As mentioned before, scientific research comes with its own set of rules and procedures to ensure that what they are investigating is solid and reliable. These internal quality control measures help confirm the validity of studies so that scientists can rely on them!
Scientists take special care when conducting experiments because once completed, these tests give us insights into how things work and potentially even answers to important questions.
When there are no definitive answers to something, we refer to it as being unproven. For this reason, skeptics will always exist who question whether or not some study’s results actually have truth to them.
It is our job as advocates for science to fight back against skepticism by proving the reliability and trustworthiness of academic research.
They test their own research
One of the key ways that researchers keep quality control high is by testing their own work. This is called self-testing or internal validation. As mentioned before, to call something scientific proof of its effectiveness requires it to be validated by other experts in the field. But how do you know if your ideas are correct unless you tested them yourself?
By questioning whether your theories and conclusions made sense, you will find that there are always alternatives to what you believe. There may even be someone else who has done similar studies and found contradictory results!
By testing your hypotheses, you can start to build up trust in your skills as a scientist. You will also learn more about your strengths and weaknesses as a researcher.
They perform peer reviews
A peer review is an evaluation of someone else’s work or writing. Peer reviewers are usually other professionals in their field that you should have already seen some of their work, but they may not know as much about your work as you do.
By having peers look over your research, they can add valuable insights to the material, which helps ensure quality control.
Peer reviewers typically don’t get paid for their advice, however there are many ways to benefit from it. You can advertise your book at a cost per review, or offer promotional materials like a t-shirt or additional copies.
Some people will even reward you for good reviews! While this isn’t common, there are several websites where you can gain points by giving helpful feedback. These points can be exchanged for prizes such as Amazon gift cards.
They use a statistical analysis process
A large part of how academic research quality is maintained comes down to using a systematic approach to analyzing data. This process is called statistics, and it’s what you used when you took math at school!
In fact, some say that stats is the most important subject we forget about as adults. While this may seem like an exaggeration, I will agree that learning basic stats can be overlooked in early education.
That said, there are many ways academics use statistics in their work. Some examples include:
Comparing results from studies done before and after to see if one method works better than another
Analyzing trends to determine appropriate changes for your business or organization
Calculating risk and probability so that we can make informed decisions
Stats plays a crucial role in making sure that findings of past experiments remain valid and reliable. When these numbers aren’t clear cut, researchers often simply repeat an experiment or take another route to get the same result.
They get their research published
As I mentioned before, scientific researchers depend on others publishing their work to confirm that they are doing good science. This is how we know what knowledge exists in areas, and this depends on people sharing it with other experts!
If someone publishes false or misleading information, it can have disastrous effects for our understanding of nature. For example, some studies suggest that sugar may contribute to obesity, so if investigators omit or distort the results of an experiment because they contain sugar, then they could convince people that eating too much sugar makes you thin.
Similarly, if scientists publish findings that seem unlikely or even impossible, this creates doubt about the validity of the theory. People often assume that these theories will be tested, but never are — which removes one important check on whether the theory is correct.
So how do professional researchers prevent their papers from being influenced by money or politics? There are many strategies, such as publishing in high-quality journals or organizing conferences focused on promoting sound evidence.
But another way most scientists keep control over their work is by actively seeking out errors in past studies. These “checklists” of potential problems help make sure that previous investigations were done properly, thus preventing biases from creeping back into future experiments.
They use a scientific approach to research
A lot of things that are called innovations or advances in science were actually just done more thoroughly, carefully, or consistently than before. Technology comes down to solving past problems more efficiently or effectively.
That’s what makes it possible to solve new problems. Take glass, for example. For many years, we lived with glass that was either very thin or very thick. It took too long to melt all the way down when you needed to make a bottle! Or take plastic, which doesn’t last longer than half a year due to chemical reactions.
So how did we get through those years? We learned how to do it better and faster! And that’s what scientists do — they learn how to do something well, then they improve upon that knowledge.
This is why you will almost always find an old theory contradicted by newer, stronger evidence. Because eventually someone will come along and test the older idea more rigorously and see that it does not work as well as people thought.
They use good lab techniques
As mentioned earlier, one of the most important things that scientist do to ensure the quality of their research is by using good laboratory practices (known as GLP for short). These are fundamental standards that regulate many parts of your research, from what materials you use to how you handle samples and data.
GLPs were first defined in 1951 by an organization called the Association for Laboratory Sciences. Since then they have been revised several times and now there are over 60 different versions!
Most recently, the International Organization for Standardization introduced 10 new GLP guidelines in 2013. It is very common for individual labs to be more stringent than the international standard, so it is helpful to know which ones exist.
These include such basic rules like wearing gloves when working with chemicals or plastic bags when disposing of material, to more advanced procedures like using UV light to check for contamination in reagents.
By having these across all areas of your work, this gives you a solid base to work from, and also helps prevent mistakes and slips due to consistency.
Using bad practices may lead to inaccurate results and/or health issues for future researchers looking at your studies.
They use good recording techniques
One of the most important parts of conducting scientific research is documenting your findings properly. This includes taking notes, using good citation styles, and ensuring that no information gets lost!
As you’re doing experiments, make sure to keep track of what you put into the experiment and what you got out of it. You should also always be careful about excluding confounding variables when studying causes and effects.
If something in the environment changes, then this could affect how well the body works. For example, if there was a rise in ozone levels, people would have to work harder to breathe air with higher concentrations of oxygen. This could influence results because individuals who live in areas with poor air quality may be suffering from health issues due to this.
By controlling for these factors, scientists are able to determine whether any conclusions they draw are valid or not. It also helps them rule out false assumptions such as “This element doesn’t play a role in our finding.
They identify their subject matter expertise
As mentioned before, one of the most important roles that experts play in academia is as an editor or reviewer for other academics’ work. This helps to ensure that the content and flow of ideas are strong and quality controlled.
Scientists who have a degree or professional certification can sometimes be too close to their field to provide this oversight effectively.
That’s where we come in! We are here to help you find a voice that fits your style and unique personality.
By being familiar with how you speak about topics that are close to your area of study, we will get some great suggestions for how to edit and strengthen your writing. You see it done all the time at this level- people who write about science may discuss theories, findings, or conclusions more closely than what is typically allowed in academic literature, but they also use correct grammar and spelling.
We recommend trying out our free trial so that you can see if these edits make sense for your writing and improve the readability of your document.