read research papers quickly

How To Skim Read Journal Articles

Fast-Track Your Literature Review By Focusing On Three Sections

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | May 2020

If you’ve just started your literature review process, you’re probably sitting on a pile of scientific journal articles and research papers that are (1) lengthy and (2) written in very dense , academic language that is difficult to digest (at the best of times). It’s intimidating, for sure – and you’re probably wondering how on earth you’re going to get through it all.

You might be asking yourself some of these questions:

• Do I need to read every journal article to make sure I cover everything?
• Do I need to read every section of each article to understand it?
• If not, which sections should I focus on?

First things first, relax (I can feel your tension!). In this post, I’m going answer these questions and explain how to approach your review of the literature the smart way , so that you focus only on the most relevant literature and don’t waste time on low-value activities.

So, grab a nice hot cup of coffee (or tea, or whatever – just no beers) and let’s take a look at those questions, one at a time.

Question 1:

Do i need to read every journal article on my topic when doing my literature review.

The good news is that you don’t need to read every single journal article on your topic. Doing so would just be a waste of your time, as you’re generally looking to understand the current state of the literature – not the full history of it.

But… and this is an important but. You do need to read quite a bit to make sure that you have a comprehensive view of the current state of the literature (and of knowledge) in your area of research.

Quality trumps quantity when it comes to reviewing the literature. In other words, you need to focus on reading the journal articles that are most cited (i.e. that other academics have referenced) in relation to your topic keyword(s). You should focus on articles that are recent, relevant and well cited .

But how do I know if an article is well cited?

Thankfully, you can check the number of citations for any article really easily using Google Scholar . Just enter the article title in Google Scholar and it will show you how many citations it has – here’s an example:

In fact, Google Scholar is a great way to find the key journal articles for any keyword (topic) in general, so chances are you’ll be using this to find your journal articles in the first place. Therefore, be sure to keep an eye on citation count while you’re sourcing articles. It would also be smart to dedicate a column to it in your literature review catalogue (you can download one for free here ) so that you can quickly filter and sort by citation count.

A quick caveat – citation count is not a perfect metric for the quality of a journal article (unfortunately there is no unicorn metric that indicates quality). While its usually a good indicator of how popular an article is, it doesn’t mean the findings of the article are perfect (remember, the Kardashians are popular too – enough said). To the contrary, it could indicate that there’s a lot of controversy regarding the findings (sounds like the Kardashians again).

So, long story short – don’t be conned by citation count alone. Be sure to also pay attention the to quality of the journal each article is published in (you can check journal rank here ), and pay attention to what other articles say about any given popular article.

Need a helping hand?

Question 2:

Do i need to read the full journal journal article when doing my literature review.

Some more good news – no, you don’t need to read every single word in each journal article you review as part of your literature review. When you’re just starting your literature review, you need to get a big picture view of what each journal article is saying (in other words, the key questions and findings). Generally you can get a good feel for this by reading a few key sections in each article (we’ll get to these next).

That said (ah, there had to be a catch, right?), as you refine your literature review and establish more of a focus, you’ll need to dive deeper into the most important articles. Some articles will be central to your research – but you probably still don’t need to read them from first page to the last.

Question 3:

Which sections of each journal article should i read.

To get a big-picture view of what any article is all about, there are three sections that are very useful. These three sections generally explain both what the article is about (i.e. what questions they were trying to answer) and what the findings were (i.e. what their answers were). This is exactly what you’re looking for, so these three sections provide a great way for you to save time during your literature review.

So, let’s take a look at the three sections:

1 – The abstract (or executive summary)

The abstract (which is located right up front) provides a high-level overview of what the article is about. This is giving you the first little taste of the soup , so to speak. Generally, it will discuss what the research objectives were was and why they were important. This will give you a clear indication of how relevant the article is to your specific research, so pay close attention.

Sometimes the abstract will also discuss the findings of the article (much like a thesis abstract ), but this is not always the case (yeah, the abstract can be such a tease sometimes). If it does, it’s a bonus. But even so, you should still read the other sections, as the abstract only provides a very high-level view, and can miss out on specific nuances of the research.

2 – The introduction section

The introduction section will go into more detail about the topic being investigated and why this is important for the field of research. This will help you understand a bit more detail about what exactly they were investigating and in what context . Context is really important, so pay close attention to that.

For example, they might be investigating your exact topic, but in a country other than your own, or a different industry. In that case, you’d know that you need to pay very close attention to exactly how they undertook their research.

So, make sure you pay close attention to the introduction chapter to fully understand the focus of the research and the context in which it took place . Both will be important when it comes to writing your literature review, as you’ll need to use this information to build your arguments.

3 – The conclusion

While the introduction section tells you what the high-level questions the researchers asked, the conclusion section tells you what answers they found . This provides you with something of a shortcut to grasping the gist of the article, without reading all the dull and dry detail – yeah, it’s a little cheeky, I know. Of course, the conclusion is not going to highlight every nuance of the analysis findings, so if the article is highly relevant to your research, you should make sure to also pay close attention to the analysis findings section.

In addition to the findings of the research, the conclusion section will generally also highlight areas that require further research . In other words, they’ll outline areas that genuinely require further academic investigation (aka research gaps ). This is a gold mine for refining your topic into something highly original and well-rooted in the existing literature – just make sure that the article is recent, or someone else may have already exploited the research gap. If you’re still looking to identify a research topic, be sure to check out our video covering that here .

By reviewing these three sections of each article, you’ll save yourself a lot of time, while still getting a good understanding of what each article is saying. Keep in mind that as your literature review progresses, you focus will narrow and you’ll develop a set of core highly relevant articles, which you should sink your teeth into more deeply.

Let’s Recap

In this post, we looked at how to read academic journal articles quickly and efficiently, to save you many hours of pain while undertaking your literature review.

The key takeaways to remember are:

• You don’t need to read every single journal article covering your topic – focus on the most popular, authoritative and recent ones
• You don’t need to read every word of every article. To start, you just need to get a high-level understanding of the literature, which you can get by focusing on three key areas in each journal article.
• The three sections of each journal article to review are the abstract , the introduction and the conclusion .
• Once you’ve narrowed down your focus and have a core set of highly relevant, highly authoritative articles, you can dive deeper into them, paying closer attention to the methodology and analysis findings.

And there you have it – now go on and hammer through that pile of articles at warp speed. While you’re at it, why not also check out our other posts and videos covering research topic ideation , dissertation and thesis proposal , literature review , methodology , analysis and more.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

28 Comments

Thanks Derek for the tips

Reviewing the Literature can be overwhelming if you do not have the plan or the right structure to navigate the pool of information

You’re most welcome, Aletta. All the best with your literature review.

I personally have found these tips as a key to my long standing problem of reading articles. Thanks a million times

Simple and easy to read guidance… funny too

Great to hear that, Rishen 🙂

Much appreciated Derek. I already realized I could not read everything, but you confirming that has brought a lot of relief.

Great to hear that, Mazwakhe 🙂

Derek sir, I’m really happy for you.You made me to think very smart and effective way to do the review of literature.

Thank you so much.

Dear Derek, thank you for your easy and straight forward guidance,

Thanks for the interesting and informative article

You’re most welcome, Sanoon. Glad it was useful.

Thanks for the insights, I am about to start my literature review and this article as well as the other material from GradCoach will help me on the jorney.

You’re most welcome! Good luck writing your literature review

It was a great and effective information.

Thank you that was very helpful. I am taking a directed studies summer course, and I have to submit a literature review by end of August. That article was short, straight to the point and interesting 🙂 thank you Derek

You’re welcome, Emy 🙂 Good luck with your studies!

Thanks Derek. Reading this article has given me a boost because I have been so stock on how to go about my literature review.Though I know I am not meant to read the whole article.But your explanation has given me a greater insight.

