How to Read a Scientific Paper
What exactly is a “peer reviewed” article?
When people describe legitimate research, they tend to preface it with the term “peer review.” Because peer review is a critical part of scholarly publishing, it’s worth taking a few hundred words and diving into its meaning. What is peer review? Peer review is exactly what it sounds like: academic peers review an individual’s work…
Read MoreWhere to Find Scientific Research Papers (and How to Tell if They’re Legit), Part II
Click here for Part One of Where to Find Scientific Research Papers (and How to Know if They’re Legit). Yesterday, I wrote about predatory journals. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that there are shitty people in the research world who get off on exploiting academics and undermining science, but I…
Read MoreWhere to Find Scientific Research Papers (And How to Tell if They’re Legit), Part I
A note from Brooke: This post is taking longer than anticipated, so I’m splitting it into two parts. This post will focus on where to find relevant research papers, while Part II will focus on the quality and legitimacy of those articles. For most of my life, I struggled with the assumption that people…
Read MoreHow to Read a Scientific Journal Part 2: What is “n”?
Part of the reason why I’m able to learn what I’m learning is that my partner, Justin, is an academic. He’s built his career on reading, writing, and analyzing journal articles, which means he’s my first stop on the understanding research train. This is both great and terrible for me. On the one hand, I…
Read MoreHow to Read a Scientific Paper, Part 1: Systematic Review vs. Research vs. Meta-Analysis
When I first began speaking openly about long term antidepressant use and antidepressant withdrawal, it didn’t take long for me to be faced with a wall of academic journals and research papers. At first, my instinct was to read the abstract, get the gist of what I was trying to understand and move on. But…
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