Give a Book a Good Critical Reading

By the time a paper is published, it has usually been through a process of quality control, called peer review. This involves a small number of people (the referees) not involved in the research project reading the paper and deciding if it is suitable for publication. The editors of the journal are usually also involved in the reviewing process. However, this does not mean it will be perfect. Many published papers contain factual and statistical errors, and statements which are really assertions disguised as objective fact. Given this, and the fact that scientific knowledge is often provisional and changing, the proper attitude when reading scientific papers is one of scepticism; it is the task of the reader to judge whether the authors' conclusions are justified.

Ex. 1. Answer the questions.

1. What is a standard format of a scientific article?
2. What information does an abstract contain? What is its purpose?
3. In your opinion, which of the sections in a research paper is the most informative?
4. What is a peer review?
5. Can you agree that the morequestions researchers answer, the more new questions they receive?

Ex. 2. Which of the two types of scientific articles

• gives an overview of the data in the field?
• gives a review of the original data?
• summarizes the data and conclusions from many studies?
• is a better starting place for a summary of what has been happening in the field?
• contains more background information?
• contains the original data and conclusions about experiments?

LANGUAGE TRAINING

Ex. 1. Fill in the correct word from the list:

Carry out, specific, follow, build, exchange, background, factual and statistical, review, well-rounded, original, reference, contain.

Ex. 2. Fill in the correct preposition, then choose any item and make up a sentence.

To be involved ….. smth; to be interested ….. smth; to be exposed …. smth; to be useful …. doing smth; to be helpful …. doing smth; to be extracted ….. smth; to comment …. smth; to refer …. smth; to be listed …. ; to be suitable ….; to be prone …. smth.

Ex. 3. Look up the word bias in an English-English dictionary. Translate the sentences below and learn some meanings of the word.