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How to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently?


How to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently?

 

How to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently?

This article should help you to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently. Serve as a rough guide on how to read a scientific paper because this skill is rarely taught at Universities and can lead to massive frustrations.

Most of the time, it is assumed that students already know some methods to read research papers.

Reading a scientific paper is entirely different from reading an article about science in a blog or newspaper.

Not only do you read the sections in a different order than they’re presented, but you must also take notes, read them multiple times, and probably look up other papers to understand some of the details.

Reading a single paper may take a very long time but be patient.

The process will go much faster as you gain experience. This is how to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently.

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Why is Effective Reading Important?

However, reading scientific articles is not enough; we must read them effectively.

This means that we must understand what we have read.

Scientific papers are usually dense with information and can be particularly hard to fathom if English is not your first language.

Furthermore, the scientific literature is expanding exponentially, so finding relevant articles is getting more challenging.

To navigate this endless sea of information and read papers effectively, one must know the different types of journal articles and how they are structured.

An original research report presents novel research findings.

Review articles present and discuss the results of previous studies.

Review articles have a different structure, but original articles are generally divided into five main sections after the title: Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. Each of these sections serves a specific purpose:

  • The abstract summarises the article and briefly outlines the background, objectives, approach, findings, conclusions of the study’s experience, objectives, method findings, and conclusions.
  • The Introduction explains everything the reader needs to know to understand the purpose of the study and emphasises the central question.
  • The Methods section describes all the experimental procedures in enough detail so they can repeat them.
  • The Results section presents the study findings in figures and descriptions in the main text.
  • The Discussion interprets the research findings from the published literature. It finishes by emphasising how the study findings contribute to the research field.
  • In some cases, the Discussion is followed by a separate Conclusions section.

Active Reading is More Effective

Once you start reading, remember that it needs to be an active process to be effective. This is how to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently

This means you must be critical and question yourself continuously while reading. In addition, you can ask the following questions:

  • Do I understand all the terminologies? Do I need to do some background reading to help me understand?
  • Can I explain the research question and why it is essential?
  • Can I summarise the methods and the main findings?
  • Does the author’s interpretation persuade me?
  • Is the research credible? Is the journal trustworthy?

  1. Skim the abstract

Skimming the abstract first will allow you to familiarise yourself with the topic.

However, at this point, it’s unnecessary to read through the methodology, data, or most of the other information included in the abstract.

What you should read here is the reason for the study. Find out why they needed to do this research first, and then you can determine if reading further will be worth your time.

There are millions of scientific papers.

You do not have the time, inclination, brainpower, or ability to read them all, so don’t try.

Whatever topic you are perusing will probably have a substantial amount of research around it, and if it doesn’t, then it likely will soon.

Such is science. This is how to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently

  1. Read the conclusion

The paper’s conclusion is generally the last paragraph of the discussion, summarising what happened in more detail than the introduction.

The conclusion is relevant to understanding at a high level what the authors did and why they did it.

If you read the conclusion and it’s irrelevant to your scientific inquiry, consider moving on to a new paper at this point.

Highlight and copy a few of the most important phrases or sentences from the conclusion into the journal article template in the first bulleted section or your reference manager’s notes section. Look for:

  • What do the authors think they accomplished in this work.
  • The reasoning behind their results. Any useful insights?
  • Ideas for future experiments.

  1. After the conclusion, read the results.

The conclusion will give your insight into the results, so read it first; otherwise, the results will likely mean nothing to you anytime soon. This helps you how to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently.

  1. Read the methods section.

If you are sure the results and conclusion are relevant to your topic of inquiry, then you should read the methods section and dive into how the results were found.

If you are not a scientist, then much of this methodology will be irrelevant. Still, by reading it, you will get a big-picture sense of the research being done (e.g., a group of lab rats were fed gluten-free yoghurt while another group was fed yoghurt containing gluten).

If you are a scientist, you will look much deeper into the exact research methodology. As a scientist, you will probably look to replicate their methods or poke holes in them and do it differently.

Such is science. This is how to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently!!

Don’t get too bogged down in the methods unless you are researching a new product or technique.

Unless the paper details a particularly novel method, scan through.

However, don’t completely ignore the methods section, as the methods used will help you determine the validity of the results.

The Methods section is usually the most tedious and tiring to read.

That’s why we don’t do it first.

Only go through it when necessary, or you’ll never get to the 100 other papers you downloaded.

Go back through the Methods when:

  • This paper showed a different result than another similar paper, and the methods may have caused the difference.
  • You’re sure you want to include the paper and be critical of how they conducted their experiments.
  • You may want to replicate their experiment in your work.

