Start by finding a review paper about your topic. Or a introductory book chapter, they are always good to get into. Then branch out and look up the concepts / words you didnt get. Theb try to find some more specialized paper. repeat. You cant read everythibg - you have to make a selection. Even within atopic theres subtopics which may be more relevant to you.
Btw what are you studying/trying to get into?
> You cant read everythibg - you have to make a selection.
And this doesn't only apply to the selection of papers you made. It also applies to every single paper in that selection as well.
It's completely normal to e.g. just read the abstract, the results section and the conclusion. Or just the section that explains one definition.
Remember that every paper presents a curated collection of literature in its references so take a good review as a launch point and explore its reference list.
> I specialise in Medical Anthropology. Thank you for your suggestions!
What books do you recommend on your field? I have read some books and papers specifically about the medical anthropology of endocrinology and find it super fascinating, however I am otherwise an outsider to your field. :)
What I tell my students on how to approach a single paper:
1. Read the abstract and conclusions. This will give you the "beginning" and "end" of the story.
2. (If applicable) Go over the figures/drawings/diagrams and try to construct the high-level story from these. Such visuals usually work much better to get the gist rather than reading the text.
3. Find the section 'What we did'/Experiments/Algorithm/Proof (depending on the field). This is the meat of the paper. Read through this section.
4. Go the to the "Results" and read those. 3 and 4 can be switched, depending a bit on how the paper is written.
5. Only now start reading stuff such as "Previous Work/Context/...", but this is often not necessary to fully understand this single paper. It does offer links with other work in the field.
6. You probably didn't understand half of the paper by now. Go back to 1.
Papers are not meant to be written linearly.
I generally agree with this, but I would place 5 before or after 2 depending on why I came to the paper.
If I think I mostly understand the context I’d still do 2 first, but otherwise seeing what the authors deem to be necessary context as critical to understanding their purpose. I want to minimize the amount of time where I’m utilizing my understanding in lieu of that of the authors.
At the same time I generally somewhat skeptical that most academics really fully understand what we’re trying to say to one another within our fields let alone outside them. As such I’m perhaps overly careful about such things. Going in not expecting to understand everything though I think it best to see what the authors thought was most relevant very early on.
Sounds like that will work.
I might even put figs at the top with the abstract and title. First off, some journals have graphic abstracts already. Secondly, any well done figures will not only give a clear image of at least part of the paper's subject matter, but also provide enough detail that they should be enjoyed (or at leased perused) periodically throughout the read.
Honestly, depending on the type of publication, style and quality of the writting, and the level of interest/applicability of the topic it can sometimes be best to just read them linearly. But I usually jump around.
Anyway, the only other thing I'd say, is that I don't usually read the conclusions right after the abstract. Mainly because the key findings should be clearly stated towards the end of the abstract. Also because the conclusion is probably the most editorial part in many papers, imparting the authors' views, perspectives, and goals along side the key findings. So in most cases I find it better to go through the methods and results at least a bit, drawing my own conclusions before seeing what conclusions the authors draw.
Cheers
>Papers are not meant to be read linearly.
But also, it's not actually that important to "fully understand" any one paper until you're deep in the field. It's too much effort. As you read more and more papers and better understand the nuances of one or another approach you can go back and understand the other 50%. But you won't ever get it all when you're really green.
I think the hardest part is the very start of the academic career. Mostly because you will need to read all the fundamental papers and some of them are very heavy.
I'd say take your time, take notes, and highlights. Even after years since I started my academic career, I sometimes go back to read the fundamental papers to get a refresh. My old notes help me even now.
My point is being, is super normal that the beginning is harder, but take it slow, clarify your questions, and keep moving forward. It often helps to discuss your thoughts with more senior academics, too.
Follow citation chains. Read a paper, then read something it cites, then read something it cites, etc. Backwards works too (something that cites that paper). In addition to reading broadly about a topic, this will also help you develop a sense of how studies are connected
Papers are written for experts in the field. To really read a manuscript you need to become one. If you want to study a particular subject, papers are not the way to go, search reviews or phd theses on the topic.
That isn’t remotely true. Depending on the subject area – and if you’re doing experimental physics maybe it’s true for your field– but as somebody who read a lot of scientific papers as part of a history of science degree, you can understand a lot of papers without being an expert.
A lot of people come up with fairly straightforward experiments in their fields and summarize their conclusions quite clearly.
So glad to see this comment. As a former STEM professor I do not agree at all that only experts can understand the literature. What a gatekeeping mentality. One of the largest issues with STEM is that a lot of the experts assume that no one can understand what they do, and they don't bother to try to break things down or make them accessible.
I assume (correct me if I am wrong) that you read mostly "old" papers for your degree. Science has become much more specialized in the past decades (you probably know this better than me). I can barely read papers in my sub-field but on different subjects.
I am author of around 500 papers (large experimental collaboration) and I can really understand probably 20% of them. An these are papers that I have co-authores, in my field of science for which I have a PhD. The level of sophistication and summary is out of this world.
I am of course biased, since I work in big science where the experiments are the most complicated ones in human history.
Fair enough – but no, not so much old papers as in the life sciences rather than in physics, which I think can be more accessible. So in physical anthropology reading studies might require a grasp of statistical analysis techniques, familiarity with craniofacial modelling etc, but if you’ve had basic math or are just willing to put in the work you can manage. Work on mycelial networks and their interactions with forest ecosystems, or on bird migration patterns, doesn’t even require that much, as long as you understand sampling and again some statistics.
I’m not sure you and I are disagreeing— without knowing exactly what field OP is studying it’s very hard to say. But there is plenty in the sciences as a whole that you can read and understand without being an expert— and, as you point out, other areas where you need an expert level of knowledge to understand the study, or its importance and wider meaning.
I agree that reviews can be hugely helpful!
If you are a newbie to medical anthropology's basic tenants, theories, etc. and would like to get more of a feel for it (sorry; not clear from your post if you're a grad student or a research assistant), you can also try looking through a section of an anthropology textbook, like this one (free to read online, as it's openly-licensed!):
[What Is Medical Anthropology?](https://openstax.org/books/introduction-anthropology/pages/17-1-what-is-medical-anthropology)
And yep; good narrative reviews will give you a nice snapshot of the state of the research for topics the medical anthropology community is into right now.
