Peer Review, Replication, and Reading a Paper
Key concepts about how scientific publishing filters error and how to read a paper critically.
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Questions Covered in This Set
10 cards to master
What is peer review, in one sentence?
A plausibility check by a few busy expert referees who assess whether the methods support the claims — not a verification of the results.
What do referees almost NEVER do?
Re-run the experiment, re-analyse the raw data, or audit lab notebooks.
What does IMRaD stand for?
Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion — the standard structure of an empirical paper.
Which section determines whether a paper is any good?
Methods — sample size, assignment of participants, what was measured, and how data were processed.
What is the characteristic failure mode of the abstract?
It's advertising: written to be quoted, and the place where overclaiming lives.
What is a preprint?
A paper posted publicly (arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv) before peer review — fast and useful, but with no filter at all.
What is a predatory journal, and how do you spot one?
An outfit that publishes nearly anything for a fee with fake review; check indexing in Scopus/Web of Science or the DOAJ.
What reading order does the lesson recommend for a non-specialist?
Abstract → figures → methods → results → discussion → introduction.
In the Results section, what should you look for instead of the word 'significant'?
Effect sizes and confidence intervals.
If you only have five minutes with a paper, what do you do?
Read the abstract, check the sample size and the main figure, then ask: does the headline claim follow from this?
