In general, the steps to read and to understand a scientific papers are [1]:
- Read the introduction, not the abstract
- Identify the big question
- Summarize the background in five sentences or less
- Identify the specific questions(s)
- Identify the approach
- Read the methods section. Draw a diagram for each experiment, showing exactly what the authors did
- Read the results section. Write one or more paragraphs to summarize the results for each experiment, each figure, and each table. Don't yet try to decide what the results mean, just write down what they are.
- Do the results answer the specific questions? What do you think they mean?
- Read the conclusion/discussion/Interpretation section
- Now, go back to the beginning and read the abstract
- What do other researchers say about this paper?
- Go through the reference section to see what other papers the authors have cited