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Introduction
I have been asked several times to write an article called “How to read a paper” and I’ve finally done it. It may still evolve over time – not least, new notes might discover new tricks that need sharing – but it covers the main tips to help you to review academic literature.
The ‘Monday note’ started officially in 2011, although I wrote articles for The Harcombe Diet Club before then. The Monday note has evolved into a weekly dissection of an academic paper. I do the analysis, so that you don’t have to. The executive summary was introduced at the start of 2019. This provides the rebuttal to the latest nutritional non-sense in a few concise bullet points. For medical professionals, academics, chefs, nutritionists, personal trainers and individuals interested in health, the Monday note delivers weekly ammunition so that you may rest assured that following a real food animal-based diet is right and advice driving you towards seed oils and cereals is wrong.
As of the end of 2025, over 750 Monday notes have been published. Many of these have required several papers to be reviewed to write one note. E.g., the December 2025 series of 3 Monday notes on the CTSU statin papers required 6 papers to be dissected and data to be extracted from 28 more. I think it’s fair to say that I know how to read a paper, therefore. In this note I will share what I have learned over many years of reading many papers.
This will be in four parts. Part 1 will cover evidence. What is evidence? What are the different levels of evidence? Which evidence is better than others? Part 2 will cover the component parts of a paper and some terms that you will need to know to read papers (we’ll keep them as few and as simple as possible). Part 3 will cover how to approach a paper. Where do you start? What should the next step be? Part 4 will cover the numbers, tables and figures that will highlight the paper’s tricks and issues. What is always an issue? What is sometimes an issue? Where are you most likely to find something that no-one else has spotted? And more.
You may have noticed that I treat you lovely readers as highly intelligent, which of course you are. I’ve run the four (almost finished) notes by a few long-term subscribers and the feedback has been that it is very ‘information rich’. There’s nothing that you won’t be able to follow but it is one bit of information after another. Take from it what suits you. Use it as a manual and have a go at a paper yourself, or just enjoy a reminder of all the tricks we have seen (with examples) over the years. It’s long too – currently 23,000 words – more like 7 Monday notes, but it’s coming as 4. It’s long been promised anyway, so here goes.
We need to start with what is evidence: what are the levels of evidence that we need to know about?
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Zoe
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