Thank you very much sir for your great explanation 😄 Hopefully I’ve enough diligence and courage to start

You’re most welcome, Felicia. Good luck with your research.

thanks, it was helpful.

Thanks Derek for doing such a wonderful job of helping. Blessings Bro!

Concise and applicable, nice! what a great help. I am now doing a literature review section on my thesis, I used to waste so much time on reading articles that is not relevant back and forth.

Thank for your great help!

Hi Derek, i am busy with my research literature. I submited my 1st draft but it was way irrelevant as per comments made by my supervisor… i gave myself time to find out where i diverted until i lesson to some of your videos. As we speak now, i am starting following the guidelines and i feel confident that i am on the right track now. Thanks a lot my brother

You’re most welcome 🙂

I can’t explain my mood when I realised I had to study more than 40 articles about my study field. It was indeed a game-changer. Thank you very much, Derek. Also, Kardashian was the best example that can be used for this situation :)))

Thank you for posting this. It truly takes a load off! I’m new to Doctoral research and peer review study and “Overwhelmed” doesn’t quite sum up how I felt. This is a tremendous help!

Thank you for the advice. Question, how do one keep count of all the articles considered from starting point to narrowed down. Manually, or is there another way?

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• What Is A Literature Review (In A Dissertation Or Thesis) - Grad Coach - […] first step of any literature review is to hunt down and read through the existing research that’s relevant to your research…

Getting into the right mindset to read scientific papers quickly:

Before you start anything, you need to isolate your singular goal for reading papers in the first place. Otherwise, you’ll be passively reading every paper that comes up rather than hunting for specific details. Don’t be a forager, consuming anything edible that crosses your path. Be a hunter: have a specific target that keeps you selective, efficient, and guides every step you take.

Most of these tips are designed to help you focus on extracting value efficiently so you won’t give up after two papers! So, what is your goal here? Is it:

• Getting a solid foundation in your field?
• Collecting the newest research for a cutting-edge literature review?
• Finding ideas and inspiration to further your own research?  

I’ll be honest here: The first dozen papers of a new subject will be a grind. But it gets easier, I promise! When you find yourself blasting through the “template” introduction and recognizing citations you’ve already read, you know you’re close to being an expert. At this point, if you’re struggling to understand a new paper in the field, it’s likely the authors’ fault, not yours. 

Keep in mind that academics aren’t exactly known for concise writing. Practice skimming paragraphs for high-value verbs, numerical values and claims. Skip over wordy low-value prose like “We thus appear to have potentially demonstrated a novel and eco-friendly synthesis method for…” It’s easy to fall back to a casual fiction-reading mentality. Try to stay in a high-energy search mode and you’ll be effectively done in half the time.

Later on I’ll reference our journal article notes template , which I used to synthesize notes for my literature review. Go ahead now and open it in Google Drive where you can download and edit it for free. We just ask that you drop your email so that we can stay in touch on new helpful resources and awesome new tools for scientists.

How do you read scientific papers effectively?

Below are my tips for how to read scientific papers most effectively. I used this methodology to write a critical literature review in a brand new field in about 4 months, citing over 150 papers. My first-author paper now has nearly 1000 citations in only six years since publication, making it my advisor’s most highly-cited paper in his 30-year career! You can do this. Just keep reading: 

1. Briefly read the Abstract

The abstract is your most condensed look at the paper. Read it quickly and highlight any claims or phrases that you want more details on. I like to copy the entire abstract text or screenshot into the journal article notes template for later reference. It also helps to copy the keyword text into the template or your citation manager tags so you can search for them later. Things to read for:

• Is the research applicable to what you need right now?
• Are the findings significant enough to help you with your goal?
• What is the most interesting aspect of this paper?

2. Carefully read the Conclusion

Reading the conclusion gives you an instant look at the quality of the paper. Do the authors seem to make claims bigger than appropriate for the scope of the paper? Do they use hyperbole to inflate the importance of the work? Are the results not clearly stated? These could be red flags identifying a poor quality paper. 

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

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

3. Identify the most important figures and dig through the Results & Discussion for more detail

If you’re still interested after the first two steps, start digging into the results and discussion for more details. Before making the deep dive, write down the specific questions you need to answer in your notes section. Search the paper for those answers, writing down new questions as they come to mind. 

One favorite strategy here is to look at each figure, read the caption and then dig through the text for supporting information (use Ctrl+F for “Fig. 3”, for example). The figures should tell the story as well as (and more quickly than) the text. 

Copy and paste specific claims you may want to quote or paraphrase later. Isolate what the authors think they did from your own commentary and summarize it in your own words.

4. Search the Methods section to answer questions if necessary

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 just 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 you want to be critical of the way they conducted their experiments. 
• You may want to replicate their experiment in your own work.

Make sure to note anything unique, odd, or unexpected in their methods. Maybe it will lead to a breakthrough in your own work or help explain a surprise result!

5. Summarize your thoughts and critiques

Re-read your notes so far to check for any missed questions. Go back and extract sentences or paragraphs of the paper that you want to challenge so you can quickly find them verbatim. Write your own thoughts and questions around those topics so you can copy them into your literature review later. Ideas for notes:

• What would you have done differently in the experiment or data analysis?
• Is there an obvious gap or follow-up experiment?
• Does this paper uniquely contribute to the field’s body of knowledge? What is its contribution?

6. Copy important figures into your notes

This is the most important step but many don’t do this. Figures are the anchors of every good journal article and the authors who spend the most time making excellent figures also will get cited the most often in review papers. This leads to even more citations from experimental articles. My secret for getting the most citations of my review paper was to spend more time than typical finding or creating the best possible figures for explaining the content. You can do this too, it just takes time!

The best reference manager Zotero doesn’t have an “add image” button in the “Notes” section but you can actually screenshot the image with the Snipping Tool then Ctrl+v paste it into the notes section! Now when you come back to the paper you’ll get an instant look at the most significant figures. If you know you want to use one of these figures in your review, add a tag to the paper like “Figure Rev. Paper 1”.

7. 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 very specific research topic. In Zotero, you can even tag the paper as “related” to the current paper for quick access later.  

8. Clean up the metadata if you plan on citing this paper later

If there’s a chance you’ll cite this paper later, make sure to clean up the metadata so your word processor citation plugin creates a clean reference section. Author initials may be backward, special characters in the title may be corrupted, the year or issue of the journal could be missing or the “type” of citation could be wrong (listed as a book instead of journal article) which would change the format.

Fully tag the paper using whatever system you’ve come up with. Keywords, chemicals, characterization methods or annotation tags like “Best” can all be useful. One other trick I used was to come up with an acronym for the paper I was about to write - “NMOBH” for example - and use that as a tag in any paper that I planned to cite later.

Being methodical in your post-read organization will save you many hours and endless frustration later on. Follow these tips on how to organize your research papers and you’ll be a pro in no time. You’re almost done, but don’t skip this part!

9. Take a break, then repeat!

This methodology makes it a little easier to get through a paper quickly once you get some practice at it. But what about 10 papers? 100?! You can’t do all of your reading in a week. I set a habit for myself over the summer to read two papers a day for 2 months. If I missed a day, I made it up the next day. This keeps you fresh for each paper and less likely to miss important points because you’re falling asleep!

Get comfortable. I preferred to kick back on a couch or outside in a chair using my laptop in tablet mode so I had a long vertical screen and a stylus to highlight or circle things. Reading 2-column scientific articles on a 13 inch 16:9 laptop screen at a desk for hours on end is a special kind of torture that I just couldn’t endure. Change scenery often, try different beverages, take breaks, and move around!

Here are some bonus tips for breaking the monotony between papers:

• Pick your top few most controversial, confusing, or interesting papers and ask a colleague or advisor for their thoughts. Bring them some coffee to discuss it with you for another perspective. 
• Email the authors to ask a question or thank them for their contribution. This is a great way to make a connection. Don’t ask for too much on the first email or they may not respond - they are busy!  
• Reward yourself for every paper read. Maybe a small snack or a short walk around the block. Physically cross this paper off your to-do list so you internalize the good feeling of the accomplishment!

