Evaluating+Research+Paper

This is just an outline to start with. Most but not all of the items under "required wiki contents" on Minh's instruction pdf are included here.

A. For one or two research papers:

1. Statement of the paper's research question 2. Description of the statistics used to address the question 3. Methodological assumptions behind the use of these particular statistics 4. Strengths and weaknesses of their use in addressing the research question 5. Discussion of calculations 6. Discussion of how the statistical analysis is presented in the paper: how the author interprets the data, what s/he includes and omits, etc.

B. Suggestions on taking in important statistical information at a glance. (I glance through a lot of papers, and I want to figure out how to read statistical data analysis critically but quickly. It might be useful to wind up this assignment with a brief list and/or discussion of key points to look for.)