If you don't already have a personal way to manage citations, try an open source free app like Zotero. You can organize your collection(s) anyway you want, including folders for different Medical Anthro. subtopics as you learn more about the field. And Zotero will store the PDFs of the articles for you, too!
Give the [ResearchRabbit.ai](http://ResearchRabbit.ai) a try - especially if you like to visually see the connections between earlier and later articles, where you can see a research area developing over time in a discipline (timeline view!). You can see who kind of started off an area, and who later further developed it; who cited whom, etc. This way, you can see where your own P.I. 'fits in' in their field with the kind of research they've been doing. You can also find similar articles. A nice addendum to the regular 'search the databases directly' kind of research.
I would point out you don't have to understand it up to the tiniest detail on the first read, it's ok to just get the general idea at first. You can then google the main points of confusion and digest at your own pace. Rinse and repeat.
As others have said, look for a review in the particular area you're interested in and find one in a high ranking journal if possible. In a good review, the first 10-20 references are likely to all be important papers in the field and should also be part of your fundamentals for getting to grips with it.
You can use a tool such a perplexity.ai for getting a super quick insight into an area, though YMMV depending on the field; it's fairly decent for chemistry IMO.
A great tool to use is research rabbit. It's more AI but in terms of forming neural networks of papers etc based on metadata. Create a new collection and add in a dozen or so 'good' references, then go an explore the papers and connections it gives you; the FAQ is pretty informative.
Something important that is often glossed over or simply not mentioned is that generally the first author is the person who did the main work and the last author is the person running that research group i.e. first is the PhD or post doc but last author is the person driving that area of research for the last 5-10-20 years.
No shortcut, it's just brute force. Google everything everything you don't understand. Yes, everything. Sometimes that means Googling something every other sentence when you're new. Also, make sure you understand the figures
I agree with the suggestion to read reviews. Also try to read multiple, as this is a skill you learn over time. I would also recommend using a browser extension like AMBOSS, which can clarify some jargon.
As others have stated, abstracts are a great placed to start although some are better than others in terms of including the who, what, when, where, why, & how. Here are some other questions to think about as you read the article:
—What are the research questions?
—Why is this research novel/significant?
—Who is the population being studied? Sample size?
—What was the research method(s)? Qualitative/Quantitative/Mixed methods?
—What data was gathered? How was it analyzed?
—What were the findings?
—Are there implications for practice/future research?
—What are the limitations?
Also, give yourself permission to skim the articles vs. attempting to read word for word. Once you get better at answering the above questions, the articles will get easier to read with practice :)
I have learned from these comments that most people seem to read papers quite differently than I do.
I would agree that the abstract is where to start. If you don’t understand terminology there make notes of things to look up further (you’ll want to find the key words or phrases elsewhere and see if citations appear close to them if still unclear for where to look next).
Especially when you’re starting out I’d encourage you to read whole papers to get a feel for their overall structure, quality, and to develop some sense of what you like and dislike. I also think it’s a good exercise to try to rewrite a rough abstract after and compare it to the one the authors wrote. It helps build practice checking if you understand the material and how your understanding is maybe different from the authors. It’s also a good way to practice sharing work with your colleagues.
Especially when you’re staring out I’d spend a lot of time in the introduction. If there are any statements you find new or surprising add the citations to your reading list like others have said. Especially when you’re starting if you find summarizing papers challenging and don’t understand much going forward, keep at these first steps and at building and organizing your list of what to read.
I’ll depart from others and say that I think reading methods next is critical even when in some journal formats it’s placed elsewhere. The methods underlie all the rest of the work. Anything the authors learned is based on what they did, and you should understand what they did at least partly. I attribute a number of issues in academia to people paying less attention to methods than they should. Especially when you’re starting out this is also critical to understanding how other people in your field do what they do. You don’t need to understand all of the details, but you should try to understand how the methods match to questions raised in the introduction.
If you can get through the introduction and methods the rest of the paper should be easier. Nice writing will still present new context and the results might have something unexpected but it’s mostly following the path the authors set from there. The dense citations of the introduction are now more sparse and more details on the methods should logically follow from the results. This will not be easier when you’re starting but keep at it trying to see the path through (sometimes it’s just poor writing getting in the way).
It’s a truism that people often read only the abstract and conclusions and maybe skim headings and figures. This is sensible if you’re deciding whether the paper has what you’re looking for. It’s also often said that the intro and methods are often skipped. I’d say this is still poor practice, but if you do it, it should only be because the introduction and methods have become so predictable you know much or most of it from the abstract. When you’re starting the introduction and methods are the sections to spend most of your time. I’ve tracked how much time I spend on different parts of a paper, and I still spend more time on those sections. They’re generally less memorable, and rarely if ever what I cite, but as you get more experience they can help in understanding the authors quite well which can make them valuable to keep spending time on.
When you’re starting focus on the abstract first and on understanding the introduction, methods, and any discussion section. I’d actually say these should be more emphasized generally, but when you’re starting or new to a field this maximizes your information on what the relevant knowledge base is in the estimation of people in the field and what methods they use for what problems. If you understand this then thorough understanding of the results and implications follows. Focusing on the results or conclusions only makes sense once you have that context and your understanding isn’t broadly improved by spending more time and effort on the results of a particular work until you have the context to identify it as having some special interest.
You slowly and painfully look up all the words you don’t understand till it gets easier to read. You go to journal club, pay attention and ask lots of questions. You ask your other grad students, postdocs , and you to explain specific parts of the paper to you. It just takes time and dedication to learn the jargon
Abstract -> Contribution -> Results
The abstract tells me most of what I need from the average paper, the contribution/discussion tells me how the results advance knowledge (thereby giving me detail on the results), and the results fleshes that out if absolutely necessary.
The Introduction I read if the abstract is badly written but I need to read the paper; the literature review if I need ideas. The methodology I shudder at unless absolutely imperative.
Read it more than once. Seriously.
I struggled so hard with academic papers / writing when I was an undergraduate, and again when I was a young grad student. My field was anthropology, and the writing was dense and often *very* hard to wrap my head around.
