Evaluating Journal Articles
Once you have found articles of interest, it is important to know how to efficiently skim and assess them for applicability and quality.
The following resource from Rice University gives a great overview of how to effectively read a scientific article, and includes a note-taking template:
How to Read a Scientific Article
The following articles are written by Dr. Trisha Greenhalgh, covering a variety of specific aspects of reading papers. They are excerpts from her book How to read a paper: the basics of evidence based medicine. Dr. Greenhalgh is a physician and professor of primary healthcare at Oxford University.
How to read a paper: Assessing the methodological quality of published papers
How to read a paper: Getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is about)
How to read a paper: Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research)
How to read a paper: Papers that report diagnostic or screening tests
How to read a paper: Papers that report drug trials
How to read a paper: Papers that summarize other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses)
How to read a paper: Papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses)