I. Introduction

A. Is the study an experiment, planned observations, an analysis of existing data, a theoretical study involving modeling, or some other type of study?

B. Objectives of the study.

1.What are the objectives of the study or the questions to be answered? Are these stated, and stated clearly? Or is the study primarily descriptive?

2. Is there a biological  hypothesis stated and/or should there be?

3. Is there an alternate biological hypothesis stated and/or should there be?

II. Materials and methods

A. What is the population to which the investigators are sampling and intend to refer their findings?

B. The sample or samples.

1. What biological organism is used in this study, if any? Is more than one species used? Is this organism appropriate for the study and/or is there justification given as to why this particular organism was used?

2. How was the sample of these organisms selected (were they bred, collected in the field, etc.)? Was this selection basically random or are there sources of selection that might have made this sample atypical or nonrepresentative? If so, were these adjusted for in any manner?

3. Are there inherent nested or other sources of variation that naturally confound this sample (i.e., mice in litters, several petri dishes/strain, etc.)?

4. Were many samples taken? If so, were they taken over time or among different populations, etc.? Are there repeated measures involved?

5. Is the sample size adequate? What consideration was given by the author(s) to obtaining an adequate sample size? Is there mention of the statistical power planned with this sample size? Are there a number of different samples? If so, is the design balanced (i.e., is there an equal number in each cell)? Are there missing data?

C. Is there a control group or standard of comparison? If so, is this control appropriate?

D. Characters.

1. What characters have been measured, scored, assessed, etc.? Are they appropriate and well-chosen or should others have been measured? Have they been described adequately?

2. What kind of biological characters are represented (quantitative, meristic, etc.)?

3. Have the characters been measured more than once? If so, what is the percentage of measurement error relative to the total variation in each character? If measured only once, does the study imply what sort of measurement error might be present?

4. Does variation in each character fall within the 30-300 unit range normally considered acceptable?

E. Statistics.

1. Are the statistical techniques to be applied to the data sufficiently explained in the materials and methods section?

2. Are the statistics to be used appropriate?

3. Are the assumptions for any of these statistics stated?

4. Were the data transformed in any way? Did this achieve normality in the data?

5. What is the null hypothesis to be tested?  What is the alternate hypothesis?

III. Results

A. Are the data acceptable or worthy of statistical analysis? Are the sample sizes sufficient to detect statistically significant differences that might be biologically meaningful?

B. Is there a table first showing basic statistics of the characters such as sample sizes and measures of central tendency and variability? Any trends of interest and/or concern in these statistics?

C. Are there multiple comparisons? If so, has the sequential Bonferroni test (or other appropriate test) been used to assess significance?

D. If an analysis of variance has been used:

1. Has the anova model been fully explained?

2. Are the F tests computed correctly?

3. Any evidence that any of the assumptions of anova are not met?

4. Which factors are fixed and which are random?

5. Are there any significant interactions that may be clouding the interpretation of main effects?

6. What is the biological interpretation of the anova results?

7. If multiple characters have been used, is a manova used? If so, what is the result?

E. Are there too many or too few tables/figures?

F. Are the results generally presented clearly, objectively, and in sufficient detail to enable you to judge them?

G. Are the results internally consistent: i.e., do the numbers add up properly, can the different tables/figures be reconciled, etc.?

IV. Conclusions

A. Are the conclusions justified by the findings?

B. Are the conclusions relevant to the questions posed by the investigators? That is, do they answer the original questions and/or test the original hypotheses?

V. Constructive suggestions

Assume you are planning an investigation to answer the questions posed in this study. If they have not been clearly posed by the authors, frame them in an appropriate manner. Suggest a practical design, criteria for observations, and type of analysis that would provide reliable and valid information relevant to the questions under study.