Research reading used to be pretty simple in medical school.
What I mean by this is that you could open up a journal article, copy a couple of quotes here and there, and get done with a piece of coursework.
If you knew how to summarize several papers to back up a point you were trying to make, you could get some really good grades.
To be honest, you didn’t even have to have a good understanding of the content.
You just had to demonstrate that you used some form of evidence from the literature, and the more the merrier.
It was nice in the sense that you could get recognition by being average.
I think that’s what drew so many classmates to reading research articles at that stage.
They’d see others do average things and get good grades so they figured if that’s the most they had to do then why not do it?
But things have changed in the real-world clinical setting and it’s important to understand why.
Some people will moan and say research reading is harder now, but it really isn’t.
Frankly speaking, depending on how you look at it, you might say it’s easier because everyone is still trying to be average.
All you have to do is be above average and you have a special skillset on your hands.
You do remember the System of Research Reading that we talked about, right?
- Why are you reading?
- Where are you reading?
- What are you reading?
Here we come to the second phase in our journey.
The people who succeed at research reading understand that a scientific article is much more than blocks of words in a PDF.
The authors have organized the text in such a way because they know the readers have a problem that they want to solve.
The authors know that expert readers don’t see an article and think, “Wow, this is an article, so cool.”
They go to a paper and think “This better have the information I need at the right place and if it doesn’t then I’m gone in 3 seconds.”
They know their “Why” and know “Where” to find it.
Reading from start to finish?
When people begin to even think about the idea of reading research they usually jump right to the content.
This makes sense because that is the main body of the message the authors are trying to convey.
- Introduction: what were the knowledge gaps in the existing literature?
- Methods: how did the authors carry out their experiment?
- Results: what were the outcomes of the study?
- Discussion: how did the authors interpret their results?
So many nitty-gritty details!
However, this isn’t where you should start with research reading and the reason why is that you need to know if this paper even stands a chance of responding to your “Why” of reading it.
You never jump straight to the first chapter of a thriller to find out whether it is the romance novel that you were looking for.
You look at the title on the front cover first and the synopsis on the back!
If it’s not the romance novel that you were looking for then you leave it and find one that is.
Seems obvious, yet obviously not when many fellow beginner readers are diving straight to the main body of every article they see.
So you need a reading plan and for that, you need to understand the structure of a research paper.
What is the structure of a scientific paper?
Scientists are often documented as a boring species, working in their labs during the night and sunbathing in the glow of their computer screens during the day.
Boring might also seem to be the case for the way they communicate via medical journals as each and every article is structured in an identical boring manner.
As it turns out, this structure allows for efficient communication since readers would know precisely where to find what information even for complex subjects.
There are a total of 10 different sections that can be located in an article:
- Title: The one sentence to encapsulate the major finding.
- Authors: A place to brag about themselves and name those secondary authors who never really contributed.
- Abstract: An expanded summary of the entire paper in 200-300 words.
- Introduction: Describes the current knowledge landscape and the research question the authors are trying to answer.
- Methods: A step-by-step manual for others to replicate their experiment.
- Results: The experimental results in their entirety.
- Discussion: Documents the author’s interpretation of the results and reflection on the study’s strengths and limitations.
- Conclusion: Suggests the implications of the results and future direction for further research.
- References: A place to find related readings just like the suggestion bar on YouTube.
Where is the 10th?
Figures.
Many do not consider it a standalone section but I think it deserves a special place on this list.
Figures are going to play an important part in your reading efficiency.
We’ll discuss that later.
The 4-step funnel method.
So, where do I start reading among the 10 sections?
If you really want to improve your odds of research reading success then I suggest trying out the 4-Step Funnel Method.
Yup, I made that term up and I love it.
What is the 4-Step Funnel Method?
- Title
- Abstract
- Figures
- Discussion
Before you freak out it’s important to understand that these aren’t the only sections you can gain insight from but they are the ones that will give you the best chance.
Bear in mind that I only read a particular paper for one reason:
It answers my “Why”.
Don’t get me wrong.
If I could have all the time in the world to read every paper that does not echo my “Why” I 100% would because there are so many intriguing papers out here.
Well, maybe after finishing my third Game of Thrones marathon.
My point is, we need a way to segregate the signal from the noise.
Which is why I choose which section to read based on whether or not it can help me quickly decide if the paper can respond to my “Why”.