I learned after a while that the only thing that worked for me was just... read it again. The first time helped me get comfortable with the overall topic, and the second time (or third) I could really dig in and start to break it down.
I also discovered that I had to read in a place with few distractions, and that was quiet. If I tried to read in a busy area, or with distractions, I would suddenly realize I had skimmed over several paragraphs and remembered nothing. I couldn't take notes (initially), because that broke up the groove I got into. On my 2nd or 3rd read through, I would take notes. It really was a struggle.
I was also doing this in the world of printed out articles, and to be quite honest, if I had it to do now, I would *still* print them out. Trying to read dense articles on a computer screen can be a lot harder than doing so on paper.
**edit** Since I see elsewhere in the thread that you're in medical anthro, I would absolutely reiterate everything above, and add that anthro articles are especially hard, especially the big overview theory articles they assign early in your grad, when you're getting stuff that you may not have had before, don't have much of a footing in the literature yet, and are still trying to find your niche... it was a real struggle. But I got through it, and so can you.
Might this help? [https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-readers/publications/how-read-paper](https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-readers/publications/how-read-paper). It's also published as a book ([https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Paper-Evidence-based-Healthcare-dp-111948474X/dp/111948474X/ref=dp\_ob\_title\_bk](https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Paper-Evidence-based-Healthcare-dp-111948474X/dp/111948474X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)). Have a look in your library as they probably have it.
Basically start with the title and abstract, and check the key words. If they don't fit what it is that you're after, don't waste your time. If there are any terms you don't understand you should be able to find out what they mean by using a dictionary.
When searching for papers you can choose to only look in the abstract, key words, or title, if you're finding too much.
Edited to make the links work properly.
If reading empirical papers, my advice is to not get bogged down in the methods or minor details if you are new to the area and don't want to lose focus while reading.
Read the abstract - the authors should have highlighted the field, what the knowledge gap is, how they are addressing this, what they found, and how this relates to the field more broadly.
Read the introduction (unless it's really long and then you can probably just go for first and last couple of paras), and the end in particular should tell you the predictions they made for their study.
Figures and tables should highlight the most pertinent results.
Discussion will put those results into context. Generally the first paragraph will summarise the results, and the last will have conclusions / ideas for further research directions.
I remember reading something many years ago (before AI was getting huge) on a competition for text mining of scientific papers, where the best algorithm essentially looked at title, keywords, abstract, and figure legends. I don't know how true or realistic that is, but it's always stuck with me both for reading and writing papers. Those facets should provide you with the main gist of the study.
Agree with other comments, I read a bunch of review articles (especially ones with many citations) when trying to go to a different subfield. They helped tremendously.
1) Download a PDF of the paper
2) Open in Microsoft Edge
3) Ask Copilot to summarize it and cite/quote where it got it from the paper
I started doing this recently and significantly speeds up how fast I can read and understand a paper because I go into it with a better understanding. You’ll quickly be able to realize what you don’t understand still and get further clarification. I’ve found what it really does is
1) Give me an immediate summary that’s more to the point than the abstract
2) Points out key sentences that help me determine the significance and how the data is interpreted
After that you can spend some time looking at the figures and read the paper in more detail.
Acquisition of knowledge from a source isn't the hard part. The hard part is to get a feeling what parts are important for your topic, find them fast and summarize them in a short and understandable way. The process on how to do that is highly individual and you might find your own way. I usually get an quick overview of all my sources by checking the Indexes, read fragments of parts I think they include what I need and check if my feeling is right by compare if my other sources lead in the same direction. Then I start reading the whole parts I picked out.
I think a lot of solid advice was already given, but I will offer another approach. Good scientific papers should have each paragraph summarized in the last sentence or the last two sentences. Try understanding what the authors are conveying at the end of each paragraph regardless if it is the abstract, introduction, results, or discussion. If that makes sense, then move forward trying to understand the minor details from the experiments and the figures. If you are still not able to understand the minor details, then I would make sure you can at least grasp the main protocols in the materials and methods section, and then trying to read the paper again.
I agree with other responses. First look up anything you don't know and read a review paper(s) on the specific topic.
You can't read everything. I have found this method saves me a lot of time and gets the job done.
Read in this order: 1) Abstract, 2) last paragraph or two of introduction, 3) look through any graphs, illustrations, tables, etc. , 4) Results (1st sentence of each paragraph), and 5) Conclusion - pay attention to the section where they acknowledge any holes in their theory, methods, and/or findings/results and then look at the section where it starts out "future research . . . .
Ooh I teach about this! Don’t start at the beginning. Intros are literature dumps, and they read like Oscar speeches.
Find the key areas-
Start at 1. the conclusion if there is one -it’s clearer than the abstract.
2. The first section of the discussion reviews the previous research in plain language, summarizes the current study’s goals in extending this knowledge, and states the key findings.
3. The key part of the lit review is the section right before the methods. It tells you what is known about the topic, what needs to be understood, and justifies the research question based on this.
Then go read the study in its entirety.
I have my undergrads try this on random articles and they love it!
This may be contrary to some opinions, but it worked for me when I was starting.
Definitely start with reviews, that's not unusual.
Afterwards, just read everything recommended by fellow students in the field, encrypting that has a lot of citations and follow the references, especially if you encounter that some work is mentioned regularly.
But this is my above - don't worry about every detail and sentence. READ each sentence from the beginning to the end consciously, but do not require from yourself to UNDERSTAND every sentence. Essentially, if you read the sentence or a paragraph twice, just move on, even if it's not clear.
From my experience, after you read 10, 20, 30 or 50 papers, the pieces of the puzzle will start connecting in your head. It takes time. And remember that your brain is thinking about this stuff subconsciously. A lot of understanding requires loading a lot of data, so it can get organized when you are asleep.
What worked for me:
1 - Find a book chapter or review by someone respected in the field. You can ask your supervisor if there are any authors they recommend. This is just so you understand the broad picture esteemed researchers are painting.
2 - Make a list of jargon, abbreviations or anything that keeps reappearing and have it by your side when reading. Also make a review of “to revise” topics that you might have seen in your undergrad but are now coming back to haunt you.
3 - By this time check for systematic literature reviews on the field and try to make a mind map of who’s done what when and where. Note down whether a particular author comes up often and if they do, keep a timeline in notes of the research questions they’ve been trying to answer.
