip this section, it will not give you any new information. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, read 1 or 3 introductions and skip it for the rest of the articles
Sometimes abstracts can be deceiving, if you have key words or criterias that you must meet e.g. women who have PTSD, then please look up the word ‘women’ to make sure actual research was done about women and it was not just mentioned in the introduction section. Don’t think you have to read the entire paper
4. Refernce and take notes
You’re not going to remember what you read where so take notes! Open an excel or word doc and have one column be the title and the other one be the notes in bulletpoint form.
Fnd a reference software e.g. refworks, mendeley so you don’t have to type each reference by hand. they are usually free (if you are in school)
SAVE THE GODDAMN PDF. Don’t lose it. If you can’t download a PDF, PRINT —> save as PDF.
Don’t have the license or money to buy the article, try emailing the author, use any school/college/university library computer, email a nerdy friend!
Search Engines: Pubmed, Google scholar, Medline
Journal servers: they tend to have recommendations like ‘articles you might enjoy,’ click on those
References: bibliographies and references of articles you’ve read are alway a good source
Search for authors in your interested field or of an article you found useful
