How to read a paper (Part 3) – How to approach a paper – Diet and Health Today

Introduction

We’re on the third part of four notes documenting “How to read a paper.” The first note reviewed levels of evidence. That’s the starting point to understand what we are reading and how robust it might be. Part 2 looked at the component parts of a paper and some terms that we need to know to be able to dissect papers. This note uses the other two as building blocks and it covers how to approach a paper.

I’ll let you into a secret up front. I hardly ever read a paper. I can’t remember the last time I read a paper from start to finish. The narrative of a paper will tell me what the researchers want me to know. That will bias me if I read this first. The numbers tell me the truth (if they have included enough numbers and most papers do). Definitions are also a source of truth. Discovering that the red meat definition includes sandwiches and lasagne destroys any findings immediately (Ref 1). You could stop there. Definitions will often require you to review previous papers and numbers will often require you to scrutinise any supplementary material. If researchers know that something should be shared but that it would undermine findings, they can stick it in the supplementary material.

I am struggling to think of a ‘trick’ that I found in a paper that wasn’t in the numbers, definitions and/or supplementary material. Researchers are not going to tell you any stunts in the narrative.