Steps How to Read Papers for Master Degree

Information technology'southward 30 minutes before my discussion section and I haven't read the paper still.No sweat, I recall,how long could it possibly have to read a 5-folio article? The adjacent time I glance at my phone, I take ii minutes left and I experience a sinking awareness in my stomach as I realize I oasis't even made it through Figure 1.

If that situation sounds familiar, you're non lone! Reading scientific papers is a skill that takes years to hone. It is also a skill that is critically important to your success in graduate school and beyond, so you owe it to yourself to spend some fourth dimension practicing and intentionally building skillful paper reading habits.

This article breaks down a typical research article, with tips on how to arroyo it and questions to guide your thinking in each section. I highlight basic points for conceptual understanding and critical reading of a paper. And I as well requite pointers for more avant-garde readers who desire to accept their newspaper reading skills to the side by side level, and who may be closer to (or in the procedure of) writing papers themselves.

These pro tips were compiled from my own feel, advice from my mentors and peers, and some insightful discussions with members of the GradSchool subreddit. Savour!

How to Build Good Paper Reading Habits

Setting Aside Time to Read

Honestly, this is something I still struggle with – it's one of those things that is always on the top of my scientific New year's day'southward resolutions listing. But for good reason!

1 of the best habits to build early in your scientific career is to cake off time to read papers on a regular basis. Determine how much time yous want to spend reading each week, and literally put a recurring event on your calendar. It's super important to requite yourself space to read, think, and catch upwardly on the field, and if y'all don't schedule it and then other things will inevitably fill your time.

How much time is plenty? That depends a lot of factors, like your experience level and what you're reading for (more than on that beneath). Simply if you can starting time by blocking off 2 hours one time or twice a week, you lot'll be in great shape!

Organizing Papers and Notes

It's as well worth spending a few minutes to think about what system yous'll utilize to organize the papers you've read and whatsoever notes you have taken on them.

In terms of newspaper organization apps, at that place are many options available. Pop free apps include Mendeley and Zotero. And Papers is another great choice for Mac users who don't mind paying a little for a smoother user experience. Of course you can also manually organize all your PDFs, just a big benefit of using a specialized app is that about of them can as well manage your bibliography. This tin can be a HUGE time saverwhen information technology comes time to write papers of your own.

Information technology's also helpful to decide on a system for taking notes on your papers. All the major paper organization apps have some integrated notes feature, which is handy for maintaining a direct link between the newspaper and your notes. I also discover it helpful at times to have a secondary note software, for example if I'm reading several papers on one topic. There are plenty of options out at that place, including Apple Notes, Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, Google Docs… really, almost any note taking software should work fine for this.

And, of course, at that place is always the option of printing out papers, writing notes directly on them, and storing them in a good old fashioned file cabinet!

How to Read a Paper

Now to the skilful stuff! Here is a step-by-step guide for how to critically read a scientific paper.

Before Y'all Kickoff, Make a Game Plan

Starting time, it helps to become in with a clear idea of your objective – that is to say, what kind of reading will you be doing? Deciding this upwards front volition help you budget how much time you need and allow you employ this time most effectively. I like to call back of three main types of reading:

1. The Deep Dive If you're reading an article that you'll be presenting at a periodical club or if it'due south a paper that's closely related to your own work, you'll likely want to read very thoroughly. You will probably scrutinize each figure (including the supplemental ones), pore over the methods, and peradventure even read some of the references.
2. General Reading You're reading the whole paper and want to walk away with a grasp of the main conclusions and whether they were well supported by the data. Information technology's the Goldilocks read; not too shallow, not as well deep. Getting proficient at this kind of reading takes some practice, merely once you've mastered it you will probably apply this approach most often.
3. Targeted Reading or SkimmingYou're looking for the results of i detail experiment, or just hoping to get a high-level overview of what the authors establish. This can be useful if you're writing a manuscript and looking for citations, or if y'all're trying to cobble together a protocol based on experiments from the literature.

Of grade this framework shouldn't limit you (if you start skimming but become reeled into a super interesting newspaper, so become for it!), simply in many cases having a general idea most your objectives tin help make your reading time more than productive.

Ok, now that yous've made a game plan, information technology'due south fourth dimension to dive in to the paper! Permit's take it section by department.

Introduction

This is where the authors give you context for the big pic questions they're hoping to address, and they provide specific groundwork data relevant to their work. They will also usually give a preview of their main methods and conclusions.

