more life

Tips for skim reading PEER-REVIEW ARTICLES, from your friendly public health scientist

0. Types of peer-review articles:

Research articles: I have a hypothesis, I did my own research to reject or accept the hypothesis

(Systematic) reviews: I read a whole of bunch of existing articles and wrote a summary of their findings

Meta analysis: I took data from a whole bunch of exisiting research to reject or accept a hypothesis (more data=more participants=more likely to represent real life=closer to the truth)

Commentary/correspondence: I have a strong opinion on something, usually to call for more attention in a research area (always topical)

Case studies/series: I found something interesting that maybe significant to a larger group of people but I don’t have enough data to prove it, especially if it’s time sensitive

1. What am I looking for?  (no, I don’t mean the topic)

Depending on the outcome of your need, you may be only focusing on either the Methods section, the Results section, or Discussion, or Conclusion. For example, are you looking for how to measure PTSD (methods) or what is the rate of PTSD in a community (results)

Introduction/background: what is the topic and what questions will this paper answer (based on existing literature)

Methods: how I did my research (the measurement tools, type statistical analysis, who I did my research on)

Results: What I found (percentages, rates, odd ratios, relative risks, confidence intervals, regressions, etc.)

Discussion: Explanation for what I’ve found and how it compares to existing researech (more existing literature which may or may not support the results)

Conclusion:  What direction is my research and what should the next step be (the gap in research, limitations in the research)

1a. Narrow your scope of research

Have a simple inclusion or exclusion criteria

Is there time frame to when the research has to be published by (e.g. 2000-2018)?

Is it about women only, men only, children under 5 only, excludes people with A and B?

Specific language only?

At least a certain sample size (e.g. must have 400 participants)?

controlled or not controlled environment (e.g. fieldwork or lab-based)?

Locations specific (e.g. countries, districts, continents, counties)?

2. Read the goddamn abstract

If it describes what you are looking for, download the pdf. This ensures what you are looking for is in the article so you don’t waste your time reading the whole damn thing. The abstract should describe everything in the first bulletpoint. DO NOT RELY ON TITLE

If the abstract doesn’t give you a taste of what you want, skip it, it’s probably not worth reading

2a. Skip the intro/background

If you know what your topic is, skip this section, it will not give you any new information. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, read 1 or 3 introductions and skip it for the rest of the articles

3. Control + F

Sometimes abstracts can be deceiving, if you have key words or criterias that you must meet e.g. women who have PTSD, then please look up the word ‘women’ to make sure actual research was done about women and it was not just mentioned in the introduction section. Don’t think you have to read the entire paper

4. Refernce and take notes

You’re not going to remember what you read where so take notes! Open an excel or word doc and have one column be the title and the other one be the notes in bulletpoint form. 

Fnd a reference software e.g. refworks, mendeley so you don’t have to type each reference by hand. they are usually free (if you are in school)

SAVE THE GODDAMN PDF. Don’t lose it. If you can’t download a PDF, PRINT —> save as PDF. 

Don’t have the license or money to buy the article, try emailing the author, use any school/college/university library computer, email a nerdy friend!

5. Where to get started

Search Engines: Pubmed, Google scholar, Medline

Journal servers: they tend to have recommendations like ‘articles you might enjoy,’ click on those

References: bibliographies and references of articles you’ve read are alway a good sourcef

                                   ✨Wicked (October 30th, 2003) ✨

“I’ve heard it said, that people come into our lives for a reason. Bringing something we must learn, and we are lead to those, who help us most to grow if we let them” 

“I won’t be available.”

Imagine you’re at work and your boss asks you to come in on Saturday. Saturday is usually your day off–coming in Saturdays is not an obligation to keep your job. Maybe you were going to watch a movie with a friend, or maybe you were just going to lie in bed and eat ice cream for eight hours, but either way you really, really don’t want to give up your day off.

If you consider yourself a millennial you’ve probably been raised to believe you need to justify not being constantly at work. And if you’re a gen-Z kid you’re likely getting the same toxic messages that we did. So in a situation like that, you might be inclined to do one of three things:

Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Cave when they pressure you to come in anyway, since you’re not doing anything important.

Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Over-apologize and worry that you looked bad/unprofessional.

Lie and say you’ve got a doctor’s appointment or some other activity that feels like an adequate justification for not working.

The fact is, it doesn’t matter to your boss whether you’re having open heart surgery or watching anime in your underwear on Saturday. The only thing that affects them is the fact that you won’t be at work. So telling them why you won’t be at work only gives them reason to try and pressure you to come in anyway.

If you say “I won’t be available,” giving no further information, you’d be surprised how often that’s enough. Be polite and sympathetic in your tone, maybe even say “sorry, but I won’t be available.” But don’t make an excuse. If your boss is a professional individual, they’ll accept that as a ‘no’ and try to find someone else. 

But bosses aren’t always professional. Sometimes they’re whiny little tyrants. So, what if they pressure you further? The answer is–politely and sympathetically give them no further information.

“Are you sure you’re not available?” “Sorry, but yes.”

“Why won’t you be available?” “I have a prior commitment.” (Which you do, even if it’s only to yourself.)

“What’s your prior commitment?” “Sorry, but that’s kind of personal.”

“Can you reschedule it?” “I’m afraid not. Maybe someone else can come in?”

Anti-semitism is always happening. High school boys drawing swastikas because they think it’s funny. People dressing up as Hitler for halloween. People profiling such as making fun of curly hair and large noses.

And when our own get blatantly murdered, I only see jewish people talking about it.

The leader of our country blames the synagogue for being attacked by an armed gunman.

People try to turn this into an anti-gun argument.

A young Alison Bechdel: