Many newspapers and magazines will report on or mention the results of "a recent study." In most cases they are sumarizing the results or even honing in on only one section of the study. They usually don't give you information about the study participants, the sample size, etc. Often these news articles make dramatic claims that are not made by the study itself.
So, how do you get to the actual study so you can evaluate it? Here are some tips.
Gather Information from the news article
- Look for anything the news item says about the study. Isolate a short prhase from the article that they are using to describe the study. For example from the headline "Toronto research suggests homeless people have more health problems and stay in hospital longer" you would isolte the phrase "homless people have more health problems"
- Does it mention an organization or institute involved in producing the study?
- Does it mention the names of any of the authors of the study?
- Does it mention a university connected to the study? A specific department?
- Does it name a journal or publication that the study appeared in?
If you know the organization name
- Use or another search engine to find the Organization's website.
- Put the organization name in quotes
- Choose a result that seems to be the organization's own website, not just another one that mentions it. Often the URL will have parts of the organization name in it if this is the case.
- Once you get to the organization website
- Look for a reference to the study on the main page - if not
- Look for a link to publications, resources, research, or even news (news stories often come out of organization press releases)
If you know one or more of the authors' names
- Go to a scholarly article database that covers the subject of the study - for example PubMed for something medical - PsycInfo if it is about psychology, etc. If you are not sure, try Academic Search Complete or Google Scholar
- Search for the author name or names - make sure you indicate that the database search the author field not keyword AND add in a couple of likely keywords
- Limit by date based on when the news article came out - go back a little further because the study came out before the news article, but not too much farther back
If it mentions a university and a department, school or center, but nothing else
- Google the main university name (don't include a department at this point)
- Click on the link to the University's main webpage
- Look for a link that says "Academics"
- Then look for a link that mentions departments or schools
- If they have schools - look for "School of Arts & Sciences" - unless the article mentioned a specific school
- Once you get to a list of departments, look for the one mentioned in the article. If none is mentioned, choose what seems most likely
- Go to the department, school or center website
- Look for a reference to the study
If it doesn't mention any of the above things, or you were not able to find it with that information
- Note down the phrase you isolated that succinctly states the study's main claiim
- Choose the most likely database for the topic area
- Search for the phrase, in quotation marks, used in the article
- Limit by date based on when the news item came out - going back a year before, but not after.
- If you don't find anything this way, try other phrases from the news article or try some of your own.
