ENVH 596-NURS 580: Resources

Journal Club

At least once per month, the session will be in journal club format. These sessions will consist of a discussion of two or three articles. These may either be around a selected theme, or chosen from the most recent literature from selected journals. A student will lead the journal club. The presentation should be limited to a maximum of 15 minutes in length.

Journal club sessions are useful for several reasons. They provide experience in critical reading of the scientific literature. Graduate students should become proficient with reading primary literature and with understanding the strengths and limitations of research. Presenting the results of critical reading to an open discussion allows for broader interpretation.

In this class, we will generally choose recent articles that, on first inspection, provide new information on an occupational or environmental health topic that could affect the way we practice. So our discussion will include not only an analysis of the methods, analysis, and results, but also the real-world implications of the study.

The steps to be followed in preparing a presentation are as follows:

Critical Reading of an Article

A. Choosing an article

B. Assessing an article

1) What is the research question?
Understand the background that makes the question important

2) What is the study design?

3) What methods were used?

4) Why were these methods chosen?

5) What are the results?

6) Are the results valid?
Do the results make sense?
Different tests to apply for different types of studies.

7) Do the conclusions follow from the results?

8) What do we know that we didn't know before?

9) Will this research change the way you practice?

The journal club presentation should begin with enough background so that all class members know the importance and/or interest of the research question being asked in the paper. Then it should proceed through the questions above.

A number of resources are available to assist you in learning about critical reading. Two excellent ones that are accessible on this web site are series in British Medical Journal entitled "How to Read a Paper" or a series in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled "The Users Guide to the Medical Literature."

A few points:

get your article(s) chosen well in advance so other seminar attendees have two weeks to read them.

Critical reading does not necessarily mean negative criticism. While it is easy to find flaws in most research, the key is the overall information gained from it. Does the research provide information that will change your practice? Remember that no article is perfect, and much imperfect research had advanced science anyway.

Choosing an article:

In some cases the instructor will suggest articles for review, and other cases you will be asked to find the best available article. However, in any event it is valuable to do a literature search to find candidate articles. The instructor must approve articles prior to distribution to the class. Arrange a time more than 2 weeks in advance to meet with the instructor and your other group members to finalize the plans for the session.

It is useful to remember the core components of any scientific paper:

Title:

the fewest possible words that adequately describe the content of the paper

Abstract:

(i) states the principal objectives and scope of the investigation

(ii) describes the methodology employed

(iii) summarizes the results

(iv) states the principal conclusions

Introduction:

(i) states, with all possible clarity, the nature and scope of the problem investigated

(ii) reviews the pertinent literature; only the most salient references, not an exhaustive review

(iii) states the method of investigation

(iv) states the principal results of the investigation

Material & Methods

provides enough information so that the experiments can be reproduced by a competent colleague

Results:

(i) presents an overall description of the experiments providing the "big picture", without however, repeating the experimental details previously provided in the methods.

(ii) Presents the data

(iii) Shows how present results and interpretations agree (or contrast) with previously published work.

(iv) Discusses theoretical implications or possible practical applications

(v) States the conclusion, as clearly as possible, and summarizes the evidence for each conclusion

Literature Cited:

cites significant, published references only

Reference:

Robert A. Day 1994(4th edition)
How to write and Publish a Scientific Paper
Oryx Press, Phoenix, AZ