This book presents brief excerpts from research journals representing a variety of fields, with an emphasis on the social and behavioral sciences. The questions that follow each excerpt allow students to practice interpreting published research results.

1. locating specific information in statistical tables, figures, and discussions of results;
2. performing simple calculations to determine answers to questions not directly answered in the excerpts;
3. discussing the authors' decisions regarding reporting techniques;
4. describing and interpreting major trends revealed by data, including evaluating the authors' interpretations; and
5. evaluating procedures used to collect the data underlying the statistics presented.