Headlines announce what "studies show", but the papers behind them are written for specialists. This guide gives you a practical routine for reading a research article without a statistics degree. You will learn to recognise study designs, judge methods, read effect sizes in absolute terms, interpret confidence intervals and p-values, and spot bias, selective reporting and weak limitations. It explains peer review, preprints, replication, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, so you can place any single study among the wider evidence. A full walk-through of an invented paper, with arithmetic you can check yourself, shows every step in action. Whether you are a student, professional, writer or curious reader, you will finish able to say clearly what a paper does and does not show.



Imad Muratspahic is an independent author of practical how-to guides, technical handbooks, history and fiction. The books aim to be clear, honest and useful from the first page.