If you're still getting comfortable with reading scientific papers or if yous're reading nigh an unfamiliar field, focus on these basic points:

• What are the main questions that the authors are trying to reply is this paper?
• Make notation of any unfamiliar terms or concepts, and accept a few minutes after reading the introduction to look them upwardly. Keep a running list of terms from the papers yous read, and return to it every calendar week or 2 to quiz yourself. This recollect practice will help you commit them to memory.

More than experienced readers will be able to pay a bit more attention to context, equally you presumably have a deeper understanding of the field. You may likewise consider the authors' intentions in how they chose to write the paper – a useful skill for critical reading, and which also strengthens your intuition equally a scientific writer. In particular:

• Reflect on what is already known in the field, and consider how the authors frame their work in relation to central unanswered questions.
• How does the information in the introduction assist build their overall narrative? What expectations are they setting up?

Results

This is the meat of the paper. If yous're doing Targeted Reading or Skimming then maybe you cakewalk over the text and get right to the Figures, only otherwise the Results section is what you'll spend near of your fourth dimension reading.

For each department or effigy, hither are the basic points to empathise:

• What question or hypothesis is being addressed?
• What methods are being used?
• What are the positive and negative controls? Did these behave every bit expected?
• What conclusions practise the authors depict, and are these conclusions supported by the data?

More than experienced readers should also consider the following:

• Why did the authors choose to represent their data this way? Does information technology communicate their points clearly? Does the visual representation skew your first-glance interpretation? (e.chiliad. changing the range of the axes can brand an upshot look bigger or smaller than it actually is)
• Is there any (reasonable) alternating interpretation of the data?
• What additional experiments could be done to further examination their hypotheses or conclusions?

Methods

You may only read this department if you're doing a Deep Dive, or if you demand boosted information to fully interpret what is presented in the Results section.

In full general, you'll want to pay attending to things like what methods were used to set up critical samples, notice signal, or analyze results. If item parameters could influence the issue or interpretation of experiments (due east.g. concentration of a critical component), take annotation of those.

Sometimes methods will comprise very picayune information, aside from "as done previously" and a citation. This can be frustrating as a reader, and information technology typically comes from scientists writing their Methods sections in a hurry. My advice to those of yous writing your own papers is to avert this do. Yes, writing a thorough Methods section takes extra work, and it'due south often the to the lowest degree interesting section to write. But the main purpose of this department is to let others to replicate your work, and if y'all forcefulness a reader go down a rabbit hole of citations in order to detect what you lot did, so you're actively impeding that process.

Word

In this final section of the paper, the authors will reiterate their main findings and try to place them in the context of the rest of the field. They may come back to those high-level questions posed in the introduction and explain how their work extends, or revises, the field'due south understanding of particular topics. It'due south also common for authors to extrapolate beyond their information and to propose new theories or models, while acknowledging the this may be highly speculative.

Every bit a reader, the discussion is a good identify to reverberate on whether you buy in to the authors' narrative.

• In your opinion, did they provide sufficient evidence to support their major conclusions?
• Based on your understanding of the field, what questions remain unanswered? What new questions does this work reveal?

And for more than experienced readers:

• How much did this study add together to the conclusions of prior work? Is it an incremental step forward or a consummate paradigm shift?
• If the authors propose a model or unifying theory, is this consistent with the body of prior data on the topic? Might their be an alternate, simpler model that could explicate the results?
• From the perspective of narrative, how thoroughly and convincingly did the authors answer the questions they set up in the introduction? Were there any parts of the paper that seemed disconnected or inapplicable?

After Reading

You finished the paper! Breathe a sigh of relief, take a quick break. Only before you put it away, do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes to jot down some notes. Non only does summarizing what yous've read help you retain the information better, these notes volition also serve equally a quick refresher if y'all need to revisit the paper in the future.

• In a succinct, bulleted listing, write the big questions addressed and the main conclusions. Practice your best to state these in your own words.
• If there were any caveats or blueprint flaws that heighten major doubts about whatsoever of the conclusions, mention that here.
• List any relevant methods information, specially if they developed novel methods or used techniques that may be relevant to your own work.

The end of undergrad and the starting time of graduate school is often marked past a shift in the way we learn new data. The clean, curated data in textbooks and lecture notes is replaced by the dense, fragmented, sometimes contradictory torso of primary research papers. Making this alter can be tough, merely it's critically of import because enquiry papers reverberate how science is done and communicated in the existent globe.

As you progress through your training and across, the power to read papers critically and efficiently will serve you well no matter what discipline or career path you lot cull.

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Source: https://graduatedebris.com/how-to-read-scientific-papers/

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