How to read a scientific paper Part 1: Co-evolution

If you are a university professor - how often do you ask your class to read a paper... and how often do you actually explain how they should do it?  

As a student, how often has someone actually walked you through how to understand scientific publications.... my guess is not enough!

Teaching from scientific publications is great, but they take practice to get onto the style of writing. As scientists, we read and write so many, sometimes we forget how steep that learning curve is. I was  surprised when a student stopped me after class last year and said "but, how do I read the paper you gave us, what am I supposed to get from it? It's like a different language". The student was quite correct. Reading scientific literature is a skill we all need to learn and practice. 

So Professor Joanna Coleman and I sat down and created this two part episode on how to read a scientific paper. In part 1 we talk about what goes into the different sections of a scientific paper,  and we compare how each of us would approach reading a paper. We also introduce the topic of co-evolution (which is what we are going to read about). In part 2 we actually read a paper together.