Assignment: Abstract Report Requirements and Guidelines
Due: Thursday, October 24, 2019
Here is an example of what your report should look like: Example Report on this Abstract
Example: Suppose you want to find out about research that's been done on using acupuncture for anxiety. You proceed to google "acupuncture, anxiety" and get all kinds of places advertising what they do but no actual research on how effective it is. Not very useful, right? Because, of course, the folks who are advertising their services are going to have a bias, so even if it's truly very effective, you can't really trust someone who has a monetary interest in having you use their services.
Next, you google "acupuncture anxiety abstract" and now you get links to all kinds of summaries (abstracts) of research that has been done on this topic! This is much better! (One caveat: Knowing who is funding the studies is important, too; if the Beef Council funds a study on the health benefits of eating beef...well, you can be a bit suspicious that the researchers have a bias!)
If you include "P-value" in the search line, you'll often (but not always) get an even better list of abstracts that go into more detail of what they found and how they conducted the study and applied statistics to the data.
Here are some examples that came from a Google search on "anxiety acupuncture abstract P-value"
Single Study Abstract:
"Metastudy" or "Review" Abstract
Acupuncture for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Systematic Review