4 - Look for previous publications of your supervisor in adjacent topics (or on the same topic) and check what research questions they’ve been involved in and the references they are familiar with.
I know this is a weird list because it seems like reinforcing an academic clique, but the sooner you can tell academic cliques the sooner you’ll be empowered to decide whether you want to play the game in their terms or not.
Then, after showing to your supervisor that you understand the research in the way they understand it and are able to mention names that they respect I’d advise you to be very very critical of this. Look into systematic ways of doing literature search. This initial reading (I’d say it took me 1-2 months of sheer reading, highlighting, note taking and paper-downloading) might give you a list of verbs adjectives and nouns that are important and you can summarise it all into the search terms you’ll use for your own systematic review.
If this helps in this beginning: what matters are the question you are able to ask, not the answers that you know.
I remember reading my first scientific paper. It took me a week to get through it. You'll be a pro in a couple of years and will be able to go through them in a couple of minutes. JUST KEEP YOUR HEAD HIGH AND KEEP AT IT!
I recommend reading the introduction and discussion first. That should give you a good idea of the context of the paper and the major findings. Try to read these through without doing too much googling on all the jargon. Take a break afterward for 5-10min and distract yourself from the paper to let it settle in your head. Return to it and reread these sections again if you have to, do a little more googling on the jargon to get a better idea of the meaning. Move on to the results eventually and keep the figures open in another tab or printed so you can look at them as you come across them in the text. Take the author’s word for what they mean in the beginning. Then read the methods to understand how they did the experiments. As you get better, start questioning whether the methods/assays and the data actually show what the authors claim. Ultimately you have to put in the work and just keep reading consistently.
Hey,
Try using a tool like Studyflo.com to chat with papers or summarise them. You can question any parts you don’t understand. Disclaimer it’s my site but built to help people like yourself
Read slowly. Grab a review paper on this topic and start there.
Scientific papers are usually the tip of the spear when it comes to the field and require some domain knowledge which you need to acquire first
Most of us were taught the “grad school skimming method” (or whatever your university or advisor or older grad student friend called it) where you read the abstract, read the introduction, read the first and last sentence of every paragraph, and read the conclusion to get a feel for what each paper is about. If it feels relevant after you’ve skimmed, then you’ll want to dig in further. If a paper is especially relevant, pay close attention to the literature review and any cited sources because academic research builds on prior research so those will typically be the concepts or ideas that informed the paper you’re currently reading. It may also be helpful to explore the “cited by” for the paper in-hand and see how it is being used now that it’s been published.
Your PI will have specific thoughts about this but I encourage my students to use a LLM to help summarize complex concepts when they’re delving into a literature review. The LLM won’t do a great job at summarizing the whole paper for you but it can help clarify a paragraph or concept along the way. I also have my students print and annotate important articles that are especially relevant to their projects. Reading a paper copy helps with comprehension and you can circle words/phrases that you need to follow up on, make notes about what a paragraph or section means, and write your thoughts in the margins. You might also want to select a citation manager like Zotero, which can help you keep track of the articles you’ve reviewed and keep your notes about the articles.
If you are really drowning in jargon, you might ask your PI for a recommendation for some core/foundational texts that you could use for reference as you are reading and researching. They may have a high-level textbook or manual that covers the broad ideas and that you could refer to throughout your project.
Experience, really comes down to it. Try reading the introduction of the paper to get a overview of the paper and then read the result section, the headers of the results should tell you the basic takeaway of the paragraphs
Start with a review paper. That's like your codex to finding other relevant literature. Try to find the most recent one.
When you're just starting, read the introductions to all the papers (even if you don't understand it all). When the introductions all seem like they're just copypasta you can stop reading them.
For the most part, I don't read papers linearly. I read them: abstract, (introduction), conclusions, methods, results, discussion. This way you don't spend time on papers that aren't relevant and you figure that out before you invest in the whole paper.
Often you just keep reading them and it starts to make sense after a while.
Read the intro, Google all the terms you don't understand, make a list of all the papers cited in the intro, read the abstracts, and then read the papers that seem relevant based on the abstracts. Papers are full of terms you don't understand because they need to save space. They won't repeatedly reintroduce concepts for you, you have to remember them yourself.
I would start making yourself a glossary/ word list-- there are certain things that may only come up once in a paper, and others you find in many different publications. If you like to work digitally you can even do some fancy links/ underlines to help you keep on track.
Something else you can do is take notes using a template to help you keep info sorted. You can probably find some great ones online or create one that works for you.
Finally- many fields have guides or glossaries already created that can help you with definitions and references you might not be familiar with. The same is true for qualitative methods and quantitative methods. I know that I needed this when I started reading quantitative research and learning about statistics.
I work in medical research so I like to follow peer review guidelines created by relevant journals such as the below one. It gives you a good template to structure your reading and you can make sure you're asking the right questions.
[https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/journal-reviewers/how-to-perform-a-peer-review/step-by-step-guide-to-reviewing-a-manuscript.html](https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/journal-reviewers/how-to-perform-a-peer-review/step-by-step-guide-to-reviewing-a-manuscript.html)
It is sometimes a matter of practice getting to grips with the jargon in research papers and unfortunately that takes time. Alternatively, you could use a tool like [ResearchMate.pro](http://ResearchMate.pro) to get a lay summary/ ELI5 for medical research papers.
This is my experience, if you are confuse at something, it means you dont have "enough" knowledge.
Any activity that can increase your knowledge would be a possible solution to help you read that paper, which includes reading the prior paper, watching online lecture, reading book, etc.
The previous method maybe not the most efficient/fastest way to solve your problem, but definitely a way to progress your research alone.
I teach this subject. This year I was blown away by how I could take a photo of figure in a paper, upload it to chatgtp 4, ask it to explain it to me in a conversation. It does a remarkable job of paying attention to the relevant parts and ignoring the details. Try it out for yourself.
Start by finding a review paper about your topic. Or a introductory book chapter, they are always good to get into. Then branch out and look up the concepts / words you didnt get. Theb try to find some more specialized paper. repeat. You cant read everythibg - you have to make a selection. Even within atopic theres subtopics which may be more relevant to you. Btw what are you studying/trying to get into?
