Lecture 10 Murder mystery solved Assignment 3 results

Lecture 10 • Murder mystery solved • Assignment 3 results • Figure legends • Critical appraisal of articles • Discussion of Article 7

Mouse murder mystery • Who do you think it is and why?

Figure legends • They always have a title (Can you spot the title in the following examples? ). • They concisely (opposite of wordy) describe what is in the figure. • What the symbols mean. • What the figure is of. • What is there. • You should be able to just read the legend and know what is there.

Example Figure 1

Example legend 1

Exercise 1 • Does this legend match up to the criteria for a good legend.

Exercise 2 • Underline the title. • Circle all components of the figure that are referred to in the figure legend. • How could the legend be improved?

Reading papers • No guaranteed way of approaching a paper. • After years of reading papers, I usually look at the figures first if the title and abstract pique my interest. • I am always more interested in the data than what the authors have to say about their data.

Reading the unfamiliar • I usually look at the title and abstract first. • Second, I will look at the figures to see if I can figure out what they will be talking about. Does the data talk to me? • If the figures are beyond me then I start reading the introduction, results and discussion. I note the questions I have.

Questions of the unfamiliar • Why are they doing this study? You may find the answer in the abstract, introduction or discussion. • What are they doing? Results and materials and methods. I generally do not read the materials and methods unless it is a method that is unfamiliar or to be sure how they did something.

Questions of the unfamiliar • A common mistake made by students: If you do not know the meaning of a word look it up. The context of the word in a scientific paper is usually not helpful and can be misleading.

Once I have a line on the paper. • I will start to gather references to expand my background on the area and methods: like what is a MALDI-TOF- MS. Oh, so that is why they are studying this (an epiphany). • Reread the paper in the light of this new knowledge to try to refine my understanding of the paper and answer the remaining questions on the paper.

Once I have a line on the paper. • When I reread the paper I link every statement in the results section with the data presented. I am asking the question can they make that assertion or conclusion--does the data back up what they say. I look carefully at the data.

Discussion of Article 7