Research skills tutorial on critical appraisal:
Below are a number of articles written by Professor Trisha Greenhalgh to help you make sense of research papers and get started with critical appraisal.
How to Read a Paper: Getting Your Bearings (Deciding What the Paper is About)
How to Read a Paper: The Medline Database
How to Read a Paper: Assessing the Methodological Quality of Published Papers
How to Read a Paper: Papers That Go beyond Numbers (Qualitative Research)
How to Read a Paper: Papers That Report Drug Trials
How to Read a Paper: Papers That Report Diagnostic or Screening Tests
How to Read a Paper: Papers That Tell You What Things Cost (Economic Analyses)
The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) have a range of check lists to help you critically appraise different types of research papers. More information and downloadable checklists are available at: http://www.casp-uk.net/