Study Diary - Blog Posts

how to read research paper effectively 📚

I'm hitting the backed-up reading list that I've accumulated in my Zotero. It's annoying and you procrastinate the task of reading as much as possible when you're in that potato phase. I am demotivated, bored, constantly tired, and feel like devoting myself to reading storybooks for life. If I can get paid for all the hours I sleep every time I feel like signing out from life, I could be making a decent living. But, too bad, I don't.

I do not endorse any products or review anything since I feel like, to each, your own. So, I'm not going to tell you what works best or how some tips can magically fix your life. I am lucky that I have an incredible academic supervisor, a flexible boss at work, a very academic-oriented sibling, and a supportive squad of friends. Even with all that, I am still depressed. So, if you're down on the low at the moment, you're not alone. But when you have made a promise, you will look like a total flake if you don't deliver. So, you gotta move your ass anyway, right?

I just started reading papers again and it was so hard. Two weeks go by without me making any progress...just stuck on one paper and not retaining a single piece of information at all. All that forehead and nothing...nothing sticks. So you can say that I am hating life right now. But, today...I manage to reach some sort of compromise with myself and it starts to feel good. So, I would like to share it with you guys who could be struggling to get the engine started as well.

🎯 Literature Review Catalog

My supervisor is an awesome human being. He's the manager/cheerleader/mentor/Allfather/Captain America/Britney Spears to my lackluster academic history. He had been keeping tabs on me despite my intermittent anxious mood that swings like a freaking metronome, so you can say that he practically keeps my boat afloat at this unprecedented time. For our proposal writing (there's a whole army of us that he's supervising), he shared something valuable. The 'Literature Review Catalog'.

Yes. It's an Excel Sheet. Nothing fancy with very normal columns that indicates the papers/resource you've read. Looks simple and useful. The columns are populated as follows:

Year: The year of publication.

Author: Short author list.

Country (Study Area): The areas that are being studied in this research. If you're an Earth Science student like me, you can narrow it down to countries. But I think overall, countries are the most general part of discriminating different studies.

Main Keyword: I create my own keywords to develop my own system of comprehension. But I do create a column for the keywords found in the paper itself.

Issue & Objectives: You can find this information from the Abstract and Introduction part of the paper.

Proposed Method: This can be found in the Results section but I usually scan through the Methodology to add in more information when I do second round scanning of the paper.

Findings & Conclusions: I add in more notes on information that is new to me here in addition to the conclusion. New information can be extracted when you do another once-over of the paper and a conclusion can be obtained from the Conclusion section.

Reference: You can find references that are relevant to your studies from this paper! So why not? Right?

But, it's the laborious work that comes with it that turns my stomach. It scares the hell out of me despite any motivational speech I give myself. But it can all make sense when you pair it with the following method 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

🎯 How To Read A Paper Quickly & Effectively | Easy Research Reading Technique

This is the gem my sister told me about yesterday. I brushed it off since it stresses me out to see people sharing their speed-reading techniques, study tips, and how to ace all the subjects in the world or how to get a 4.0 GPA. It really isn't the good people's fault and I blame it on my constantly anxious self. I don't even know what's wrong with me, so...it's not them. It's me. But, here, we're gonna work on 'me'. So, give this 10 minutes video a watch. It's worth it because Dr. Amina Yonis really knows what she's talking about and what's even better, she really is an advocate for effective reading/studying. It's short enough for you to maintain your attention span and you will learn how to actually 'evaluate' your reading materials; are they worth the second shot at reading? Is there any added value to it?

To summarize, what you should look out for:

Title: Read the title and find the keywords

Abstract: Lookout for the results and methods in a simple sentence

Introduction: Read the first and last paragraphs. Most of the time, the first paragraph highlights the satellite view of the crisis and the last paragraph zooms straight for the objective.

Results: Pay attention to the headings since that more or less highlights what was it that they find. If there aren't any headings, try looking at them by paragraph. Scan them through.

Conclusion: This summarizes everything in the research paper.

After the 'Conclusion', you may feel like it is an info/findings that you've already expected or grasped, and you may just proceed and read other new ones in your pile. But if you need to dive deeper, jump to the 'Results' again for the key figures or results and limitations.

So ...

How do you go about reading this and what has it got to do with the 'Literature Review Catalog'? Well, using this efficient reading method and taking out the notes into the columns will help you condense all the important information and helps you stop re-reading constantly the details that are not paramount to your study.

🎯 Forest App

To amp up and see if it was effective, I actually timed myself with the 'Forest App'. I have been estranged from it since my potato phase, but now, it's back to being that BFF I need. It took 10 minutes to go through all the steps and if the paper isn't heavy-laden, 5 minutes to fill it into the 'Literature Review Catalog'. I manage to think and ask questions in my head as I fill in the columns and I believe that's the most important part of the effective reading that we need as someone who's jumping into a very dynamic environment of scrutinizing existing work. You can use any sort of timer to actually give a sense of urgency to your work - it does help to a certain extent. So, if you intend to have fun creating a forest of pretty trees while making good of your focus time, check out this video!

🎯 Reference Manager

And please please please, organize/record your references responsibly using reference management software. Some swears by Mendeley, or the good ol' EndNote. There's also Flowcite and Citationsy. Use them. Don't download those papers indiscriminately without recording the details that can help you sync them straight to your word processor using viable plugins. I personally use Zotero. It comes with a Chrome plugin and Microsoft Word plugin that you can download separately. It's compatible with Linux and iOS operating system. I used to park my work at Mendeley, but I find Zotero more powerful and flexible enough to use and it actually helps me to make the effort to remember what I actually downloaded rather than rely on the convenience of going back and forth to cloud storage. And it's open-source. So, try it out to create an organized library.

To all the aspiring scholars out there, when you win, we all win. Share your phase and troubles with the #studyblr or here with me. Emotional support is important and if the internet does not give you peace of mind, sign out and unplug. It's ok. When you're ready to work, reach out to anyone you think will respond positively and want to help you succeed. We can't all do things alone. So, start that power-up playlist and start working!