1. Source material

Is the material included in the article primary literature?  Primary literature is specifically an original publication of a scientist’s new data, results, and analysis on a topic.  One of the most common mistakes made in judging an article by this criterion is mistaking a review article for primary literature.  A review article is different from primary literature in that it assembles the data and conclusions from many primary literature articles within a field of study into one overview of the current understanding of the area of research, but does not present any new data. 

Another common misstep is mistaking what is commonly known as a “protocol paper” with primary literature.  In a protocol paper, the authors are demonstrating a new technique but are not addressing any experimental questions; they have not generated hypotheses and designed appropriate experiments to test that hypothesis.

2. Observational vs. Experimental study design

There are two broad categories of scientific studies: observational and experimental.  In observational studies researchers simply observe study subjects and record these observations as data; they do not manipulate the independent variable in any way.  The study subjects are compared to a control group of subjects.  As an example, think of a study on the effects of smoking.  Researchers may collect observational data from smokers and compare this with data collected from non-smokers and draw conclusions from the differences that they find.  However, the researchers did not manipulate any variable and therefore did not carry out any experimentation.  This is the form that many clinical studies assume.  This brings us to the second type of scientific study: the experiment.  In this case, the investigator carefully designs an experiment to test the effects of manipulation of a particular variable.  The data collected from the experiment are compared against an appropriate control.  For example, if you are curious what the effect of nicotine is on epithelial cells of the trachea, you might choose to treat tracheal epithelial cells with a certain concentration of nicotine and then analyze the cells by microscopy after treatment and compare those results to tracheal epithelial cells that were not treated with nicotine.  In this case, the investigator directly manipulated the variable in a controlled way and recorded the effects of the treatment.  Though observational studies are valuable, they can be very difficult to interpret based on the lack of control that an investigator has in the design.  As we will be conducting experimental studies in this course, we would like you to have experience with reading and understanding these types of studies and would discourage the submission of any article based solely on an observational (clinical) design .

3. Subject matter

The assignment that you have been given is to present a primary literature article on the topic of biofilm research.  Therefore, you need to be careful in selecting an article that aligns with this subject.  You are free to explore various microorganisms that participate in biofilms, various aspects of biofilm formation and/or disassembly, etc., but please keep your articles within the realm of microbial biofilm research.

4. Length of article/number of figures

You will find that the length of journal articles varies widely.  Some are only 2 pages long while others can be greater than 15 pages!  The number of pages of an article is not always indicative of its quality; you may think that a 15-page article must be much better than a 2-page article but this is not necessarily the case.  One of the reasons for this is that the number of figures is generally more indicative of the content of a paper rather than total pages.  The numbers of figures typically illustrate how many experiments are being reported on in the article.  Taking the example from above, 2-page paper mentioned may include 6 figures, as might the 15 page paper.   Regardless, for the purposes of your assignment, choosing a paper with either too few or too many figures can be a mistake.  If you choose a paper with only 2 figures you will likely be presenting a fairly weak article with little to report.  However, if you choose a paper with 10 figures, there is probably way too much data to explain within the time frame allowed (15 minutes).  We have found that articles with approximately 6 data figures (generally not including tables) are most appropriate.

5. Age of article

Though fantastic journal articles can be found from all years, for this assignment we would like articles to be selected from the past 10 years.  As current research builds on previous research an examination of the newest articles in a field can give a more complete picture of the current understanding on the subject matter. Further, as new scientific techniques are constantly being developed, reading new articles assures that the reader is exposed to the most current techniques utilized in experimentation.

6. Journal quality/credibility

This criterion can be a bit difficult for students (and even faculty) to judge.  Primary research articles must go through a process of peer-review prior to acceptance and publication by the journal.  In this process, the unpublished article is sent to other scientists (who remain anonymous), generally experts in the same field, to read and “fact-check”.  The number of reviewers varies, but in my experience, it is generally 2-3.  These “peer-reviewers” make sure that the experiments done are appropriate and logical, that the methodology is correct, that data is interpreted honestly and accurately and that the correct conclusions are drawn.  These reviewers then write their comments and send them back to the journal and recommend if the article should be accepted as is, conditionally accepted after editing (this can include requiring further experiments be included) or rejected.  The publishing journal then makes the decision for publication based on the input of the reviewers.  This is how peer-review is supposed to happen.  

Other criteria that you can (and I would argue, should) consider when choosing your article are totally subjective and will differ greatly from individual to individual but can be very important in your engagement with and investment in the assignment.

1. Interest in material

If the title of an article does not sound very interesting to you, then move on!  If you are not sure if you are interested, then my recommendation is to read the abstract and see if anything in that section captures you.  It can be very difficult to present an article if you are not curious about the work, so try to find something that peaks your interest and/or you want to know more about!  There is a tremendous volume of fantastic work out there so you shouldn’t settle for something that isn’t interesting.

2. Familiarity with material/techniques

You may find when you start narrowing down your articles that you want to look deeper into the techniques and/or materials used in the procedures.  If you are familiar with some of those techniques it can make understanding the results easier, but don’t be discouraged if you don’t know any of the techniques; we don’t expect that you should.  

What qualities do you look for in selecting an appropriate journal article to present?

There are several criteria that you want to assess when making your journal article selections.  Some of these criteria are objective, so everyone who considers that article should reach the same general conclusions.  Other criteria are subjective and each individual may judge the paper differently when these are considered.