>>12592487this is the leddit/4chan way to read papers.
>>12592475for my field (cell bio) and anything I have decent knowledge with:
-read abstract, see if its anything I care about. If not, toss paper.
-If I'm not well-versed on the top, read the intro. Otherwise, skip to figures.
-go to figures, and determine what the data is showing. Good papers you can infer what the figures represent. Some topics you have to do a bit more paper reading for context, but getting an unbiased view of the data itself is my first stop.
-finally, read results and especially methods carefully to see if I agree with the authors of their interpretation of the data/more insight into why Figure 3 follows Figure 2. Methods in particular for certain experiments (what type of neurons? What DIV? PDL/laminin? what treatment? Why that? etc etc).
Finally discussion if I think its necessary. Not always.
Takes me about 10-15 minutes for a paper in my field to get the gist of it. Careful critique takes 30 minutes, sometimes more if I'm figuring out specific methods and have to do some paper back-tracing (hate lazy citations, but sometimes you have to go to paper B, then C, then figure out what the method from C was, since its not clear "oooh we did X as described in C". Fuck that)
If It's not my field, I read the whole-thing, top to bottom, and since I probably don't know enough context to know if its good (are these methods standards, are there any missing controls usually done because technique Z has some blindspots, are these results shocking because they completely contradict what the last 40 papers on the topic shows, etc), I take it at face value but don't go around stating its truth without consulting some colleagues who know the field better, unless its a sketchy journal- then I keep it at a semi-arms length.
If I'm REALLY outta the field, find some reviews and read them + the papers they cite which are usually historically important in the field