How do you choose which papers to read next?

So you’re downloading 15 new papers for every 1 paper you read? This could get out of control quickly! How do you keep up? Here are some tips for prioritization:

Google Scholar is an excellent tool for tracking citation trees and metrics that show the “importance” of each paper. Library portals or the journal websites can also be good for this.

• If you’re starting a search on a new topic, begin with a relevant review paper if one exists. Beware of reading too many review papers in a row! You’ll end up with an intimidating pile of citations to track down and it will be difficult to know where to start after a few-day break. 
• Prioritize experimental papers with high citation numbers, in journals with high impact factors and by authors with a high h-index (30+) published within the last 5 years. These papers will set the bar for every paper you read after. You can check the journal’s rank in your field by using Scimago . 
• Identify the most prominent authors in this field and find their most recent papers that may not have many citations (yet). This indicates where the field is heading and what the top experts are prioritizing. 
• After you’ve covered a lot of ground above, start taking more chances on less-established authors who may be taking new approaches or exploring new topics. By now you’ll be well-equipped to identify deficiencies in methods, hyperbolic claims, and arguments that are not well-supported by data. 

Final takeaways for how to read 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 to create your own summary figures to supercharge your chances of citation.
• Clean up the metadata and use a good tagging system to save time later. 
• Set your daily goal, reward yourself for finishing, and take breaks to avoid burnout!

Lastly, remember that this blog is sponsored by BioBox Analytics ! BioBox is a data analytics platform designed for scientists and clinicians working with next-generation-sequencing data. Design and run bioinformatic pipelines on demand, generate publication-ready plots, and discover insights using popular public databases. Get on the waitlist and be the first to access a free account at biobox.io !

What sections of a research paper should you read first?

The Abstract and Conclusion sections of a research paper give you a quick sense if you should continue spending time on the paper. Assess the quality of the research and whether the results are significant to your goals. If so, move to the most important Figures and find additional details in the Results and Discussion when necessary. 

What is the fastest way to read a research article?

Skim the Abstract and highlight anything of interest. Skip to the Conclusions and do the same. Write questions that pop up. Examine each Figure and find the in-line reference text for further details if needed for understanding. Then search the Results and Discussion for answers to your pre-written questions.  

What is the best citation manager software to use for my scientific papers?

I used Mendeley through grad school but recently Zotero seems to be more popular. Both are free and have all the features you need! EndNote is excellent but expensive, and if you lose your institutional license you’ll have a hard time transferring to one of the free offerings. Zotero is your best bet for long-term organizational success!

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How to Read Research Papers: A Cheat Sheet for Graduate Students

• August 4, 2022
• PRODUCTIVITY

It is crucial to stay on top of the scientific literature in your field of interest. This will help you shape and guide your experimental plans and keep you informed about what your competitors are working on.

To get the most out of your literature reading time, you need to learn how to read scientific papers efficiently. The problem is that we simply don’t have enough time to read new scientific papers in our results-driven world. 

It takes a great deal of time for researchers to learn how to read research papers. Unfortunately, this skill is rarely taught.

I wasted a lot of time reading unnecessary papers in the past since I didn’t have an appropriate workflow to follow. In particular, I needed a way to determine if a paper would interest me before I read it from start to finish.

So, what’s the solution?

This is where I came across the Three-pass method for reading research papers. 

Here’s what I’ve learned from using the three pass methods and what tweaks I’ve made to my workflow to make it more personalized.

Build time into your schedule 

Before you read anything, you should set aside a set amount of time to read research papers. It will be very hard to read research papers if you do not have a schedule because you will only try to read them for a week or two, and then you will feel frustrated. An organized schedule reduces procrastination significantly.

 For example, I take 30-40 minutes each weekday morning to read a research paper I come across.

After you have determined a time “only” to read research papers, you have to have a proper workflow.

Develop a workflow

For example, I follow a customized version of the popular workflow, the “Three-pass method”. 

When you are beginning, you may follow the method exactly as described, but as you get more experienced, you can make some changes down the road.

Why you shouldn’t read the entire paper at once?

Oftentimes, the papers you think are so important and that you should read every single word are actually worth only 10 minutes of your time.

Unlike reading an article about science in a blog or newspaper, reading research papers is an entirely different experience. In addition to reading the sections in a different order, you must take notes, read them several times, and probably look up other papers for details. 

It may take you a long time to read one paper at first. But that’s okay because you are investing yourself in the process.

However, you’re wasting your time if you don’t have a proper workflow. 

Oftentimes, reading a whole paper might not be necessary to get the specific information you need.

The Three-pass concept

The key idea is to read the paper in up to three passes rather than starting at the beginning and plowing through it. With each pass, you accomplish specific goals and build upon the previous one.

The first pass gives you a general idea of the paper. A second pass will allow you to understand the content of the paper, but not its details. A third pass helps you understand the paper more deeply.

The first pass (Maximum: 10 minutes)

The paper is scanned quickly in the first pass to get an overview. Also, you can decide if any more passes are needed. It should take about five to ten minutes to complete this pass.

Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction

You should be able to tell from the title what the paper is about. In addition, it is a good idea to look at the authors and their affiliations, which may be valuable for various reasons, such as future reference, employment, guidance, and determining the reliability of the research.

The abstract should provide a high-level overview of the paper. You may ask, What are the main goals of the author(s) and what are the high-level results? There are usually some clues in the abstract about the paper’s purpose. You can think of the abstract as a marketing piece.

As you read the introduction, make sure you only focus on the topic sentences, and you can loosely focus on the other content.

What is a topic sentence?

Topic sentences introduce a paragraph by introducing the one topic that will be the focus of that paragraph. 

The structure of a paragraph should match the organization of a paper. At the paragraph level, the topic sentence gives the paper’s main idea, just as the thesis statement does at the essay level. After that, the rest of the paragraph supports the topic.

In the beginning, I read the whole paragraph, and it took me more than 30 minutes to complete the first pass. By identifying topic sentences, I have revolutionized my reading game, as I am now only reading the summary of the paragraph, saving me a lot of time during the second and third passes.

Read the section and sub-section headings, but ignore everything else 

Regarding methods and discussions, do not attempt to read even topic sentences because you are trying to decide whether this article is useful to you.

Reading the headings and subheadings is the best practice. It allows you to get a feel for the paper without taking up a lot of time.

Read the conclusions

It is standard for good writers to present the foundations of their experiment at the beginning and summarize their findings at the end of their paper.

Therefore, you are well prepared to read and understand the conclusion after reading the abstract and introduction.

Many people overlook the importance of the first pass. In adopting the three-pass method into my workflow, I realized that many papers that I thought had high relevance did not require me to spend more time reading. 

Therefore, after the first pass, I can decide not to read it further, saving me a lot of time.

Glance over the references

You can mentally check off the ones you’ve already read.

As you read through the references, you will better understand what has been studied previously in the field of research.

First pass objectives

At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer these questions: 

• What is the  category  of this paper? Is it an analytical paper? Is it only an “introductory” paper? (if this is the case, probably, you might not want to read further, but it depends on the information you are after)or is it an argumentative research paper?
• Does the  context  of the paper serve the purpose for what you are looking for? If not, this paper might not be worth passing on to the second stage of this method.
• Does the basic logic of the paper seem to be valid? How do you comment on the  correctness  of the paper?
• What is the main  output  of the paper, or is there output at all?
• Is the paper well written? How do you comment on the  clarity  of the paper?

After the first pass, you should have a good idea whether you want to continue reading the research paper.

Maybe the paper doesn’t interest you, you don’t understand the area enough, or the authors make an incorrect assumption. 

In the first pass, you should be able to identify papers that are not related to your area of research but may be useful someday. 

