This paper asks whether there is a division between the local medicinal knowledge of the Indigenous Amazonian Tsimane ethnic group in Bolivia. This is the third largest ethnic group in the lowlands of the country. They conducted some interviews and surveys with a sample of this population to know how the Tsimane’ conceptualize and use local and Western forms of medicinal knowledge. They concluded that the two are complementary, not interchangeable. Both have value in their own right and need to be recognized as such, with equal weight given to each.
I think that this is a very good article for several reasons:
1. The authors provided a very concise, detailed, and comprehensive background on the topic, citing relevant literature.
2. The introduction is not too long.
3. Due to the complexity of the work they have done, they added a section to describe their objectives.
4. They gave a brief explanation of the ethnic group they worked with.
5. They also gave details from that group about health, medical treatments, causes of illness, and use of medicine.
6. They described the study site and sampling method, as well as the methods of data collection and how they were going to conduct the analysis of these data.
7. They also mentioned the limitations of this methodology.
8. They presented the results in a few subsections to separate them by topic.
9. They made a not so long discussion, citing some relevant literature.
10. They finished with a three-paragraph conclusion in your own words, citing only one other paper.
11. They used technical vocabulary, specific to their discipline, but simple enough to be understood by other people. For example, I am not an expert nor in Ethnobiology nor in Ethnomedicine, and I was able to understand the paper.
I cannot know what the authors where thinking about when they wrote this paper, but I would say that they could have had some of these criteria in mind:
- They thought about the reader. Their article should be readable, interesting, well explained, well organized and useful.
- They wanted that similar studies could be conducted following the same methodology.
This was not a discursive article, but a more scientific one. So there was a sequence of ideas in the sections that a standard article is written: introduction, objectives, methodology, results, discussion, and a conclusion. There was a smooth flow in the entire extension of the article.
Calvet-Mir, L., Reyes-García, V., & Tanner, S. (2008). Is there a divide between local medicinal knowledge and Western medicine? a case study among native Amazonians in Bolivia. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 4(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-4-18
Second article
I cannot give a proper summary of this article because I do not understand well what the authors wanted to do. I think that their objective is very vague.
This was one article that I revised as a peer reviewer and my final verdict was that it should not be published. So, when I had to choose one bad article for our blog, I checked on my previous evaluations of the articles to see if this article was published. And it was! Therefore, I prefer not to give much detail about it. It has some improvements, from the version I made the revision, but it is still too vague and not adding much to the discussion about suffering.
In this paper the authors said that they defined “a space for reflection on the meaning of suffering, its correlate in clinical practice and a fundamental argument when proposing legislation related to the end of life”.
I would ask:
- What is a space for reflection.
- The meaning of suffering is a very complex topic. Therefore, defining a space for reflection, which is very vague, for the meaning of suffering, is something too broad.
- The correlation with clinical practice is also very vague.
- The “fundamental argument when proposing legislation related to the end of life” is not clear.
The authors included quotes from participants of research, but they do not mention if participants signed any informed consent or if they had approval from any research ethical committee.
Finally, the conclusion is very vague.
They just wrote that it was part of a PhD thesis, but I think that there is a lack of rigor of the journal for having accepted this article.
On the other hand, as reflection about suffering, it is a good one, I think. Then maybe I ask myself, if this journal publish scientific papers or good reflections about a particular topic or both.
At this point, I raise the question of how many published articles are actually read in full. Academia is too focused on citations to evaluate researchers. This article may be cited many times because it has a very interesting quote, or one sentence might be very interesting and have many citations, but the paper itself does not add anything new and is not very well written. So I think our way of measuring the quality of researchers is flawed. We can just write papers with a few interesting sentences and reflections that might be widely quoted, but from an article that goes nowhere.
Hi Carlos,
I really enjoyed reading your blog this week! 🙂 Two things stood out to me in particular.
1. The first article you described sounds like an absolute dream to read! All of the points you list definitely contribute to an ease of readability and comprehension. I also like that you distinguished it as a scientific article rather than a discursive one; the typical layout of a scientific paper is definitely a benefit when it comes to flow (although I must admit, I’ve certainly come across a few articles over the years that have still managed to muddy this up!).
2. I love the personal connection to the second article! As someone who has never peer-reviewed a journal article before, I think this was a super intriguing, effective, and fun direction to take this week’s assignment. Even without knowing what article you’re referring to, I completely agree with your critiques. There is nothing more frustrating than reading a vague paper that doesn’t explicitly define the terms it heavily relies upon and are key to understanding its main arguments (though this feels a bit hypocritical to admit, as I’m still trying to make a habit of paying attention to this in my own writing!).
Carlos –
Based on what I reviewed in my search for the good and the bad in writing, I came to the conclusion that it is the temper of the reader that seems to have the greatest impact. For example, I am ex-military, and no matter how hard I try, I still need literature to have a defined direction and purpose. I do not do well with literature that meanders, or provide ambiguous definitions and thus has a “loose meaning”. Maybe the exercise should have been to define your own reading style, and then match that against the literature!
Robb
Hi Carlos, I think it’s very interesting that even in your very different neck of the woods, you’ve stumbled across a similar issue – vague and semi-pointless pieces going to publication. You raise a good point about the vetting process and actually reviewing the researchers! I didn’t consider that, much, but 3/4 papers I used were the same author who is highly well known in my discipline. It makes sense that big names or quotable articles make it to print, even if their quality and additions to an area of thought are lackluster. Papers also do appear in really random places one wouldn’t expect, it’s like they shot at any target hoping to hit one, and it finally worked. Academic publishing really is a weird little realm.
Hi Carlos, those sound like interesting reads! Your first article made me think about my foray into biomedicine (no, I knew I was never going to become a medical doctor, but I took an amazing biomedical anthropology seminar in my undergraduate degree). My final paper was on biomedical approaches to childbirth. Not only did I learn about biomedicine, I also was able to explore “ethnomedical” approaches to childbirth through my research.
I love how you say that different medical approaches are complementary. No system is right or wrong; each each medical system gives us different knowledge and we are truly richer for bringing different medical approaches together.
Thanks Carlos. Can you imagine how you might provide constructive feedback for your second article? Is there a seed of an important argument that they could rework?
Hi Andrew,
Yes, of course. Thanks for your comment.
I think the richness of this article is the thread of empathy. Even though the article does not offer new reflections on pain and suffering, it allows the reader’s imagination to fly and go back again to the topic of suffering at the end of human life. This flexibility to make imagination fly leads the reader to think more about the patient and leads the discussion to be more person-centered. I think the article is very valuable in this sense. The point is that this reflection can be too broad and the author can forget to clarify her goals for the article.
In some sense, I like this article, because the author is not worried about giving details of the sources of where she obtained all those reflections. This article is more a reflection of the author on the subject. It seems that after doing some research and reading some interesting and relevant studies, the author took the risk to give her own approach to the topic. In this effort, she may have forgotten to give due importance to the quotes of the participants she interviewed and just assumes that she was allowed to do so.
This is what I would say.
Now I see how subjective the revision process and the writing processes are. Just with your comment I could check other points that I did not see before or I could say things in a different way. I think this is part of life and works with the same logi as life works, a permanent constructive process that cannot be done alone.