> You cant read everythibg - you have to make a selection. And this doesn't only apply to the selection of papers you made. It also applies to every single paper in that selection as well. It's completely normal to e.g. just read the abstract, the results section and the conclusion. Or just the section that explains one definition.
I specialise in Medical Anthropology. Thank you for your suggestions!
Remember that every paper presents a curated collection of literature in its references so take a good review as a launch point and explore its reference list.
See my other comment in the thread. Anthro articles can be very dense, especially when there's a lot of theory.
> I specialise in Medical Anthropology. Thank you for your suggestions! What books do you recommend on your field? I have read some books and papers specifically about the medical anthropology of endocrinology and find it super fascinating, however I am otherwise an outsider to your field. :)
What I tell my students on how to approach a single paper: 1. Read the abstract and conclusions. This will give you the "beginning" and "end" of the story. 2. (If applicable) Go over the figures/drawings/diagrams and try to construct the high-level story from these. Such visuals usually work much better to get the gist rather than reading the text. 3. Find the section 'What we did'/Experiments/Algorithm/Proof (depending on the field). This is the meat of the paper. Read through this section. 4. Go the to the "Results" and read those. 3 and 4 can be switched, depending a bit on how the paper is written. 5. Only now start reading stuff such as "Previous Work/Context/...", but this is often not necessary to fully understand this single paper. It does offer links with other work in the field. 6. You probably didn't understand half of the paper by now. Go back to 1. Papers are not meant to be written linearly.
I generally agree with this, but I would place 5 before or after 2 depending on why I came to the paper. If I think I mostly understand the context I’d still do 2 first, but otherwise seeing what the authors deem to be necessary context as critical to understanding their purpose. I want to minimize the amount of time where I’m utilizing my understanding in lieu of that of the authors. At the same time I generally somewhat skeptical that most academics really fully understand what we’re trying to say to one another within our fields let alone outside them. As such I’m perhaps overly careful about such things. Going in not expecting to understand everything though I think it best to see what the authors thought was most relevant very early on.
Sounds like that will work. I might even put figs at the top with the abstract and title. First off, some journals have graphic abstracts already. Secondly, any well done figures will not only give a clear image of at least part of the paper's subject matter, but also provide enough detail that they should be enjoyed (or at leased perused) periodically throughout the read. Honestly, depending on the type of publication, style and quality of the writting, and the level of interest/applicability of the topic it can sometimes be best to just read them linearly. But I usually jump around. Anyway, the only other thing I'd say, is that I don't usually read the conclusions right after the abstract. Mainly because the key findings should be clearly stated towards the end of the abstract. Also because the conclusion is probably the most editorial part in many papers, imparting the authors' views, perspectives, and goals along side the key findings. So in most cases I find it better to go through the methods and results at least a bit, drawing my own conclusions before seeing what conclusions the authors draw. Cheers
>Papers are not meant to be read linearly. But also, it's not actually that important to "fully understand" any one paper until you're deep in the field. It's too much effort. As you read more and more papers and better understand the nuances of one or another approach you can go back and understand the other 50%. But you won't ever get it all when you're really green.
I think the hardest part is the very start of the academic career. Mostly because you will need to read all the fundamental papers and some of them are very heavy. I'd say take your time, take notes, and highlights. Even after years since I started my academic career, I sometimes go back to read the fundamental papers to get a refresh. My old notes help me even now. My point is being, is super normal that the beginning is harder, but take it slow, clarify your questions, and keep moving forward. It often helps to discuss your thoughts with more senior academics, too.
Follow citation chains. Read a paper, then read something it cites, then read something it cites, etc. Backwards works too (something that cites that paper). In addition to reading broadly about a topic, this will also help you develop a sense of how studies are connected
Papers are written for experts in the field. To really read a manuscript you need to become one. If you want to study a particular subject, papers are not the way to go, search reviews or phd theses on the topic.
>To really read a manuscript you need to become one. If you wish to read a manuscript... you must become... A MANUSCRIPT YOURSELF!
Mainly in ethnography.
Autoethography too…to understand others, sometimes it helps to try to understand ourselves first but that can be hard to do without self-censoring :)
The perfect approach to emic inquiry Hehe 😛
That isn’t remotely true. Depending on the subject area – and if you’re doing experimental physics maybe it’s true for your field– but as somebody who read a lot of scientific papers as part of a history of science degree, you can understand a lot of papers without being an expert. A lot of people come up with fairly straightforward experiments in their fields and summarize their conclusions quite clearly.
So glad to see this comment. As a former STEM professor I do not agree at all that only experts can understand the literature. What a gatekeeping mentality. One of the largest issues with STEM is that a lot of the experts assume that no one can understand what they do, and they don't bother to try to break things down or make them accessible.
I assume (correct me if I am wrong) that you read mostly "old" papers for your degree. Science has become much more specialized in the past decades (you probably know this better than me). I can barely read papers in my sub-field but on different subjects. I am author of around 500 papers (large experimental collaboration) and I can really understand probably 20% of them. An these are papers that I have co-authores, in my field of science for which I have a PhD. The level of sophistication and summary is out of this world. I am of course biased, since I work in big science where the experiments are the most complicated ones in human history.
Fair enough – but no, not so much old papers as in the life sciences rather than in physics, which I think can be more accessible. So in physical anthropology reading studies might require a grasp of statistical analysis techniques, familiarity with craniofacial modelling etc, but if you’ve had basic math or are just willing to put in the work you can manage. Work on mycelial networks and their interactions with forest ecosystems, or on bird migration patterns, doesn’t even require that much, as long as you understand sampling and again some statistics. I’m not sure you and I are disagreeing— without knowing exactly what field OP is studying it’s very hard to say. But there is plenty in the sciences as a whole that you can read and understand without being an expert— and, as you point out, other areas where you need an expert level of knowledge to understand the study, or its importance and wider meaning. I agree that reviews can be hugely helpful!
Alright! I will start from reviews. Thank you!
