critical thinking Class HW 8

Is coffee good for you?

Using Scientific Literature

I.  Peer reviewed journals

There are many types of articles you can use in research but the highest standard of information is found in peer reviewed journals. This information has been vetted by experts in the field for both content and methodology. Two caveats here, first, the best journals publish things that are later retracted and recent statistics indicate around a 30% non-reproducibility rate so they are not above scrutiny. You should get used to using peer-reviewed sources and become familiar with them in medicine (for your own healthcare related decisions and within your area of expertise).

 Sources of free Scientific Papers:

PLOS (Links to an external site.)

Academia.edu (Links to an external site.)

Google Scholar (Links to an external site.)

Other peer reviewed journal article sources

OMICs international (Links to an external site.) 

Just for fun:   The Journal of Irreproducible Results (Links to an external site.)

II.  Using Peer reviewed research in your life

Do you drink coffee, or use anything that contains caffeine? Whether you are a caffeine fiend, a casual user, or a decaffeinated purist you have made your choices based on need or logic and you surely have some opinions as to how coffee effects your health.

1) Step 1: Write down how you feel about the health effects coffee drinking.

2)  Step 2, Google health effects and coffee review the information you find this way and make a 1 paragraph summary like a label of benefits and risks of drinking coffee. Restrict your search to the first 2 pages so you don’t spend too long.

3)  Step 3,  Go to PLOS and search coffee and health effects, review the articles and summarize the health effects of drinking coffee. Is it good for you or bad for you? List the effects from the studies you found to be conclusive. Did you eliminate any studies from your survey – why do you eliminate them? Restrict your search to the first 2 pages so you don’t spend too long. Now write a paragraph summary again using just this information.

4)  Step 4, Compare and contrast the 2 paragraphs you have written. Which do you think reflects the truth about coffee? How do you feel about drinking coffee now?