1. Secondary literature as a gateway to primary literature.
Last week we introduced three main types of scientific literature. We looked at how to use electronic databases to access papers on a particular subject and how to use citation management software to organize the papers we collected. Today, we are going to spend some time looking in detail at non-technical scientific articles and how we can use this type of literature as an entry-way into more technical, jargon-filled research articles. We are also going to practice identifying and dealing with unfamiliar words, as well as begin to look at the structure of primary research articles.

2. Learning goals By the end of class, you should be able to:
Read and summarize a non-technical scientific article.
Explain the benefits and limitations of secondary literature.
Infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word from context (sometimes).
Locate a particular paper without knowing the title.

3. Types of scientific literature
Research articles
Primary
Reviews
Non-technical articles (eg. Scientific American)
Increasing technicality
Let’s review a little of what we talked about last week. We said that in this class we would be talking about three main types of scientific literature: research articles, reviews and non-technical articles. We said that research articles are written by the scientists who actually conducted the research and are a detailed account of a specific set of experiments. These tend to be very dense and jargon-filled. We’re going to spend much of the quarter, starting next week, learned how to unpack various aspects of these types of articles. The second type of paper we mentioned was the review, which is a summary of a large number of research articles on a particular topic written by an expert in the field. These also tend to be quite technical and are intended to help bring a researcher in that field up to date on the current state of research without necessarily having to read each of the articles individually. The third type of article we mentioned, and the one we’re going to spend today talking about, is the non-technical article which is usually written for an interested laymen, which could be a non-scientist, or a scientist who is not familiar with that particular field. Examples of non-technical articles include things you would read in Scientific American, Popular Science, the Smithsonian magazine and other popular magazines. But several scientific journals also have a section for non-technical articles. These are called by a variety of names (news, perspective, commentary) depending on the journal.
Secondary

4. Non-technical articles
Benefits
Limitations
Easier-to-understand introduction to a topic.
Fun to read.
Lack of details makes it difficult to judge whether the research is sound.
Was the study designed correctly?
Were the correct methods used?
Do the conclusions fit the data?
Not available for every topic.
These non-technical articles have some obvious benefits for the reader. They’re generally much easier to understand than primary research articles, which makes them a good introduction to the field for the interested non-specialist. And they’re just generally fun to read – they have narratives, pretty pictures, easily understandable diagrams. However, there are some limitations that we need to be aware of when reading these types of articles. First, and very importantly, because most or all of the research detail is stripped away, it is usually impossible to tell whether a study was designed correctly and whether the author’s conclusions actually fit the data that was produced. These are things that a careful reader of a research article will be able to answer, but this information just isn’t there in a secondary article (including in reviews). So, while these types of articles may be good introductions to a topic, its very important to remember that, if you need to be able to judge the research being done, either because your own research hinges on the result or the result has some societal importance (like the issues we talked about last week), it’s important to read and understand the primary research articles. A second limitation of non-technical articles is that they tend to only be written for the most “news-worthy” research articles or the ones that are most likely to be of interest to the general population. So they won’t be available for every topic.
Today we’re going to use some non-technical articles from the journal Nature as an introduction to this genre and as a tool for building the skills we listed in the learning goals for today.

5. Practice With your group: Read the article Be prepared to discuss:
Take turns reading aloud by paragraph.
Circle unfamiliar words, but don’t stop to look them up.
For each 2-3 paragraphs, write a one sentence summary (typed).
At the end of the article, combine your summaries into an overall summary.
Be prepared to discuss:
What facts you learned.
Any words that you were able to guess the meaning by context.
Each group is going to get a non-technical article that is about 3 pages long, including pictures and what I want you to do is read the article together. I want you to read it aloud to give you practice becoming comfortable saying scientific words, even if you’re not sure how they’re pronounced. This will help you become more confident communicating about science verbally. I want you to circle words that are unfamiliar, but don’t stop to look them up. This is to show how much can be inferred from context. So if you’re able to guess the meaning of a word that you circled, jot down your definition. You can always look it up later. We’re going to spend some time next week specifically talking about how to handle jargon. Every couple of paragraphs I want your group to come up with a one sentence summary and type it up. You’ll combine this into an overall summary at the end that you’ll be able to share with the class to tell us what you’ve learned about the topic. We’re going to take about half an hour for this so go ahead and get in your groups, spread out so that you can talk comfortably. . .

6. Class discussion
Each group will explain their article to the class, using the whiteboard to diagram (~3 mn each group). Total 15 min.
Ok, so now that you’ve had a chance to discuss this article with your group and write a summary of your understanding of the information in the article, each group is going to present – again, this is to give you more practice communicating verbally about science, even if it’s something you just learned – each group is going to present a 2-3 minute summary of their article, using the whiteboard to diagram any important information about the article, and I want each group to tell us one new jargony word that you learned from this article, and what it means. Let’s have the T-rex group go first
Alright, great, thank you all for sharing. I’m hoping that this is really helping you get comfortable talking in front of a group. Let’s move on.

7. Roadmap Next week: Week 4: Structure of a research article Skimming
Dealing with jargon
Week 4:
Identifying arguments and claims
Interpreting figures
Ok, now that we’ve had an opportunity to dig into some secondary non-technical articles and talk about the types of things we can learn from them, we’re going to move forward into unpacking and digesting primary research articles. Throughout the next several classes, each group will be unpacking an article related to the paper you just read. Next week we will be talking about the overall structure of a research article, and we’re actually going to start looking at that today, and its component parts and how to efficiently get an idea of the overall gist of a paper quickly through using specific skimming techniques. We’ll also spend some time explicitly dealing with jargon. In week 4 we will talk about breaking down abstracts and identifying specific claims put forward by a research article. We will be interpreting figures and talking about common problems with figures that can affect their interpretation.

8. Search strategies Author-based Journal-based
Because your group is going to be spending the next couple of weeks working with primary research articles on the topic you just read about, I thought it would be a good idea to spend some class time today rounding up the papers you might be looking at. If you take a look at the very end of your group’s article, you’ll see a list of 4-6 references. These are the primary research articles which were discussed in your non-technical article. Your goal is to locate, download and add to your citation management software those papers, and then we’re going to start looking at the different structural elements present in different types of primary research articles. You won’t be reading all 4 or 6 of these papers (unless you particularly want to), but we’re going to start building a reference library for this topic.
You’ll notice that these references are very short and compact and don’t include the title of the paper. Usually, not all of the authors are listed and the name of the journal they are in is often abbreviated. I’m going to show you two different strategies for tracking down papers from these types of short citations, which will give us more practice using online journal databases and electronic journals. And then, we’re going to learn a much easier method that will work about 90% of the time. It’s important to be able to do the type of digging that we’re going to learn first, just in case you come across a paper that you really need to get access to, and you can’t find it the easy way.
And then you’re going to gather up all of the references mentioned in your article and we’re going to spend the rest of class looking at article structure.
Park, J. H. et al. Neurosurgery 70, (2012).

9. Questions? Reading non-technical articles. Search strategies.
Before we move on, let’s take some time for questions.

10. Homework
Submit “Investigating article structure” for first 4 references of your group’s non-technical article.
Stringer C, Nature 485: 33–35 (2012).
Pennisi E, Science 340: 799 (2013).
Read the above papers and use them to answer the question, “Did modern humans and neanderthals interbreed?”
Details on SmartSite.