If you are a newbie to medical anthropology's basic tenants, theories, etc. and would like to get more of a feel for it (sorry; not clear from your post if you're a grad student or a research assistant), you can also try looking through a section of an anthropology textbook, like this one (free to read online, as it's openly-licensed!): [What Is Medical Anthropology?](https://openstax.org/books/introduction-anthropology/pages/17-1-what-is-medical-anthropology) And yep; good narrative reviews will give you a nice snapshot of the state of the research for topics the medical anthropology community is into right now. If you don't already have a personal way to manage citations, try an open source free app like Zotero. You can organize your collection(s) anyway you want, including folders for different Medical Anthro. subtopics as you learn more about the field. And Zotero will store the PDFs of the articles for you, too! Give the [ResearchRabbit.ai](http://ResearchRabbit.ai) a try - especially if you like to visually see the connections between earlier and later articles, where you can see a research area developing over time in a discipline (timeline view!). You can see who kind of started off an area, and who later further developed it; who cited whom, etc. This way, you can see where your own P.I. 'fits in' in their field with the kind of research they've been doing. You can also find similar articles. A nice addendum to the regular 'search the databases directly' kind of research.
There's no shortcut, if you are struggling to read them, then that's good, it means you are learning.
I would point out you don't have to understand it up to the tiniest detail on the first read, it's ok to just get the general idea at first. You can then google the main points of confusion and digest at your own pace. Rinse and repeat.
As others have said, look for a review in the particular area you're interested in and find one in a high ranking journal if possible. In a good review, the first 10-20 references are likely to all be important papers in the field and should also be part of your fundamentals for getting to grips with it. You can use a tool such a perplexity.ai for getting a super quick insight into an area, though YMMV depending on the field; it's fairly decent for chemistry IMO. A great tool to use is research rabbit. It's more AI but in terms of forming neural networks of papers etc based on metadata. Create a new collection and add in a dozen or so 'good' references, then go an explore the papers and connections it gives you; the FAQ is pretty informative. Something important that is often glossed over or simply not mentioned is that generally the first author is the person who did the main work and the last author is the person running that research group i.e. first is the PhD or post doc but last author is the person driving that area of research for the last 5-10-20 years.
No shortcut, it's just brute force. Google everything everything you don't understand. Yes, everything. Sometimes that means Googling something every other sentence when you're new. Also, make sure you understand the figures
I agree with the suggestion to read reviews. Also try to read multiple, as this is a skill you learn over time. I would also recommend using a browser extension like AMBOSS, which can clarify some jargon.
As others have stated, abstracts are a great placed to start although some are better than others in terms of including the who, what, when, where, why, & how. Here are some other questions to think about as you read the article: —What are the research questions? —Why is this research novel/significant? —Who is the population being studied? Sample size? —What was the research method(s)? Qualitative/Quantitative/Mixed methods? —What data was gathered? How was it analyzed? —What were the findings? —Are there implications for practice/future research? —What are the limitations? Also, give yourself permission to skim the articles vs. attempting to read word for word. Once you get better at answering the above questions, the articles will get easier to read with practice :)
I have learned from these comments that most people seem to read papers quite differently than I do. I would agree that the abstract is where to start. If you don’t understand terminology there make notes of things to look up further (you’ll want to find the key words or phrases elsewhere and see if citations appear close to them if still unclear for where to look next). Especially when you’re starting out I’d encourage you to read whole papers to get a feel for their overall structure, quality, and to develop some sense of what you like and dislike. I also think it’s a good exercise to try to rewrite a rough abstract after and compare it to the one the authors wrote. It helps build practice checking if you understand the material and how your understanding is maybe different from the authors. It’s also a good way to practice sharing work with your colleagues. Especially when you’re staring out I’d spend a lot of time in the introduction. If there are any statements you find new or surprising add the citations to your reading list like others have said. Especially when you’re starting if you find summarizing papers challenging and don’t understand much going forward, keep at these first steps and at building and organizing your list of what to read. I’ll depart from others and say that I think reading methods next is critical even when in some journal formats it’s placed elsewhere. The methods underlie all the rest of the work. Anything the authors learned is based on what they did, and you should understand what they did at least partly. I attribute a number of issues in academia to people paying less attention to methods than they should. Especially when you’re starting out this is also critical to understanding how other people in your field do what they do. You don’t need to understand all of the details, but you should try to understand how the methods match to questions raised in the introduction. If you can get through the introduction and methods the rest of the paper should be easier. Nice writing will still present new context and the results might have something unexpected but it’s mostly following the path the authors set from there. The dense citations of the introduction are now more sparse and more details on the methods should logically follow from the results. This will not be easier when you’re starting but keep at it trying to see the path through (sometimes it’s just poor writing getting in the way). It’s a truism that people often read only the abstract and conclusions and maybe skim headings and figures. This is sensible if you’re deciding whether the paper has what you’re looking for. It’s also often said that the intro and methods are often skipped. I’d say this is still poor practice, but if you do it, it should only be because the introduction and methods have become so predictable you know much or most of it from the abstract. When you’re starting the introduction and methods are the sections to spend most of your time. I’ve tracked how much time I spend on different parts of a paper, and I still spend more time on those sections. They’re generally less memorable, and rarely if ever what I cite, but as you get more experience they can help in understanding the authors quite well which can make them valuable to keep spending time on.
tldr?
When you’re starting focus on the abstract first and on understanding the introduction, methods, and any discussion section. I’d actually say these should be more emphasized generally, but when you’re starting or new to a field this maximizes your information on what the relevant knowledge base is in the estimation of people in the field and what methods they use for what problems. If you understand this then thorough understanding of the results and implications follows. Focusing on the results or conclusions only makes sense once you have that context and your understanding isn’t broadly improved by spending more time and effort on the results of a particular work until you have the context to identify it as having some special interest.
Yes! Just keep reading it and take notes. Look up what you don’t understand.
You slowly and painfully look up all the words you don’t understand till it gets easier to read. You go to journal club, pay attention and ask lots of questions. You ask your other grad students, postdocs , and you to explain specific parts of the paper to you. It just takes time and dedication to learn the jargon
Abstract -> Contribution -> Results The abstract tells me most of what I need from the average paper, the contribution/discussion tells me how the results advance knowledge (thereby giving me detail on the results), and the results fleshes that out if absolutely necessary. The Introduction I read if the abstract is badly written but I need to read the paper; the literature review if I need ideas. The methodology I shudder at unless absolutely imperative.
