To form an educated opinion on a scientific subject, one needs to become familiar with the current literature. More importantly, one needs to be able to distinguish between good and bad interpretations of research. Reading and understanding research papers is a skill that every dentist should possess. But like any skill it takes patience, repetition, and practice. Reading a scientific paper is a completely different process from reading an article about science in a blog or newspaper. Not only does one read the sections in a different order than they’re presented, but readers also have to take notes, read it multiple times, and probably go look up other papers in order to understand some of the details. Reading a single paper may take a very long time at first, but the process will go much faster as one gains experience.