- Understand why you’re reading a paper.
- to gain information
- review
- to stay informed
- Get a bird’s eye view of the paper first.
- Experts read to get the gist of the paper.
- Go straight to the figures (if you’re more comfortable and experienced in the field).
- “Get a feel for the data yourself.”
- If well laid out, that could be all you need in the paper.
- Digest the discussion.
- The discussion section is important as it contains comments from reviewers.
- You can think of questions too; which could spark an idea for what YOU want to write.
- Assess the relevance of the paper.
- “Don’t hesitate to drop a paper that don’t fit your research question”
- Annotate papers:
- Capture your first thoughts, and link to related papers, notes, ideas, concepts, or topics.
- With an annotating tool, or note-taking app.
- Use different highlight colors.
- Try voice memos:
- They allow you to get more critical, to think deeply about the interpretation(s) of what’s presented.
- Find related papers through references.
- Track down original sources with Research Rabbit, Litmaps, and other tools.
- Use a reference manager to keep track of sources and annotations.
- Use tags graciously for broad relationships not organization.
- Don’t feel dumb, rather develop an eye for good papers.
- Some authors complicate concepts than they are. (A phenomenon tagged “Obscurantism.”)
- Being a good reader translates to being a good writer.
- Reading—like writing—is a skill: invest!
- Treat reading and processing what you read as two separate activities.
- Find a body-double
Credits: Charlotte Fraza, Dr. David Stuckler