1) Is the step-by-step procedure sufficient to yield the necessary evidence needed to fully answer the listed research question? Think about whether you would be able to follow the procedure to get evidence that can answer the question.
2) Has enough evidence been collected for this specific research question?
3) Have they claimed more than the evidence supports? This is a very important question to ask when reading about scientific studies (or perhaps not-so-scientific studies) in the news.
4) Have assumptions impacted their results? Think about lab 1. We made the assumption that the galaxies that appear in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field are all the same size, so the ones that are larger are closer to us, and the smaller ones are farther away. If the conclusion involves distance, then the researcher needs to acknowledge that that assumption about size was made.
5) Does the claim directly answer the original research question? The conclusion should completely answer the question and not go beyond the original question.
6) Precisely what should the researchers have done or reported differently to improve their inquiry research project?