writing in the disciplines

reading research articles

Research articles in biology (also referred to as primary articles) are those reporting original research and are published in peer-reviewed journals. (See choosing appropriate sources for help selecting journal articles.)

While research articles often appear to be complex reports on esoteric topics, they are really just a presentation of one long argument. Through the standard format of the research report, biologists try to convince other scientists that their research question has merit, that their methodology is valid, and that their interpretation of their results is correct. Because peer-reviewed research reports are written in a standard format, they can be approached with a strategy.

before you read

As scientific articles are, generally, written to a narrow audience of professional scientists, they assume a certain level of scientific literacy. Before reading an article, it may be helpful to read the relevant sections of your textbook and to look up concepts in a scientific dictionary or encyclopedia.

preread

Before delving into the entire paper, section by section, quickly skim the article to get a sense of the question(s) being asked, hypotheses, and results. This will give you sense of where you want to focus the bulk of your energy as you read the various sections of the article. As part of prereading, you may also find it useful to pay special attention to the figures in the results section. By analyzing the figures, graphs, and tables, you should be able to form a basic idea of what questions were asked, what methods were used, and what results were found.

read

Because research articles follow standard formats, readers can expect specific types of information in each section. For this reason, each section can be read more or less closely and with specific questions in mind:

abstract
introduction
methods and materials
results
discussion

reread

Scientific papers are packed with details and almost always require multiple readings. After your first reading, look up concepts or words that you did not understand in the article and consider reading other papers on the same topic to gain a better sense of context for the topic of your research. On second and third readings you will also want to focus on how the paper relates to your own research project.

Adapted from McMillan VE. Writing papers in the biological sciences. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's; 2006. 269 p.

For more advice, see the Center for Writing's quicktip, Critical Reading Strategies.