Reading and Appraising Research

Reading and critically appraising research can be a challenging task, particularly for beginners. If you are a newcomer to reading research it can be difficult to make sense of study designs and data analysis methods. At first glance you may also find scholarly papers difficult to read, full of confusing terminology, or too complex. The good news is that learning to master the steps in critically reading research is not as difficult as you may think. In this chapter we address the challenges of becoming an informed and critical consumer of research and provide a step-by-step guide to conducting a critical appraisal. With a little knowledge and persistence you will find that understanding how to read and critically appraise evidence and ideas is not as difficult as it first appears.