Reading a Paper Without Drowning · Lesson 2 of 4
What each section is actually for
The abstract tells you what they claim. The introduction tells you why anyone should care and what came before. The method tells you whether to believe them. The results are what happened. The discussion is where they tell you what it means — and where they are least constrained, so read it most sceptically.
The limitations paragraph, usually short and near the end, is often the most informative thing in the paper: authors are required to name what would undermine their own finding. Read it before the discussion, and the discussion reads very differently afterwards.
Read to the end to continuePrevious