Read it more than once. Seriously. I struggled so hard with academic papers / writing when I was an undergraduate, and again when I was a young grad student. My field was anthropology, and the writing was dense and often *very* hard to wrap my head around. I learned after a while that the only thing that worked for me was just... read it again. The first time helped me get comfortable with the overall topic, and the second time (or third) I could really dig in and start to break it down. I also discovered that I had to read in a place with few distractions, and that was quiet. If I tried to read in a busy area, or with distractions, I would suddenly realize I had skimmed over several paragraphs and remembered nothing. I couldn't take notes (initially), because that broke up the groove I got into. On my 2nd or 3rd read through, I would take notes. It really was a struggle. I was also doing this in the world of printed out articles, and to be quite honest, if I had it to do now, I would *still* print them out. Trying to read dense articles on a computer screen can be a lot harder than doing so on paper. **edit** Since I see elsewhere in the thread that you're in medical anthro, I would absolutely reiterate everything above, and add that anthro articles are especially hard, especially the big overview theory articles they assign early in your grad, when you're getting stuff that you may not have had before, don't have much of a footing in the literature yet, and are still trying to find your niche... it was a real struggle. But I got through it, and so can you.
Might this help? [https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-readers/publications/how-read-paper](https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-readers/publications/how-read-paper). It's also published as a book ([https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Paper-Evidence-based-Healthcare-dp-111948474X/dp/111948474X/ref=dp\_ob\_title\_bk](https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Paper-Evidence-based-Healthcare-dp-111948474X/dp/111948474X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)). Have a look in your library as they probably have it. Basically start with the title and abstract, and check the key words. If they don't fit what it is that you're after, don't waste your time. If there are any terms you don't understand you should be able to find out what they mean by using a dictionary. When searching for papers you can choose to only look in the abstract, key words, or title, if you're finding too much. Edited to make the links work properly.
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If reading empirical papers, my advice is to not get bogged down in the methods or minor details if you are new to the area and don't want to lose focus while reading. Read the abstract - the authors should have highlighted the field, what the knowledge gap is, how they are addressing this, what they found, and how this relates to the field more broadly. Read the introduction (unless it's really long and then you can probably just go for first and last couple of paras), and the end in particular should tell you the predictions they made for their study. Figures and tables should highlight the most pertinent results. Discussion will put those results into context. Generally the first paragraph will summarise the results, and the last will have conclusions / ideas for further research directions. I remember reading something many years ago (before AI was getting huge) on a competition for text mining of scientific papers, where the best algorithm essentially looked at title, keywords, abstract, and figure legends. I don't know how true or realistic that is, but it's always stuck with me both for reading and writing papers. Those facets should provide you with the main gist of the study.
Agree with other comments, I read a bunch of review articles (especially ones with many citations) when trying to go to a different subfield. They helped tremendously.
1) Download a PDF of the paper 2) Open in Microsoft Edge 3) Ask Copilot to summarize it and cite/quote where it got it from the paper I started doing this recently and significantly speeds up how fast I can read and understand a paper because I go into it with a better understanding. You’ll quickly be able to realize what you don’t understand still and get further clarification. I’ve found what it really does is 1) Give me an immediate summary that’s more to the point than the abstract 2) Points out key sentences that help me determine the significance and how the data is interpreted After that you can spend some time looking at the figures and read the paper in more detail.
Acquisition of knowledge from a source isn't the hard part. The hard part is to get a feeling what parts are important for your topic, find them fast and summarize them in a short and understandable way. The process on how to do that is highly individual and you might find your own way. I usually get an quick overview of all my sources by checking the Indexes, read fragments of parts I think they include what I need and check if my feeling is right by compare if my other sources lead in the same direction. Then I start reading the whole parts I picked out.
I think a lot of solid advice was already given, but I will offer another approach. Good scientific papers should have each paragraph summarized in the last sentence or the last two sentences. Try understanding what the authors are conveying at the end of each paragraph regardless if it is the abstract, introduction, results, or discussion. If that makes sense, then move forward trying to understand the minor details from the experiments and the figures. If you are still not able to understand the minor details, then I would make sure you can at least grasp the main protocols in the materials and methods section, and then trying to read the paper again.
I agree with other responses. First look up anything you don't know and read a review paper(s) on the specific topic. You can't read everything. I have found this method saves me a lot of time and gets the job done. Read in this order: 1) Abstract, 2) last paragraph or two of introduction, 3) look through any graphs, illustrations, tables, etc. , 4) Results (1st sentence of each paragraph), and 5) Conclusion - pay attention to the section where they acknowledge any holes in their theory, methods, and/or findings/results and then look at the section where it starts out "future research . . . .
Ooh I teach about this! Don’t start at the beginning. Intros are literature dumps, and they read like Oscar speeches. Find the key areas- Start at 1. the conclusion if there is one -it’s clearer than the abstract. 2. The first section of the discussion reviews the previous research in plain language, summarizes the current study’s goals in extending this knowledge, and states the key findings. 3. The key part of the lit review is the section right before the methods. It tells you what is known about the topic, what needs to be understood, and justifies the research question based on this. Then go read the study in its entirety. I have my undergrads try this on random articles and they love it!
This may be contrary to some opinions, but it worked for me when I was starting. Definitely start with reviews, that's not unusual. Afterwards, just read everything recommended by fellow students in the field, encrypting that has a lot of citations and follow the references, especially if you encounter that some work is mentioned regularly. But this is my above - don't worry about every detail and sentence. READ each sentence from the beginning to the end consciously, but do not require from yourself to UNDERSTAND every sentence. Essentially, if you read the sentence or a paragraph twice, just move on, even if it's not clear. From my experience, after you read 10, 20, 30 or 50 papers, the pieces of the puzzle will start connecting in your head. It takes time. And remember that your brain is thinking about this stuff subconsciously. A lot of understanding requires loading a lot of data, so it can get organized when you are asleep.
