Subj : FidoGazette Vol 11 no 26 Page: 4 To : All From : Janis Kracht Date : Thu Jun 28 2018 15:11:32 ================================================================ A R T I C L E S ================================================================ How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists By Jennifer Raff From vaccinations to climate change, getting science wrong has very real consequences. But journal articles, a primary way science is communicated in academia, are a different format to newspaper articles or blogs and require a level of skill and undoubtedly a greater amount of patience. Here Jennifer Raff has prepared a helpful guide for non-scientists on how to read a scientific paper. These steps and tips will be useful to anyone interested in the presentation of scientific findings and raise important points for scientists to consider with their own writing practice. My post, The truth about vaccinations: Your physician knows more than the University of Google sparked a very lively discussion, with comments from several people trying to persuade me (and the other readers) that their paper disproved everything that ICÇÖd been saying. While I encourage you to go read the comments and contribute your own, here I want to focus on the much larger issue that this debate raised: what constitutes scientific authority? ItCÇÖs not just a fun academic problem. Getting the science wrong has very real consequences. For example, when a community doesnCÇÖt vaccinate children because theyCÇÖre afraid of CÇ£toxinsCÇØ and think that prayer (or diet, exercise, and CÇ£clean livingCÇØ) is enough to prevent infection, outbreaks happen. [...] Read the rest of the article: TinyUrl: http://tinyurl.com/h4rjfxb FIDOGAZETTE Vol 11 No 26 Page 4 June 28, 2017 ----------------------------------------------------------------- --- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-3 * Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38) .