You can store your paper with relevant tags in your reference manager, as discussed in the previous blog post in the  Bulletproof Literature Management System  series.

This is the third post of the four-part blog series:  The Bulletproof Literature Management System . Follow the links below to read the other posts in the series:

• How to How to find Research Papers
• How to Manage Research Papers
• How to Read Research Papers (You are here)
• How to Organize Research Papers

The second pass (Maximum: 60 minutes)

You are now ready to make a second pass through the paper if you decide it is worth reading more.

You should now begin taking some high-level notes because there will be words and ideas that are unfamiliar to you. 

Most reference managers come with an in-built PDF reader. In this case, taking notes and highlighting notes in the built-in pdf reader is the best practice. This method will prevent you from losing your notes and allow you to revise them easily.

Don’t be discouraged by everything that does not make sense. You can just mark it and move on. It is recommended that you only spend about an hour working on the paper in the second pass. 

In the second pass:

• Start with the abstract, skim through the introduction, and give the methods section a thorough look. 
• Make sure you pay close attention to the figures, diagrams, and other illustrations on the paper. By just looking at the captions of the figures and tables in a well-written paper, you can grasp 90 percent of the information. 
• It is important to pay attention to the overall methodology . There is a lot of detail in the methods section. At this point, you do not need to examine every part. 
• Read the results and discussion sections to better understand the key findings.
• Make sure you mark the relevant references in the paper so you can find them later.

Objectives of the second pass

You should be able to understand the paper’s content. Sometimes, it may be okay if you cannot comprehend some details. However, you should now be able to see the main idea of the paper. Otherwise, it might be better to rest and go through the second pass without entering the third. 

This is a good time to summarize the paper. During your reading, make sure to make notes.

After the second pass, you can: 

• Return to the paper later(If you did not understand the basic idea of the paper)
• Move onto the thirst pass.

The third pass (Maximum: four hours)

You should go to the third stage (the third pass) for a complete understanding of the paper. It may take you a few hours this time to read the paper. However, you may want to avoid reading a single paper for longer than four hours, even at the third pass.

A great deal of attention to detail is required for this pass. Every statement should be challenged, and every assumption should be identified.

By the third pass, you will be able to summarize the paper so that not only do you understand the content, but you can also comment on limitations and potential future developments.

Color coding when reading research papers

Highlighting is one way I help myself learn the material when I read research papers. It is especially helpful to highlight an article when you return to it later. 

Therefore, I use different colors for different segments. To manage my references, I use Zotero. There is an inbuilt PDF reader in Zotero. I use the highlighting colors offered by this software. The most important thing is the concept or phrase I want to color code, not the color itself.

Here is my color coding system.

• Problem statement: Violet
• Questions to ask: Red (I highlight in red where I want additional questions to be asked or if I am unfamiliar with the concept)
• Conclusions: Green (in the discussion section, authors draw conclusions based on their data. I prefer to highlight these in the discussion section rather than in the conclusion section since I can easily locate the evidence there)
• Keywords: Blue
• General highlights and notes: Yellow

Minimize distractions

Even though I’m not a morning person, I forced myself to read papers in the morning just to get rid of distractions. In order to follow through with this process (at least when you are starting out), you must have minimum to no distractions because research papers contain a great deal of highly packed information.

It doesn’t mean you can’t have fun doing it, though. Make a cup of coffee and enjoy reading!

Images courtesy : Online working vector created by storyset – www.freepik.com

Aruna Kumarasiri

Founder at Proactive Grad, Materials Engineer, Researcher, and turned author. In 2019, he started his professional carrier as a materials engineer with the continuation of his research studies. His exposure to both academic and industrial worlds has provided many opportunities for him to give back to young professionals.

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How to Read a Scientific Paper

We show you how to read a scientific paper efficiently to make the most of your reading time.

Published September 16, 2022

I am a PhD qualified research professional with a strong background in Translational Medicine and Biomedical research. This has involved carrying out research into a variety of diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory lung disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease and drug allergy/hypersensitivity. I gained experience in laboratory and research management and now work in medical education regulation.

To read a scientific paper effectively, you should focus on the results and ensure that you draw your own conclusions from the data and assess whether this agrees with the authors’ conclusions. You should also check that the methods are appropriate and make sense. Spend time attending journal clubs and reading online peer reviews of articles to help hone your critical analysis skills and make reading papers easier and quicker.

Keeping up with the scientific literature in your field of interest is incredibly important. It keeps you informed about what is happening in your field and helps shape and guide your experimental plans. But do you really know how to read a scientific paper, and can you do it effectively and efficiently?

Let’s face it, in our results-driven world, reading new scientific papers often falls by the wayside because we just don’t have the time! And when you do find some reading time, it’s tempting not to read the entire article and just focus on the abstract and conclusions sections.

But reading a scientific paper properly doesn’t need to take hours of your time. We’ll show you how to read a scientific paper effectively, what you can and can’t skim, and give you a checklist of key points to look for when reading a paper to make sure you get the most out of your time.

Step 1: Read the Title and Abstract

The title and abstract will give you an overview of the paper’s key points. Most importantly, it will indicate if you should continue and read the rest of the paper. The abstract is often able to view before purchasing or downloading an article, so it can save time and money to read this before committing to the full paper.

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Checklist: What to Look for in the Abstract

• The type of journal article. Was it a systematic review? Clinical trial? Meta-analysis?
• The aim. What were they trying to do?
• The experimental setup. Was it in vivo or in vitro, or in silico?
• The key results. What did they find?
• The author’s conclusions. What does it mean? How does it impact the wider field?

Step 2: Skip the Introduction

The introduction is mostly background, and if you are already familiar with the literature, you can scan through or skip this as you probably know it all anyway. You can always return to the introduction if you have time after reading the meatier parts of the paper.

Checklist: What to Look for in the Introduction

• Is the cited literature up to date?
• Do the authors cite only review articles or primary research articles?
• Do they miss key papers?

Step 3: Scan the Methods

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

You should aim to match the methods with the results to understand what has been done. This should be done when reviewing the figures rather than reading the methods section in isolation.

A Note about qPCR Data

If the data is qPCR, take the time to look even more carefully at the methods. According to the MIQE guidelines , the authors need to explain the nucleic acid purification method, yields, and purities, which kits they used, how they determined the efficiency of their assays, and how many replicates they did. There are a lot of factors that can influence qPCR data, and if the paper is leaving out some of the information, you can’t make accurate conclusions from the data.

Checklist: What to Look for in the Methods Section

• Are the controls described? Are they appropriate?
• Are the methods the right choice for the aims of the experiment?
• Did they modify commercial kits, and if so, do they explain how?
• Do they cite previous work to explain methods? If so, access and read the original article to ensure what has been done.
• Ensure adherence to relevant guidelines, e.g., MIQE guidelines for qPCR data.

Step 4: Focus on the Figures

If you want to read a scientific paper effectively, 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 paper has no purpose.

How you “read” the results is important 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 the change really 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 editorial and peer review, but peer review can be a flawed process !

Don’t forget any supplementary figures and tables. Just because they are supplementary doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Some of the most important (but not exciting) results are often found here.

We’re not advocating 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” really is true. Your job is to make sure they match what the author is saying.

And as we mentioned above, read the methods alongside the results and match the method to each figure and table, so you are sure what was done.

A Note About Figure Manipulation

Unfortunately, figure manipulation can be a problem in scientific articles, and while the peer-review process should detect instances of inappropriate manipulation, sometimes things are missed.

And what do we mean about inappropriate manipulation? Not all figure and image manipulation is wrong. Sometimes a western blot needs more brightness or contrast to see the results clearly. This is fine if it is applied to the whole image, but not if it is selectively applied to particular areas. Sometimes there is real intent to deceive, with cases of images swapped, cropped, touched up, or repeated. 

