[What scientific publications should be read?].

Abstract

Students in the biomedical fields, and even those at the graduate level, often tend to accept more readily the opinions of authority than scientific knowledge itself. Books and papers sometimes confuse hypotheses with evidence. Similarly, the great profusion of scientific publications makes it necessary to sift the sound from the fatuous, the important from the trivial, the useful from the dangerous. A good way to choose one's reading matter is to learn the scientific method and to consider each article from that point of view. Is the writing a mere description of phenomena, a study of case histories, a presentation of new techniques, or a report of really valid experimental work? One should be aware of the scope and limitations of experimental design models applicable to physiological and biochemical research and of those for clinical experimentation. This paper offers guidelines for the analysis of articles and indicates the need to determine whether the components of an experimental design (a target population, alternative therapies, and situations of change) are present, and to review its structure and the sequence it prescribes on that basis. Several questions are asked following the above steps, as a quick gauge of the value and usefulness of the publication or paper.