The 4-Step Funnel Method is therefore a tool in which we try to progressively extract knowledge from the text, starting from the lowest-hanging fruit that carries the biggest bang for your time.
Counterintuitive to traditional education, the goal here is to read less and to understand more.
If we realized at any of the steps that the content no longer matches our “Why”, we should leave the article and proceed no further.
There is no shame in doing so.
Never skimp on the title.
Now picture a funnel with a wide top and a narrow bottom.
We begin at the top of the funnel — the title.
You might snicker a bit at how self-evident this advice is.
But don’t be surprised that many first-time research readers skimp on this one.
They have this anxiety to go beyond the surface and to the text itself.
It’s probably a preconception that to be professional, they’ve got to face the unknown jargon and hard numbers head-on.
The fact is, there are no professional readers and unprofessional ones.
There are only efficient readers and inefficient ones.
So remember this:
The title is the entire article in a single sentence.
As simple as that.
It is designed to convey the central message in the broadest, no-frills, fashion.
Either to encapsulate the main finding of the study like below:
Or to state the type of experiment they were doing:
The title is the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to understanding a paper for the biggest bang for your time.
Look hard at the title and only move on to the abstract when you are sure it echoes your “Why”.
If not, you are wasting your time with the other three steps.
The abstract is always the gold mine.
The abstract is where you will find most of the gems if there are any at all.
It is the second best place to assess whether the piece matches your “Why”.
It is the part that offers a summary of the entire paper in 200-300 words, glossing over:
- What research questions the authors are trying to answer
- How they carried out the study to answer the research question
- How the results have informed the question
- How the author has interpreted what they have found
This densely packed information contains the gist extracted from each section of the long-form version, presenting it in 1-2 sentences each.
In most cases than not, the abstract would be the trigger to read further or the dealbreaker to move on to the next paper.
Don’t forget the figures.
After reading the abstract, it is very natural for readers to go through the entire paper section by section.
I would like to stop you in your tracks and direct you towards the figures within the article.
This is another underappreciated section that carries a ton of value yet requires very little reading time.
I believe this phenomenon arises from the bias that reading is concerning words per se.
Or that there is no shortcut when it comes to understanding a research paper at the professional level that a scientist should aim at.
The reality is that these figures are constructed, designed, and carefully calibrated by the authors to convey the key discoveries within their studies.
This goes back to the requirement by many journals that any paper is only allowed to contain 2-3 figures maximum.
What it does is it forces the authors to distill what they want to portray down to 2-3 pictures.
Flow diagrams to explain the experimental design graphically:
Kaplan-Meier curves showing the incidence of outcomes in the various comparison groups:
Of course, one would need to have a certain degree of know-how in interpreting the graphs and charts within the context of the specific field of study.
No doubt a skill to be learned as a picture is worth a thousand words.
Thank me later for the time saved.
Save the discussion for last.
Up to this point, there should only be two scenarios:
- You’ve given up on this paper because it doesn’t correspond to your “Why”.
- Or the paper is a perfect match for your “Why” which still piques your interest even after grasping the gist of the matter with the previous 3 steps.
If it is the latter, congratulations on the good catch.
You could go on to the last step and read the discussion as well.
Be aware that a significant proportion may simply be a reiteration of the content you’ve already understood from the previous 3 steps.
It’s just the nature of the beast.
As I’ve said, the 4-steps offer progressively less and less value for the time spent reading them in this sequential manner.
Not dissimilar to the Law of Diminishing Marginal Return if I could borrow this concept from economics.
That aside, I would like to draw your attention to the part of the discussion where the authors discuss the limitations of the article.
The reflection by the authors would enable you to get into their heads, understand their thought processes, what are the shortcomings of the design, and how these shortcomings might have biased the interpretation of the results.
Another component would be to look out for the unanswered questions within the study.
I always enjoy how these limitations and remaining questions would shed light on the direction of future research, building on the foundation of the current experiment.
And there you have it — the 4-step funnel method guiding you through where to read within a research paper and in what sequence.
Here is a video I made in which I’ll walk you through the 4-step funnel method by applying it in real-time on a paper I’ve recently read.
Be sure to click the link to the YouTube video if you’d like a deeper dive into the concept.
Now that you know Why and Where you are reading, it’s time to talk about What you are reading.
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