The standard way for researchers to disseminate their latest study findings is to publish an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Scientific journals are usually meant to be read by people specializing in that field and can be difficult for non-scientists to read. However, many non-scientists learn how to read journal articles and enjoy keeping themselves up-to-date on research advances before they might be rewritten in layperson terms in a newspaper or magazine. For tips on how to read these articles, see below.
- Before reading the full research article, start with the abstract
- The abstract is a brief summary of the entire article.
- If the abstract doesn't sound interesting, you probably want to skip reading the
rest of the article.
- If the abstract sounds interesting, and you want to learn more, UMN library staff
suggests that the most effective way to read an article is to go through the different
sections in this order:- Discussion (interpretation of the results)
- Introduction (context for why they did the research)
- Results (technical reporting of statistical analysis)
- Methods (nitty-gritty details of how they conducted the research)
If you'd like to go one step further and get a better understanding of statistics used in research, read this overview.
If you'd like to give it a try, here are a few recent articles on Parkinson's research, from
University of Minnesota researchers:
- Low-frequency deep brain stimulation reveals resonant beta-band evoked oscillations in the pallidum of Parkinson's Disease patients.
- REM Sleep Without Atonia and Gait Impairment in People with Mild-to-Moderate Parkinson's Disease
- Semi-automated approaches to optimize deep brain stimulation parameters in Parkinson's disease