Homework 3

Find a journal article that has a significant amount of data, data analysis, or data graphics and present the statistical aspects of the article to the class. Discuss what you think they did right and wrong in the experimental design, analysis, or graphical presentation in the article, with your suggestions for improvement. Each student will have about 15 minutes.

As the course progresses you will be able to identify more deficiencies in published articles and have more ideas for improving their analyses, so we don't expect perfection this first time.

Here are some general suggestions.

1. Select a journal article from your research area (maybe something you recently read?) that has a reasonable amount of data analysis-- nothing too complex, nothing terribly simplistic.
2. Be able to briefly summarize the main research questions in a way that a scientist from another field could understand.
3. Describe the statistical methods that were used to answer the question including why they used these methods. To the extend that you can at this point, determine if the methods are appropriate or indicate what else you would need to know to determine if the methods were appropriate. It is quite possible that the paper will use methods that we have not discussed in class, and if that is the case, we are not expecting a detailed assessment of why they used these methods.
4. Consider how they presented their results in the text, figures, and tables. Describe anything they did correctly and anything you would do differently. We haven't discussed everything on the following link, but it may be a helpful reminder of some things we have talked about to date: ManuscriptChecklist
5. If it is a long article with a detailed analysis plan, you are welcome to focus on just part of the paper. It would be better to cover in detail something you and everyone in the class can understand than to summarize many disparate items quickly.

Of course, any ideas you have would we welcome as well. If the article generates additional questions, we can discuss those in class too.