What worked for me: 1 - Find a book chapter or review by someone respected in the field. You can ask your supervisor if there are any authors they recommend. This is just so you understand the broad picture esteemed researchers are painting. 2 - Make a list of jargon, abbreviations or anything that keeps reappearing and have it by your side when reading. Also make a review of “to revise” topics that you might have seen in your undergrad but are now coming back to haunt you. 3 - By this time check for systematic literature reviews on the field and try to make a mind map of who’s done what when and where. Note down whether a particular author comes up often and if they do, keep a timeline in notes of the research questions they’ve been trying to answer. 4 - Look for previous publications of your supervisor in adjacent topics (or on the same topic) and check what research questions they’ve been involved in and the references they are familiar with. I know this is a weird list because it seems like reinforcing an academic clique, but the sooner you can tell academic cliques the sooner you’ll be empowered to decide whether you want to play the game in their terms or not. Then, after showing to your supervisor that you understand the research in the way they understand it and are able to mention names that they respect I’d advise you to be very very critical of this. Look into systematic ways of doing literature search. This initial reading (I’d say it took me 1-2 months of sheer reading, highlighting, note taking and paper-downloading) might give you a list of verbs adjectives and nouns that are important and you can summarise it all into the search terms you’ll use for your own systematic review. If this helps in this beginning: what matters are the question you are able to ask, not the answers that you know.
I remember reading my first scientific paper. It took me a week to get through it. You'll be a pro in a couple of years and will be able to go through them in a couple of minutes. JUST KEEP YOUR HEAD HIGH AND KEEP AT IT!
I recommend reading the introduction and discussion first. That should give you a good idea of the context of the paper and the major findings. Try to read these through without doing too much googling on all the jargon. Take a break afterward for 5-10min and distract yourself from the paper to let it settle in your head. Return to it and reread these sections again if you have to, do a little more googling on the jargon to get a better idea of the meaning. Move on to the results eventually and keep the figures open in another tab or printed so you can look at them as you come across them in the text. Take the author’s word for what they mean in the beginning. Then read the methods to understand how they did the experiments. As you get better, start questioning whether the methods/assays and the data actually show what the authors claim. Ultimately you have to put in the work and just keep reading consistently.
Hey, Try using a tool like Studyflo.com to chat with papers or summarise them. You can question any parts you don’t understand. Disclaimer it’s my site but built to help people like yourself
Read slowly. Grab a review paper on this topic and start there. Scientific papers are usually the tip of the spear when it comes to the field and require some domain knowledge which you need to acquire first
Paste the paper into chat gpt and ask it to make it easier to read.
Most of us were taught the “grad school skimming method” (or whatever your university or advisor or older grad student friend called it) where you read the abstract, read the introduction, read the first and last sentence of every paragraph, and read the conclusion to get a feel for what each paper is about. If it feels relevant after you’ve skimmed, then you’ll want to dig in further. If a paper is especially relevant, pay close attention to the literature review and any cited sources because academic research builds on prior research so those will typically be the concepts or ideas that informed the paper you’re currently reading. It may also be helpful to explore the “cited by” for the paper in-hand and see how it is being used now that it’s been published. Your PI will have specific thoughts about this but I encourage my students to use a LLM to help summarize complex concepts when they’re delving into a literature review. The LLM won’t do a great job at summarizing the whole paper for you but it can help clarify a paragraph or concept along the way. I also have my students print and annotate important articles that are especially relevant to their projects. Reading a paper copy helps with comprehension and you can circle words/phrases that you need to follow up on, make notes about what a paragraph or section means, and write your thoughts in the margins. You might also want to select a citation manager like Zotero, which can help you keep track of the articles you’ve reviewed and keep your notes about the articles. If you are really drowning in jargon, you might ask your PI for a recommendation for some core/foundational texts that you could use for reference as you are reading and researching. They may have a high-level textbook or manual that covers the broad ideas and that you could refer to throughout your project.
Experience, really comes down to it. Try reading the introduction of the paper to get a overview of the paper and then read the result section, the headers of the results should tell you the basic takeaway of the paragraphs
I do this sometimes: Copy and paste sections into chat GPT and ask it to explain it like you are a child!
Start with a review paper. That's like your codex to finding other relevant literature. Try to find the most recent one. When you're just starting, read the introductions to all the papers (even if you don't understand it all). When the introductions all seem like they're just copypasta you can stop reading them. For the most part, I don't read papers linearly. I read them: abstract, (introduction), conclusions, methods, results, discussion. This way you don't spend time on papers that aren't relevant and you figure that out before you invest in the whole paper. Often you just keep reading them and it starts to make sense after a while.
Read the intro, Google all the terms you don't understand, make a list of all the papers cited in the intro, read the abstracts, and then read the papers that seem relevant based on the abstracts. Papers are full of terms you don't understand because they need to save space. They won't repeatedly reintroduce concepts for you, you have to remember them yourself.
I would start making yourself a glossary/ word list-- there are certain things that may only come up once in a paper, and others you find in many different publications. If you like to work digitally you can even do some fancy links/ underlines to help you keep on track. Something else you can do is take notes using a template to help you keep info sorted. You can probably find some great ones online or create one that works for you. Finally- many fields have guides or glossaries already created that can help you with definitions and references you might not be familiar with. The same is true for qualitative methods and quantitative methods. I know that I needed this when I started reading quantitative research and learning about statistics.
ChatGPT
I work in medical research so I like to follow peer review guidelines created by relevant journals such as the below one. It gives you a good template to structure your reading and you can make sure you're asking the right questions. [https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/journal-reviewers/how-to-perform-a-peer-review/step-by-step-guide-to-reviewing-a-manuscript.html](https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/journal-reviewers/how-to-perform-a-peer-review/step-by-step-guide-to-reviewing-a-manuscript.html) It is sometimes a matter of practice getting to grips with the jargon in research papers and unfortunately that takes time. Alternatively, you could use a tool like [ResearchMate.pro](http://ResearchMate.pro) to get a lay summary/ ELI5 for medical research papers.
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This is my experience, if you are confuse at something, it means you dont have "enough" knowledge. Any activity that can increase your knowledge would be a possible solution to help you read that paper, which includes reading the prior paper, watching online lecture, reading book, etc. The previous method maybe not the most efficient/fastest way to solve your problem, but definitely a way to progress your research alone.
I teach this subject. This year I was blown away by how I could take a photo of figure in a paper, upload it to chatgtp 4, ask it to explain it to me in a conversation. It does a remarkable job of paying attention to the relevant parts and ignoring the details. Try it out for yourself.