  1. Start this process over again with a different paper

At the bottom of your article, reference papers will be numbered (often lots of numbers) of reference papers.

Science is built mainly on references, so if you have a paper with zero contacts, it’s probably not a scientific paper…

Find the relevant references to your query, then go forth and repeat this process.

Reading a scientific paper should be a quick task, granting you access.

Understand that most of the papers you will encounter have absolutely nothing to offer you and your specific query, so it’s essential to move through them fast; otherwise, you will waste a lot (an awful lot) of time reading things that are interesting but not relevant – this can be fun, but it can also be tedious if you are trying to learn about something specific under a deadline.

Blast through them quickly, and you will have time to comb through the relevant papers later.

  1. Focus on the Figures

If you want to read a scientific paper efficiently, the results section is where you should spend most of your time.

This is because the results are the meat of the paper, without which the report has no purpose.

How you “read” the results is essential because while the text is good to read, it is just a description of the results by the author.

The author may say that the protein expression levels changed significantly, but you need to look at the results and confirm that the change was significant.

While we hope that authors don’t exaggerate their results, it can be easy to manipulate figures to make them seem more astonishing than they are.

We’d also hope this sort of thing would be picked up during the editorial review, but peer review can be a flawed process!

Some key things to look for when reviewing figures include:

  • appropriate scales on graphs
  • valid statistical analysis
  • sufficient n numbers
  • appropriate controls.

Don’t forget any supplementary figures and tables.

Just because they are supplementary doesn’t mean they aren’t necessary.

Some of the most important (but not exciting) results are often found here.

We’re not advocating that you avoid reading the text of the results section; you certainly should.

Just don’t take the authors’ word as gospel.

The saying “a picture speaks a thousand words” is true; your job is to ensure they match the author’s words.

  1. pick important references (especially review papers) out of the introduction and discussion

Now that you have a good understanding of the paper, it’s time to start tidying things up and thinking of where to go next.

 Skim the introduction for helpful references, or check the first 5-10 listed in the References section to find mostly review papers you can use for new leads.

Go and download these into an “Unread review papers” folder in your citation manager for when you get stuck later.

Then, go to the journal/library website and check for new papers that have cited this paper.

This will help you follow the trail of a specific research topic to see how it’s developing.

Download the interesting ones and put them in an “unread” folder for this research topic.

In Zotero, you can even tag the paper as “related” to the current form for quick access later.

  1. Doing a literature survey.

Paper reading skills are put to the test in doing a literature survey.

This will require you to read several papers, perhaps in an unfamiliar field.

What paper documents should you read?

Here is how you can use the three-pass approach to help.

First, use an academic search engine such as Google Scholar or Cite Seer and some well-chosen keywords to find three to five recent papers in the area.

Do one pass on each paper piece to get a sense of the work, then read their related work sections.

You will find a thumbnail summary of the recent work and, perhaps, if lucky, a pointer to a recent survey paper.

If you can find such a survey, you are done.

Read the study, and congratulating congratulate yourself on your good luck.

Otherwise, in the second step, find shared citations and repeated author names in the bibliography.

These are the key papers and researchers in that area.

Download the essential documents and set them aside.

Then go to the websites of the key researchers and see where they’ve published recently.

That will help you identify the top conferences in that field.

Because the best researchers usually publish in the top panels.

The third step is to visit the website for these top conferences and look through their recent proceedings.

A quick scan will usually identify recent high-quality related work.

Conclusion:

Compelling Reading, Your Way

When it comes to reading research papers, different scientists have different approaches.

In this article, we have explained that reading scientific articles from beginning to end is inadequate.

Skimming the paper and then re-reading specific sections is more effective.

When re-reading different sections, there is no right or wrong order.

After the Abstract, some prefer to read the Introduction to gain the background knowledge necessary to interpret the results.

Others prefer to go straight to the figures for an in-depth look at the Results, while others are satisfied with reading the interpretations presented in the Discussion.

This will depend on the reader’s edge of the subject and the reasons for reading the paper in the first place.

Final takeaway before thoroughly reading a scientific paper:

  • Don’t be a passive word-for-word reader. Be actively hunting and searching for info.
  • Read in this order: Abstract, Conclusion, Figures, Results/Discussion, Methods.
  • The figures are the anchors. Save the best ones to reproduce in your article and spend extra time creating your summary to boost your citation chances.
  • Clean up the metadata and use a sound tagging system to save time later.
  • Set your daily goal, reward yourself for finishing, and take breaks to avoid burnout! This is how to Read a Scientific Paper Quickly & Efficiently.

The main goal is to find a way that works best for you.

 

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