How do you evaluate the quality of a research paper?

Quality is whether a paper's claims are supported by its methods and evidence, a property of the work, not its wrapper. A structured read separates the questions that prestige blurs together. Nabu scores four dimensions: Contribution (Does this paper move the field forward?), Methodological Rigour (Is the methodology sound for the question asked?), Reporting (Is there enough detail, clearly presented, to evaluate and reproduce the work?), and Positioning (Does the paper engage fairly with relevant and contradictory prior work, and represent its own novelty and limitations honestly?). Methodological rigour carries the most weight, because methodological failure is where most unsound papers come apart (Ioannidis 2005). Every score points to the specific line in the paper that earned it, so you can see the reasoning and overrule it where your expertise differs. This is a different question from where a paper appeared or how often it's been cited - and it's the one that actually tells you whether to build on the work. See the full methodology.