My favorite approach to reading science papers of all types is to assume the paper to be bogus, and then read it in order to find out why. If I am doing battle

My favorite approach to reading science papers of all types is to assume the paper to be bogus, and then read it in order to find out why. If I am doing battle with the author every sentence of the way, I am forced into reading carefully and skeptically. If the author still has me convinced at the end, good on them. I will say this approach is easier when you have had someone you trust teach you how to read scientific papers. In undergrad and in med school, professors would present us with two similar papers both published in top journals and ask, "Which one is wrong?" It was a highly valuable training exercise for me. The gist of the message that I got was this: (1) If you really need to understand the paper, ignore the discussion (and, sometimes, the results) until you have mastery of the methods and figures. (2) If you are really lost, read the discussion to see what the author thinks she is showing, then go back to the results to see if you agree.