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Summary This series has addressed the basic segments of a research publication and discussed critical considerations that a reader should make as he progresses through the segments. The questions listed in Figure 3 may be helpful to guide the reader through the evaluation process.

We have attempted to provide sufficient information to enable the reader to verify that the investigator has used an appropriate statistical test for the evaluation of his study data. We have not discussed the actual calculation of the tests presented. With the wide availability of computers and programmable calculators, it is safe to assume that the investigator has performed the necessary mathematics accurately. Instead of assessing the accuracy of these calculations, the reader should verify that the correct statistical test was chosen in the first place. The astute reader may be surprised at how frequently an incorrect test is used. Merely achieving statistical significance does not characterize the author's data as clinically important. Neither does it, in and of itself, prove one agent superior to another nor prove a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables. When appropriately interpreted, however, statistical analysis can be a very useful and powerful tool in helping to arrive at the "truth."

In this installment on critical evaluation of medical literature, we have discussed the Abstract, Introduction, and Methods sections. A great deal of information is placed in the methodology section of any paper. To critically evaluate a research publication, one must evaluate the methodology, for evaluation of the results of an investigation is meaningless if the methodology is unsound.