Graphs are particularly susceptible to image manipulation, with alterations to graphs changing how the data appears and a reader’s interpretation of a graph. Not starting the axis at 0 can make small differences appear bigger, or vice versa if a scale is too large on the axis. So make sure you pay careful attention to graphs and check the axes (yes, that’s the plural of axis) are appropriate (Figure 1). You should also check if graphs have error bars, and if so, what are they, and is that appropriate?

Statistics can scare many biologists, but it’s important to look at the statistical test and determine if the method is appropriate for the data. Also, be wary of blindly following p-values . You may find situations when an author says something is significant because the statistical test shows a significant p-value, but you can see from the data that it doesn’t look significant. Statistics are not infallible and can be fairly easily manipulated .

Checklist: What to Look for When Reviewing Results

• Are there appropriate scales on graphs?
• Do they use valid statistical analysis? Are results really significant?
• Have they used sufficient n numbers?
• Are the controls appropriate? Should additional controls have been used?
• Is the methodology clear and appropriate?
• Have any figures been inappropriately manipulated?
• Check the supplementary results and methods.

Step 5: Tackle the discussion

The discussion is a great place to determine if you’ve understood the results and the overall message of the paper. It is worth spending more time on the discussion than the introduction as it molds the paper’s results into a story and helps you visualize where they fit in with the overall picture. You should again be wary of authors overinflating their work’s importance and use your judgment to determine if their assertions about what they’ve shown match yours.

One good way to summarize the results of a paper and show how they fit with the wider literature is to sketch out the overall conclusions and how it fits with the current landscape. For example, if the article talks about a specific signaling pathway step, sketch out the pathway with the findings from the paper included. This can help to see the bigger picture, highlight, ensure you understand the impact of the paper, and highlight any unanswered questions.

Test Yourself

A useful exercise when learning how to read a scientific paper (when you have the time!) is to black out the abstract, read the paper and then write an abstract. Then compare the paper’s abstract to the one you wrote. This will demonstrate whether or not you are picking up the paper’s most important point and take-home message.

Checklist: What to Look For in the Discussion Section

• Do you agree with the author’s interpretation of their results?
• Do the results fit with the wider literature?
• Are the authors being objective?
• Do the authors comment on relevant literature and discuss discrepancies between their data and the wider literature?
• Are there any unanswered questions?

Step 6: File it Away

Spending a little time filing your read papers away now can save you A LOT of time in the future (e.g., when writing your own papers or thesis). Use a reference management system and ensure that the entry includes:

• the full and correct citation;
• a very brief summary of the article’s key methods and results;
• any comments or concerns you have;
• any appropriate tags.

Ways to Sharpen Your Critical Analysis Skills

While this article should get you off to a good start, like any muscle, your critical analysis skills need regular workouts to get bigger and better. But how can you hone these skills?

Attend Journal Clubs

Your critical thinking skills benefit dramatically from outside input. This is why journal clubs are so valuable. If your department runs a regular journal club, make sure you attend. If they don’t, set one up. Hearing the views of others can help hone your own critical thinking and allow you to see things from other perspectives. For help and advice on preparing and presenting a journal club session, read our ultimate guide to journal clubs .

Read Online Reviews

Whether in the comments section of the article published online, on a preprint server, or on sites such as PubPeer and Retraction Watch , spend time digesting the views of others. But make sure you apply the same critical analysis skill to these comments and reviews.

These sites can be a useful tool to highlight errors or manipulation you may have missed, but taking these reviews and comments at face value is just as problematic as taking the author’s conclusions as truth. What biases might these reviews have that affect their view? Do you agree with what they say and why?

Final Thoughts on How to Read A Scientific Paper

Reading a scientific paper requires a methodical approach and a critical (but not negative) mindset to ensure that you fully understand what the paper shows. 

Reading a paper can seem daunting, and it can be time-consuming if you go in unprepared. However, the process is quicker and smoother once you know how to approach a paper, including what you can and can’t skim. If you don’t have enough time, you can still read a paper effectively without reading the entire paper. Figure 2 highlights what sections can be skimmed and which sections need more of your attention.

Another tip for being more productive (and it’s better for the environment) is to read your papers on-screen . It’ll save time scrambling through a stack of papers and manually filing them away.

Do you have any tips on how to read a scientific paper? Let us know in the comments below.

Want an on-hand checklist to help you analyze papers efficiently despite being busy with research? Download our free article summary and checklist template.

For more tips on keeping track of the scientific literature, head to the Bitesize Bio Managing the Scientific Literature Hub .

Originally published November 20, 2013. Updated and revised September 2022.

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Reading Research Papers: Strategies to do it Effectively

Table of Contents

Reading research literature can be challenging for students or early career researchers

In academia, you are often expected to read research papers quickly and carefully, either as part of your research or to review them. In fact, a study finds that researchers are expected to spend 23% of their total work time reading research publications. 1  In 2012, scientists in the US read, on average, 22 scholarly articles per month (or 264 per year). 2

The academic language used in research papers is concise, precise, and authoritative, and a readers’ familiarity with the scientific field often shapes their perceptions and understanding of the literature. Researchers, especially students, may need help learning academic vocabulary and processing academic language in their journey toward becoming independent learners of science. A study on research reading habits reported that the vast majority of students are researchers engaging with primary literature from at least one source. 3  While intrinsically motivated senior researchers quickly read multiple research papers per day, sophomores rarely engage in reading scientific journals, probably due to the difficulty in understanding. And it’s not just students or early career researchers; even experienced researchers exploring interdisciplinary literature may find reading and understanding unfamiliar scientific language challenging. A lack of prior knowledge, and possibly low self-confidence, highlights a need for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to develop research paper reading habits and strategies to efficiently process scientific literature.

Researchers at different career stages read papers for various purposes

Students and researchers agree that knowing how to read a research paper effectively is important for scientific development. However, how they engage with scientific literature and their reading strategies differ depending on their position. The transition from learner to proficient reader spans multiple career stages over an extended period. Undergraduates read scientific works as part of their assignment or to broaden their knowledge and prioritize reading the abstract and discussion sections. They are more likely to take author statements in the discussion section at face value than interpret primary results. This is because they often lack critical reading abilities, undervaluing the importance of the results section or critical data interpretation. In contrast, experienced researchers are more confident in their reading abilities. Their research paper reading strategy involves understanding the research methods and critically evaluating the data. On the other hand, undergraduates and early career researchers find the method and result sections the most challenging. PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers’ engagement with the scientific text lies between these two groups. Thus, students’ research paper reading strategy is usually a narrative-centric approach, drawing their understanding from the author’s descriptions. In contrast, experienced researchers employ data-centric strategies, critically evaluating the data provided. 4

Strategies for reading academic articles

  Once a student learns how to read scientific papers effectively, they can grow the spirit of scientific inquiry. For this, they need to read critically, evaluating the meaning, aim, and content of a work. There are strategies to help inexperienced readers develop the critical reading and thinking skills required for efficiently reading research papers.

One great approach is the Watson Glaser RED model of critical thinking based on  R ecognizing assumptions,  E valuating arguments, and  D rawing inferences, interpretations, and deductions. 5  Another example is the CREATE method, which structures reading as  C onsider,  R ead,  E lucidate the hypothesis,  A nalyze and interpret data, and  T hink of the next  E xperiment. 3  This method adopts a reading strategy used by experienced researchers to identify gaps in the existing literature and develop new ideas or concepts for future research.

Selective approach to scientific reading: How to read a research paper effectively

The development of reading skills is influenced by a change from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation for reading, which, in turn, is influenced by the increased familiarity with scientific work, terminology, and prior knowledge. The following tips can help students and early career researchers hone research paper reading skills exhibited by more experienced researchers.

