How to Read a Scientific Paper

Want to do your own research online? Want to separate fact from social media-driven fiction? Start here with this handy guide!

✅ MANDATORY LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, AND TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS

📲 FOLLOW ME ON SOCIETY-RUINING SOCIAL MEDIA:

😎: Kyle
✂: Charles Shattuck
🤖: @Claire Max
🎼: Mëydan

[kylehill]

Straight from a [OFFICE HOURS] suggestion to reality. I told you it was going to perform abysmally (and it is), but thanks for watching all the same you nerds.

[Elipus]

Being the Least Attractive Hemsworth still makes you more attractive than 80% of the population. Keep up the self care, my guy.

[notnothaze]

one of my favorite quotes about online interactions I've ever heard was. "i may be mad, but in 10 minutes i wont be mad anymore and you'll still be a fucking idiot"

[tqit]

Loving that Kyle just casually told all of Twitter to go touch grass

[Ryukachoo]

Kyle forgot the most important thing;
A single paper is only a signal, lots of paper saying roughly the same thing is what you're looking for

[billbillinger]

" Some internet quotes may be entirely false." - Abraham Lincoln

[NintendoPolitics]

What I learned from dissecting research papers in college: Statistics are weird and can be manipulative in both good and bad ways

[_-Dante-_]

THE FACT THAT THIS IS FUNNY AND STILL AN EXCEPTIONAL RESOURCE MAKES ME ANGRY AND BRINGS ME IMMENSE JOY IN EQUAL MEASURES

[recinbersvoice]

One other note: don’t just base conclusions on a single paper’s findings. Its often best to look for multiple papers published over multiple time periods to see whether a finding may have been retracted, refuted, or misrepresented. Even though peer review typically weeds out most of these issues, research is an ever-evolving set of fields that comes to conclusions over time rather than instantaneously.

Great video overall, but that’s just a single author’s word.

[datchucktaylor]

I'll be using this in my lectures with my first-year undergraduates. Thank you, Science Thor.

[crayoncer]

Holy shit, when someone's emotional problems become there whole personality. Damn, that just summarized some deep shit in a really simple way.

[coleeolee]

I absolutely love how this whole video is directly modeled after the krusty krab training video from the first season of spongebob

Edit: Jesus Christ this video was a riot start to finish. Thank you, Kyle hill

[Rhuind]

When doing your own research, I recommend reading several papers on the same topic. Peer reviewed papers can still be flawed, but if there's a consensus across papers, there's a better chance that the conclusions are accurate/correct/not BS. Nice video science Thor!

[christiaanventer]

>gets an online compliment
>goes outside to touch grass
Wow, its almost like that interaction didn't actually matter!

[lavasharkandboygirl]

A genuine thank you from a former university student. This is an amazing way to simplify what is often an incredibly tough process to understand. I do feel that this should be re-titled to “how to be correct* all the time**”
*correct in relation to the current information publicly available
**for a small period of time, until new studies become available

[jasonmoore]

Another good recommendation is to see if the paper has been cited by others, assuming it isn't brand new. Also, news media tends to do a bad job interpreting scientific studies, unfortunately.

[annlee]

Yes! Part of med school curriculum is learning to dissect studies and understand the methods and math contained in them! It's not just jumping to the discussion/ conclusions and taking them at face value!

[jonrios]

Arguing on the internet is easy, BUT having a good honest debate is almost impossible.

[toni_aloni]

The fact that I recognised this as “P.O.O.P.” immediately is hilarious. Also, I’m saving this for the rest of my life because science is hard 🤣

[DoomRater]

"Is the sample representative?" Ask this question about anything labeled stereotypical as well! It's too funny to watch people blow off a statement as stereotypical without asking if it's representative, since nearly every stereotype has a basis in fact.