{"id":559,"date":"2018-11-05T21:50:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T21:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/course.oeru.org\/irmp101\/?page_id=559"},"modified":"2018-11-05T21:50:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T21:50:13","slug":"reading-research-reports","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/course.oeru.org\/irmp101\/learning-pathways\/approaches-to-knowledge\/reading-research-reports\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Research Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Types of Articles<\/span><\/h2>\n

Not all articles retrieved from academic journals are going to be research articles. Knowing the potential components of an academic journal will help you to determine which articles are research articles, and which are not. Not all components of a peer-reviewed journal is subject to the peer-review process. You would need to read a specific publication’s editorial policies to determine whether their letters to the editor, book reviews, and news briefs are peer-reviewed prior to publication, or whether they just review feature-length research articles. Read the ‘Academic Journals: More than Peer-Reviewed Articles’<\/a><\/span> for more information about the different types of articles.\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Reading Research Articles\/Reports<\/span><\/h2>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
Man reading his paper outside Baimasi, the White Horse Temple, in China<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Research reports (also called research articles) in psychology cover an enormous range of topics. However, most use a very similar format. This format is referred to as American Psychological Association (APA) style, which is introduced in detail in Chapter 11 of your textbook<\/a><\/span>. The value in having a highly specific format for a research report is that readers know where in each report to find information. Sometimes sections of the report are combined (like Results<\/b> and Discussion<\/b>), and some journals have no section headings (for example, the journal Science<\/i>), but the contents of a research report are almost always presented in the same order. The seven parts of a basic research article are described in your textbook.\n<\/p>\n

The first part of the journal article is the Abstract<\/b>, a brief summary of the rationale, methods, and results of the study. Reading this first will give you an idea of what is to come.\n<\/p>\n

A word of advice: You may find it helpful to read the remainder of the article in a non\u2010sequential order. Specifically, you may wish to read the last paragraph of the Introduction<\/b> first. This paragraph typically summarizes the procedure and the hypotheses of the study. If you read this paragraph first, then you have a general framework with which to understand the research report. This framework usually helps the reader grasp the methods and motivation of a study more efficiently. After you have developed this framework, it may be helpful to read the first paragraph of the Discussion<\/b>. This paragraph typically summarizes the results of the study by giving a very short description of the study\u2019s purpose and then describes the findings without the statistical analyses. After reading this paragraph, you can more easily comprehend the Results<\/b> section of the article.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\"activity\"\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t

Activity<\/h2>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Watch the video “How to Read an Academic Paper”<\/a><\/span> by the iSchool at UBC and implement the suggested strategies when reading your journal articles.\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Peer Review<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
Students studying at Albany Senior High School, New Zealand.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Research findings and theories are presented in many forms: books, interviews, public presentations, and scientific meetings. However, articles that appear in peer\u2010reviewed journals are regarded as having a particularly high status. An article that appears in a peer\u2010reviewed journal is first submitted to the journal\u2019s editor. The editor then distributes the article to two or three experts (peers) in the research area addressed by the article\u2019s author. Based on the editor\u2019s expertise and the comments of the reviewers, the editor determines whether the article is of sufficient value to warrant publication. This is a very rigorous process. For example, in journals such as Science<\/i> and American Psychologist<\/i>, it is not uncommon for over 90 per cent of the submitted articles to be rejected. Even if an article is accepted for publication in a peer\u2010reviewed journal, it is typical for this article to be accepted only under the condition that the author makes several modifications. These modifications may include rewriting the paper for clarity, reanalyzing the data using a different statistical approach, including additional ideas, citing additional references, or running an additional control group. Unlike student research papers which are typically submitted just once to your professor, the author of a journal article and the editor of that journal may go back and forth with the paper over many weeks or months revising, editing, and clarifying information.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
Monroe Community College Students Studying<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

We can contrast the demanding process of publishing an article in a peer\u2010reviewed journal with presenting information on the Internet. There are no, or only a few, quality\u2010control checks and balances on the Internet. Though excellent articles may appear there, the vast majority are articles that would never be successful if they were subjected to the peer\u2010review process. Therefore, because it is often difficult to evaluate the quality of articles that appear on the Internet, scientists rely on peer\u2010reviewed journals. <\/b>For this reason, you should be wary of referencing internet sites unless they are the online version of a reputable peer-reviewed journal.\n<\/p>\n

Not all science publications are peer reviewed, however. For example, Scientific American<\/i> and Psychology Today<\/i> are not. These types of magazines serve a valuable function in disseminating research findings and ideas to the educated public. However, they do not have the rigour of peer review. In order to determine whether a journal is peer reviewed, read the section in the journal, usually called \u201cInstructions to Authors.\u201d This section describes the process that potential authors must follow in order to have their papers published in that journal. If it describes a procedure that includes having copies of your article distributed to reviewers, then the journal is peer reviewed. Most databases, including PsycINFO<\/b>, include both peer\u2010reviewed (refereed) and non\u2010refereed articles. Some databases, such as Academic Search Premier<\/b>, allow you to check a box labelled \u201cScholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals,\u201d which eliminates from your search journals that are not peer reviewed. However, not all articles that appear in a peer\u2010reviewed journal are peer reviewed. For example, the journal Science<\/i> is very rigorously peer reviewed. However, Science<\/i> includes letters to the editor and advertisements that are not peer reviewed.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n