• Find something that encourages or holds your interests, even if it bothers or confuses you, and use this to drive your analysis.
• Underline words, sentences, and passages that address your specific purpose.
• Use specific sections to determine if the entire paper is worth reading.
• Start with the abstract, then move on to figures, introduction, and discussions. Focusing on these key sections can help you read a research paper quickly.
• A good research paper reading strategy involves reading the text several times, taking notes, asking questions, and underlining key information.
• Respond critically 6  using a research paper reading strategy, including applying your personal experiences and existing knowledge to the reading process.
• Interpret and reflect upon what you read by writing about it and discussing it with others. Research articles are always open to questioning and are differently interpreted based on researcher ideology.
• A good research paper reading habit involves seeking out other texts and sources, which would give the research question a global perspective, and people who can help you in your research and learning.

Those were some tips for reading academic articles in an efficient manner. Following these steps should guide you in developing a systemic strategy for reading research papers and help you progress in your research career.

• Phillips, L. M., & Norris, S. P. Bridging the gap between the language of science and the language of school science through the use of adapted primary literature.  Res Sci Educ.  39 , 313-319 (2009)
• Van Noorden, R. Scientists may be reaching a peak in reading habits.  Nature , 15-17 (2014).
• Hubbard, K. E., & Dunbar, S. D. Perceptions of scientific research literature and strategies for reading papers depend on academic career stage.  PloS One 12 , e0189753 (2017).
• Hubbard, K. E., Dunbar, S. D., Peasland, E. L., Poon, J., & Solly, J. E. How do readers at different career stages approach reading a scientific research paper? A case study in the biological sciences.  Int J Sci Educ B , 1-17 (2022).
• Wulandari, R., & Hindrayani, A. Measuring Critical Thinking Skills with the RED Model. In  J Phys  1808 , 012030 (IOP Publishing, 2021).
• Van, L. H., Li, C. S., & Wan, R. Critical reading in higher education: A systematic review.  Think Skills Create.   44  (2022).

R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.  

Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !  

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How to Read Research Articles Fast

• By Kevin Jubbal, M.D.
• September 23, 2021
• Accompanying Video , Medical Student , Pre-med
• Efficiency , Research

If you’re in a STEM field, chances are you’ll need to read primary literature—also known as research articles. And unlike books, effectively and efficiently reading a research paper requires a nuanced and systematic approach. In this post, I share the strategies I learned for how to read research articles fast.

When I first started reading research papers as a neuroscience major in college, it took considerable time and effort to make sense of it all. Since then, I’ve read through thousands of papers, published dozens of my own in peer reviewed journals , and can now crank through them with ease. Here’s the system I use.

1 | Determine the Purpose of Reading

Depending on the specific goal or purpose you have in reading a research paper, your approach may differ considerably. Keep that in mind as we cover the following sections.

If you’re reading a paper as a requirement for a class, like I initially had to for my neuroscience courses, you will be focusing on comprehension rather than determining utility. You’ll need to know the study hypothesis, the methods they used, the findings, and the limitations of their conclusions.

|| How to Improve Reading Comprehension — 10 Strategies ||

As you proceed with your medical training, you will likely write many of your own research articles . After all, doing so is one of the most powerful ways to stand out and strengthen your medical school or residency application.

In these instances, you are primarily referencing other research papers, and it becomes more important to quickly determine the relevance and value of the paper prior to committing to a more in-depth reading and analysis. You can also take advantage of the reference list at the end of a paper to determine which other papers are relevant to your own writing.

Now that you’ve identified your primary goal, it’s time to begin reading.

2 | Don’t Read in Order

Not every section of a research article is created equal. Unlike reading a traditional book, I don’t advise you to read a research paper in the order it’s laid out.

First, read the title and the abstract to get an overview of the paper. If you come across a word or acronym you don’t understand, stop and look it up. It’s not like a novel where you can infer the meaning and likely not see the word again. The language in research articles is generally pretty straightforward, and any terms you don’t understand are often scientific terms, which are critical to your understanding of the paper and its findings.

Next, dive into the conclusion. Again, this is a research paper, not a novel, so you’re not running into any spoilers. The conclusion effectively summarizes the most pertinent findings.

Now that you have a better idea of what the paper is about, spend as much time as you desire going over the figures, methods, results, and discussion sections. The discussion section will likely be the highest yield portion that requires the most amount of time, but to truly understand the paper, you must also go over the methods and results.

3 | Understanding Significance and Limitations

A major element to reading papers is understanding the limitations of the study, which then allows you to more accurately determine its significance.

The biggest and most widespread mistake is jumping to the conclusion and not understanding the limitations and generalizability of a study. Look at any media article summarizing “new, groundbreaking research” and you’ll see what I mean. Towards the end of the discussion section in many papers, you’ll find the author’s own interpretation of the limitations of their study. But there are always many more limitations beyond what they mention.

There are entire books dedicated to the nuances of statistics and extrapolating conclusions from research. Most people know about randomization, placebo-controlled, and single or double blinded studies, but that being said, there is still so much more nuance to it. Here are a few examples:

• Study design: is the study retrospective (looking back historically) or prospective (starting with individuals that are followed over time?) Is it case-control, cohort, or cross-sectional?
• What are the endpoints used? If the study draws conclusions about heart disease and health but only uses HDL as a surrogate marker, understand the surrogate is just that—an imperfect proxy.
• Biases. There are too many to cover, but selection , recall , sampling , confounding , procedure , lead time , and the Hawthorne effect are all biases you should familiarize yourself with.
• Basic statistical analyses: sensitivity versus specificity, normal and skewed distributions, positive and negative predictive values, etc.

4 | Organize Your Notes and Thoughts

Over time, you’ll be reading dozens or even hundreds of research papers, and it becomes a challenge to keep everything straight. Again, depending on the purpose, there are a few options to consider.

If you’re reading the article as a class assignment, I recommend you print out the paper, highlight, and annotate in the margins as needed. More recently, I have done this on an iPad with Apple pencil .

If, on the other hand, you’re reading in order to write your own paper, use a citation manager right from the beginning. EndNote is often referenced as the gold standard, but it’s pretty expensive. Mendeley is a free and quite sufficient alternative.

As soon as you begin reading papers, import them into your citation manager. In a separate Word document, begin jotting down the key points of the paper that are relevant to your own project. This document of notes will serve as the main resource from which you will begin writing your own paper. Trust me—it’s much better this way. Otherwise, you’ll spend considerable time and effort hunting for facts from the dozens of PDFs you’ve read.

5 | Proficiency in Research is a Long-Term Game

Lastly, understand that a big part of reading quickly, no matter the subject matter, is your familiarity with the subject. I started off reading neuroscience papers slowly, but as my expertise in the area grew, I was able to breeze through them. I knew the anatomy and terminology like the back of my hand, and coming across terms like CA1 vs. CA2 neurons of the hippocampus no longer required additional processing.

Similarly, when I first started diving into plastic surgery research, I didn’t know all of the nuances of hand anatomy or the principles of aesthetic surgery . But as I grew to understand more, reading and understanding the literature became second nature, and once again I was able to breeze through them.

It’s important to keep this in mind to make sure you don’t get discouraged. If you consistently apply yourself, read research articles, and follow the steps I’ve outlined, you’ll be tackling papers with ease in no time.

Like it or not, being proficient in research is an essential skill if you want to go to a top medical school or residency . There’s a science—but also an art—to bolstering a solid research CV and securing impressive letters of recommendation from your PI. You can check out my own personal list of research articles, abstracts, and presentations on my personal website at kevinjubbal.com .

Being proficient in research was a huge part of my own success getting into a top medical school and a highly competitive residency. It’s a challenging ordeal, and very few people know how to address this for maximum effectiveness. Through experimentation and uncommon techniques, I was able to create the systems that generated radically high publication rates in record time. Our Med School Insiders advisors can teach you the same systems and help you highlight your own research projects to put your work in the best possible light.

Kevin Jubbal, M.D.

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#GradHacks: A guide to reading research papers

Reading scientific research papers can be a tricky task. It is important to ensure you not only understand the research, but to read it critically and evaluate its reliability. Here is some advice to help you efficiently read, understand and critically evaluate scientific research articles.

