Murder mystery solved

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Lecture 10

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

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Mouse murder mystery

• Who do you think it is and why?

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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.

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Example Figure 1
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Example legend 1
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Exercise 1

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

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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?

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Reading papers

• No guaranteed way of approaching a paper.
• After years of reading papers, I usually look at
  the figures first if the 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Discussion of Article 7
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