Research Articles

CRITICAL Reading
Critical Reading & Thinking
• Critical reading
• Technique for discovering information and ideas within a text.
• Refers to a careful, active, reflective and analytic reading

• Critical thinking
• Technique for evaluating information and ideas, for deciding what to accept
and believe.
• Involves reflecting on the validity of what you have read in light of the prior
knowledge and understanding.
Goals of Critical Reading

• To recognize an author’s purpose

• To understand tone and convincing elements
• To recognize strengths & weaknesses
• Avoid asking:
• What information can I get out of it?
• Rather Ask:
• How does this text work?
• How is it argued?
• How is the evidence used and interpreted?
• How does the text reach its conclusions?
Four tips for Critical Reading

1. Read the paper 3 times:

• First read the abstract, the introduction and the conclusion and
look through the references.
• Next read through the entire paper starting with the abstract again.
Don't skip over figures, re-read parts that you don't understand.
Write down questions you have as you go along.
• Finally, re-read the paper critically.
• Did the authors do what they said they were going to do?
• What are the important ideas? (May be unimportant ideas)
• Do their results make sense?
• Are their methods sound?
• What assumptions are they making?
• How does their work fit in with other similar work?
• What improvements/extensions do they contribute?
Four tips for Critical Reading cont.

• 2. Make an outline of the paper

• Create some organized information about the paper that will help to
sort out the details
• Highlight the major points of the paper
• This can be as detailed as you need it to be
• 3. Create a list of questions
• About parts that you don't understand
• About parts where you question their solution/ proof/
methods/results
• 4. List comparisons of this paper to other related work
with which you are familiar.
We can summarize Four Levels of Critical Reading

• Preliminary understanding: skimming

• Title Abstract
• Identify main theme
Critical Reading Levels (cont)

• Comprehensive understanding:
• Variables and concepts
• Terminology
• Main idea or theme
• Restate in own words
Critical Reading Levels (cont)
• Analysis understanding
• Understand parts
• Begin to critique
• Summarize in own words each part

• Synthesis understanding
• Put together
• Explain relationships
• Critique
Critiquing

• A process of objectively and critically evaluate content for

scientific merit and application to practice, theory, and
education.
• Uses criteria: research process
• Find strengths as well as weaknesses
Anatomy of a research paper
1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Related work
5. Methodology
6. Results
7. Discussion
8. Conclusion
9. References
10. Acknowledgement
11. Conflict of interest
12. Biography
General form of a research paper

• An objective of organizing a research paper is to allow

people to read your work selectively.
• In all sections of your paper:
• Stay focused on the research topic of the paper
• Use paragraphs to separate each important point (except for the
abstract)
• Present your points in logical order
• Avoid informal wording, don't address the reader directly
Title
• The title summarizes the main idea or ideas of your study.
• A good title contains the fewest possible words that adequately
describe the contents and/or purpose of your research paper.

• The title should be

• Descriptive
• Direct
• Accurate
• Appropriate
• Interesting
• Concise
• Precise
• Unique
• should not be misleading.
Research paper Title example
Abstract

• A short note that express the contents of the work

• Need to be simple, specific, clear, unbiased, honest, concise,
precise, stand-alone, complete, scholarly, (preferably) structured,
and should not be misrepresentative.
• Normally 50 to 200 words
• Usually written after the rest of the research is completed.
• Writing an Abstract:
• Purpose of the study - hypothesis, overall question, objective
• Model organization/system and brief description of the experiment
• Results, including specific data - if the results are quantitative in
nature.
• Important conclusions or questions that follow from the
experiments.
Introduction

• The purpose of an introduction is to explain the reader with the

rationale behind the work, with the intention of defending it. It
places the work in a theoretical context, and enables the reader to
understand and appreciate the objectives.
• Writing an introduction
• Describe the importance (significance) of the study - why was this worth
doing in the first place?
• Provide a broad context.
• Defend the model - why did you use this particular organism or system?
• What are its advantages?
• Provide a rationale.
• State your specific hypothesis or objective, and describe the reasoning that
led you to select them.
• Very brief describe the experimental design and how it accomplished the
stated objectives.
literature review
• It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you
to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the
existing research that you can later apply to your paper.

• The literature review

• Evaluate the current state of research
• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
Methods
• Description of the tools and techniques used to collect
and analyze the data in the study
• The objective is to document the practical procedures or
steps taken used to do research (generate and analyze
data).
• Include only specialized computing devices and any equipment or
supplies that are not commonly found in labs.
• Report the methodology used in experiments.
• Describe the methodology completely.
Results

• The purpose of a results section is to present and

illustrate your findings. Make this section a completely
objective report of the results, and save all interpretation
for the discussion.

• Summarize your findings in text and illustrate them, if appropriate,

with figures and tables.

• Provide a context, such as by describing the question that was

addressed by making a particular observation.

• ANALYZE your data, then prepare the analyzed (converted) data in

the form of a figure (graph), table, or in text form.
Discussion

• The objective here is to provide an interpretation of your

results and support for all of your conclusions, using evidence
from your experiment.

• If your results differ from your expectations, explain why that

may have happened.
• Decide if each hypothesis is supported, rejected, or if you cannot make a
decision with confidence.
• You may suggest future directions, such as how the experiment might be
modified to accomplish another objective.
• Explain all of your observations as much as possible.
• One experiment will not answer an overall question, so keeping the big
picture in mind, where do you go next?
• The best studies open up new avenues of research. What questions
remain?
Conclusion
• A statement/decision reached by the researcher based on
findings in the research

• Restate the problem statement addressed in the paper

• Summarize your overall arguments or findings
• Suggest the key takeaways from your paper

• An effective conclusion
• Stresses the importance of your thesis statement
• Gives the research paper a sense of completeness
• Leaves a final impression on the reader
Literature Cited/References
• List all literature cited in your paper, in order cited in the text.

• In a proper research paper, only primary literature is used (original

research articles authored by the original investigators).

• Avoid to include a web site as a reference.

• If you are citing an on line journal, use the journal citation (name,
volume, year, page numbers).

•
Literature Cited/References
• How To Cite a Research Paper Table of Contents
• The Rationale Behind Citations
• APA Style Citation Guide
• MLA Style Citation Guide
• Chicago/Turabian Style Citation Guide
• IEEE Style Citation Guide
 Selected Research Articles
Ref. Title Included/ Reason for exclusion?
Excluded
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[7]
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 Critically Reading the selected articles
Ref. Title Outlines Questions Comparisons

[1] a. i. a. [7] ……
b. ii. b. [9],[13] ….
c. iii.
[2]
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[7]
Critiquing a research paper

i. Is the title is clear and appropriate?

ii. Does the introduction give relevant background information that helps you
understand what was studied, and why?
iii. Is the procedure (method) clearly stated?
iv. Did they compare recent works?
v. Are all graphs and tables labeled correctly, and do they clearly explain the
results?
vi. Does the data relate to the hypothesis/question?
vii. Did they collect data on all relevant variables to answer their question?
viii. Were the results explained?
ix. Do the results support or disprove the question or hypothesis?
x. Do you notice a pattern in their results (graphs) that they don't address in the
paper?
xi. Do you agree with the conclusions?
xii. Did they address any problems in their research, exploring how they might do
things differently next time?
xiii. Do they consider what future research might be done to further answer the
question?
 Critiquing the selected Research papers
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