The Sections

Most research papers follow a similar structure and contain the following sections; abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion. Some articles will contain all of these sections and others will contain some of them.

This provides a high-level summary of what was researched and what the findings were.

Introduction

The introduction gives context to the research by giving information about the field and previous related research that led to this paper. It explains the purpose of the research, what is already known about the topic, the hypotheses that are being tested and how the study will help improve current understanding of the topic. It often includes brief descriptions of key phrases or concepts. Sometimes the introduction includes information about how the research will improve current understanding. However, this is often saved for the discussion and/or conclusion.

Explains how the data was collected and analysed, including how the experiments were set up and what sample, equipment and techniques were used. The statistical techniques are also explained here.

Presents the findings of the research, without bias or interpretation.

The discussion summarises the results. Here, the results are interpreted and their significance is explained. It refers back to the introduction and explains how the study answered the research question(s).

Summarises the key points and findings of the research, the significance of the findings to the field and what the authors believe should be researched in the future based on their findings.

Top tips for reading a research paper

When reading scientific research papers it is important to consider the following

Pay attention to the title

The title should tell you the main purpose of the paper. It is also good to look at the authors and their affiliations, which could be important for various reasons, including: for future reference, future employment, for guidance and for checking if the research is reliable.

Read critically

When reading a research article, don’t assume that the authors are correct. Instead, keep asking questions along the way, such as ‘is this the right way to answer this question?’, ‘did they do the right statistical analysis?’ and ‘why did they come to that conclusion?’. Taking sample size and statistical significance into consideration is important too.

Make notes as you go

Make notes in whatever way suits you best. It can be helpful to print the paper and make notes on it. Alternatively, a greener option is to make notes digitally.

Read it multiple times

Research papers contain so much information that it will require you to read it many times before you can fully understand it. Get an understanding of the general purpose of the research and the overall results first, then delve into the finer details once you already have a basic understanding.

Read references

Reading some of the references will help you gain background knowledge about the field of research and an understanding of what has been investigated previously.

Discuss the paper with someone else

Discussing the paper with someone from your lab or a different lab will show how much you understood and whether you could get more information from it if you read it again. It also helps to reinforce your memory and consolidate what you have learnt.

Steps for reading a research paper

Following the steps below will help you get the most from reading the paper.

Check the publish date

Knowing when the research was published helps you have an understanding of whether these are the most recent findings and how likely it is that further studies have taken place since.

Skim all of the sections of the paper

Make notes as you do this and look up the meanings of any words you aren’t sure of. A handy tip is to use ctrl F on the keyboard to search for the first time an acronym is mentioned if you come across it later on in a paper, as this is where it will be defined.

Read the introduction

Read this in detail to gain some background information on the topic, including what researchers have previously done in this area and why the researchers decided to do this study. Spend longer on this if you are unfamiliar with the topic.

Also, read some of the references included in the introduction if you want to know more.

Identify how this paper fits in with the field

What’s the big question that the field is trying to solve? This will help you to understand the impact of the work and why it was done.

Read the discussion

This section will give you an understanding of the findings of the paper. You may find it helpful to write notes on the main findings and write down any questions you have, so you can find out the answers when you read the rest of the paper.

Read the abstract

To get an overview of the paper. The abstract usually summarises the overall reasons for conducting the study, how the topic was investigated, major findings and a summary of the interpretations/conclusion of these findings. This is a good way to get a summary of the study before reading about it in more detail.

Look through the results and methods sections

The methods section can often be the most technical part of the paper. You will likely need to go over this section multiple times to be able to fully get to grips with the procedures and the results.

It is important to take into consideration the following factors when reading the results and methods sections:

• Sample size
• Statistical significance

Again, look up any terms you don’t understand and make a note of them.

Write a succinct summary of the research

To check your understanding, write a short summary of the research. This will also help if you are going to write about the paper later in an essay, dissertation, thesis or literature review. Use the following questions as prompts:

• What is the research investigating?
• Why did the research investigate this?
• What was found?
• Are the findings unusual or do they support other research in the field?
• What are the implications of the results?
• What experiments could be carried out to answer any further questions?

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Seeman, S., Campagnola, L., Davoudian, P., Hoggarth, A., Hage, T., Bosma-Moody, A., Baker, C., Lee, J., Mihalas, S., Teeter, C., Ko, A., Ojemann, J., Gwinn, R., Silbergold, D., Cobbs, C., Phillips, J., Lein, E., Murphy, G., Koch, C., Zeng, H., and Jarky, T. Sparse recurrent excitatory connectivity in the microcircuit of the adult mouse and human cortex. eLife (2018) doi: 10.7554/eLife.37349

Do you have any other tips for reading and critically evaluating research papers? Let us know by leaving a comment!

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How to Read Research Papers— Unveiling AI Tool for Reading

Table of Contents

Reading research papers is an essential skill for students, academics, and professionals in various fields. It allows you to stay updated with the latest findings, develop critical thinking skills, and contribute to scholarly discussions. However, understanding these papers can be challenging due to their complex language and structure. That’s why we have written this article, which will provide you with comprehensive strategies on how to read a research paper effectively.

Let’s get started with how to identify the structure of a research paper!

Identify the structure of a research paper

Understanding the structure of a research paper is the first step toward how to read research paper effectively. Most research papers follow a standard structure, which includes an abstract , introduction , methodology , results, discussion and conclusion . Familiarizing yourself with the research paper structure can help you navigate the paper and understand its content.

Each section of a research paper serves a specific purpose. The abstract provides a summary of the entire research paper, the introduction presents the research question, the methodology explains how the research was conducted, the results section presents the findings, the discussion interprets these findings, and the conclusion summarizes the paper and suggests areas for future research.

Source: University of Wisconsin

Abstract: The abstract serves as a concise summary of the entire research paper. To efficiently grasp its content, focus on key elements such as the research question, methodology, and significant findings. This will provide a quick overview and help you decide whether the paper aligns with your interests.

Introduction: The research paper introduction sets the stage for the research, presenting the problem statement and the purpose of the study. Take note of the research gap, hypotheses, and objectives discussed here to understand the context of the paper.

Methodology: Understanding the methods employed in a study is crucial for evaluating the research's validity. Take note of the research design, data collection, and analysis methods to comprehend how the study was conducted.

Results: The results section presents the outcomes of the research. Approach this section with a critical mindset, assessing whether the results align with the research question and the methods used. Consider the implications of the findings within the broader context of the field.

Conclusion: The conclusion summarizes the key findings and their significance. It's a crucial part of the paper that brings together the entire study. Take the time to reflect on how the research contributes to the existing body of knowledge.

Citations: Follow the trail of references provided in the paper. This not only enhances your understanding but also leads you to related works that can deepen your knowledge of the subject.

More tips on how to read research papers effectively

Developing effective reading strategies can help you understand research papers more efficiently. These strategies include active reading, note-taking, and using AI tools for summarizing and understanding research papers.

Active reading involves engaging with the text, asking questions, and making connections. Note-taking helps you remember important information and organize your thoughts. Summarizing using AI tools allows you to condense the information and understand the main points of the paper easily.

Active Reading:

Active reading is a strategy that involves interacting with the text. This can include highlighting important information, making notes in the margins, and asking questions. Active reading can help you understand the content of the paper and remember it more effectively.

When reading a research paper, try to identify the main points, arguments, and evidence. Ask yourself questions like:

• What is the research question?
• What methods were used to answer it?
• What were the results? What conclusions were drawn?

This will help you engage with the paper and understand its content.

Source: https://idaho.pressbooks.pub/write/chapter/reading-for-writing/

Note-Taking:

Note-taking is another effective reading strategy. It involves writing down important information, ideas, and questions. Note-taking can help you remember the content of the paper, organize your thoughts, and prepare for discussions or writing assignments.

