The science of trashing papers

[Guest guest]

BMJ 1997; 315 : 243 (Published 26 July 1997)

How to read a paper : getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is

about)

Copying:

" It usually comes as a surprise to students to learn that some (perhaps

most) published articles belong in the bin, and should certainly not be used

to inform practice. 1

The first box shows some common reasons why papers are rejected by peer

reviewed journals.

Why were papers rejected for publication?

See http://bit.ly/hPSzSj for list of common reasons.

" Most papers now appearing in medical journals are presented more or less in

standard IMRAD format:

Introduction (why the authors decided to do this research),

Methods (how they did it, and how they analysed their results),

Results (what they found), and

Discussion (what the results mean).

If you are deciding whether a paper is worth reading, you should do so on

the design of the METHODS section and not on the interest of the hypothesis,

the nature or potential impact of the results, or the speculation in the

discussion. "