When taking notes, try to be concise and use your own words. This will help you understand the information and remember it more effectively. You can also use symbols or diagrams to represent complex ideas.

Source: University of Toronto

Using AI Tools to Summarize Research Paper:

When research papers are flooded with complex language, jargon, and acronyms, it’s important to use AI summarizer that helps you breakdown the sentences and makes it easier to read the information. In that case, you can make use of SciSpace Copilot which not only explains the highlighted section or paragraph, but also explains you the equations, tables, figures, and images present in the research paper. You can also rely on other AI tools to comprehend research papers in a short span of time.

Watch this video to learn how to use the AI summarizer:

Dealing with Technical Jargon:

Research papers often contain a lot of technical jargon. Don't be intimidated; instead, create a glossary for yourself. Look up unfamiliar terms and gradually build your understanding of the terminology used in your field of interest. As mentioned above, you can use AI summarizer to decode the jargon and get the essence of the research paper.

Joining Academic Communities:

Engage in discussions and forums related to your area of interest. Academic communities provide valuable insights, differing perspectives, and opportunities for networking with experts in the field.

Staying Updated on Research Trends:

To read research papers effectively, it's crucial to stay informed about the latest developments in your field. Subscribe to academic journals, follow reputable researchers on social media, and attend conferences or webinars to stay updated.

Using Academic Search Engines:

Make use of online tools and databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, SciSpace , and academic journals to access a vast repository of research papers. These platforms often provide additional features like citation tracking and related articles, enriching your reading experience.

Also Read: Beast Academic Search Engines(2024)

Reading research papers is a complex task that requires a good understanding of the structure of a research paper, effective reading strategies, and the ability to interpret results. However, with practice and patience, you can develop these skills and become proficient at reading research papers.

Remember, the goal is not just to read the paper, but to understand it, evaluate it, and use it to contribute to your own research or professional development.

Frequently Asked Questions

Active reading helps understand research papers better. It involves activities like highlighting, taking notes, asking questions, and summarizing. This makes it easier to understand and evaluate the research material.

Taking notes during research helps you remember important information, stay organized, avoid plagiarism, think critically, and serve as a reference for future use, allowing you to revisit key points and findings as needed.

SciSpace notebook is the go-to tool for taking notes effortlessly

The best AI tool for reading research papers varies based on individual needs. A popular AI tools include SciSpace Copilot.

Using AI tools to read research papers is easy. First, choose a tool, example — SciSpace Copilot. Then, upload your paper. It analyzes it and explains it in a language of your choice. You can then use this summary to help with your research or understanding of the topic.

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How to Read a Research Paper – A Guide to Setting Research Goals, Finding Papers to Read, and More

If you work in a scientific field, you should try to build a deep and unbiased understanding of that field. This not only educates you in the best possible way but also helps you envision the opportunities in your space.

A research paper is often the culmination of a wide range of deep and authentic practices surrounding a topic. When writing a research paper, the author thinks critically about the problem, performs rigorous research, evaluates their processes and sources, organizes their thoughts, and then writes. These genuinely-executed practices make for a good research paper.

If you’re struggling to build a habit of reading papers (like I am) on a regular basis, I’ve tried to break down the whole process. I've talked to researchers in the field, read a bunch of papers and blogs from distinguished researchers, and jotted down some techniques that you can follow.

Let’s start off by understanding what a research paper is and what it is NOT!

What is a Research Paper?

A research paper is a dense and detailed manuscript that compiles a thorough understanding of a problem or topic. It offers a proposed solution and further research along with the conditions under which it was deduced and carried out, the efficacy of the solution and the research performed, and potential loopholes in the study.

A research paper is written not only to provide an exceptional learning opportunity but also to pave the way for further advancements in the field. These papers help other scholars germinate the thought seed that can either lead to a new world of ideas or an innovative method of solving a longstanding problem.

What Research Papers are NOT

There is a common notion that a research paper is a well-informed summary of a problem or topic written by means of other sources.

But you shouldn't mistake it for a book or an opinionated account of an individual’s interpretation of a particular topic.

Why Should You Read Research Papers?

What I find fascinating about reading a good research paper is that you can draw on a profound study of a topic and engage with the community on a new perspective to understand what can be achieved in and around that topic.

I work at the intersection of instructional design and data science. Learning is part of my day-to-day responsibilities. If the source of my education is flawed or inefficient, I’d fail at my job in the long term. This applies to many other jobs in Science with a special focus on research.

There are three important reasons to read a research paper:

• Knowledge —  Understanding the problem from the eyes of someone who has probably spent years solving it and has taken care of all the edge cases that you might not think of at the beginning.
• Exploration —  Whether you have a pinpointed agenda or not, there is a very high chance that you will stumble upon an edge case or a shortcoming that is worth following up. With persistent efforts over a considerable amount of time, you can learn to use that knowledge to make a living.
• Research and review —  One of the main reasons for writing a research paper is to further the development in the field. Researchers read papers to review them for conferences or to do a literature survey of a new field. For example, Yann LeCun’ s paper on integrating domain constraints into backpropagation set the foundation of modern computer vision back in 1989. After decades of research and development work, we have come so far that we're now perfecting problems like object detection and optimizing autonomous vehicles.

Not only that, with the help of the internet, you can extrapolate all of these reasons or benefits onto multiple business models. It can be an innovative state-of-the-art product, an efficient service model, a content creator, or a dream job where you are solving problems that matter to you.

Goals for Reading a Research Paper — What Should You Read About?

The first thing to do is to figure out your motivation for reading the paper. There are two main scenarios that might lead you to read a paper:

• Scenario 1 —  You have a well-defined agenda/goal and you are deeply invested in a particular field. For example, you’re an NLP practitioner and you want to learn how GPT-4 has given us a breakthrough in NLP. This is always a nice scenario to be in as it offers clarity.
• Scenario 2 —  You want to keep abreast of the developments in a host of areas, say how a new deep learning architecture has helped us solve a 50-year old biological problem of understanding protein structures. This is often the case for beginners or for people who consume their daily dose of news from research papers (yes, they exist!).

If you’re an inquisitive beginner with no starting point in mind, start with scenario 2. Shortlist a few topics you want to read about until you find an area that you find intriguing. This will eventually lead you to scenario 1.

ML Reproducibility Challenge

In addition to these generic goals, if you need an end goal for your habit-building exercise of reading research papers, you should check out the ML reproducibility challenge.

You’ll find top-class papers from world-class conferences that are worth diving deep into and reproducing the results.

They conduct this challenge twice a year and they have one coming up in Spring 2021. You should study the past three versions of the challenge, and I’ll write a detailed post on what to expect, how to prepare, and so on.

Now you must be wondering – how can you find the right paper to read?

How to Find the Right Paper to Read

In order to get some ideas around this, I reached out to my friend, Anurag Ghosh who is a researcher at Microsoft. Anurag has been working at the crossover of computer vision, machine learning, and systems engineering.

Here are a few of his tips for getting started:

• Always pick an area you're interested in.
• Read a few good books or detailed blog posts on that topic and start diving deep by reading the papers referenced in those resources.
• Look for seminal papers around that topic. These are papers that report a major breakthrough in the field and offer a new method perspective with a huge potential for subsequent research in that field. Check out papers from the morning paper or C VF - test of time award/Helmholtz prize (if you're interested in computer vision).
• Check out books like Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications by Richard Szeliski and look for the papers referenced there.
• Have and build a sense of community. Find people who share similar interests, and join groups/subreddits/discord channels where such activities are promoted.

In addition to these invaluable tips, there are a number of web applications that I’ve shortlisted that help me narrow my search for the right papers to read:

• r/MachineLearning  — there are many researchers, practitioners, and engineers who share their work along with the papers they've found useful in achieving those results.

• Arxiv Sanity Preserver  — built by Andrej Karpathy to accelerate research. It is a repository of 142,846 papers from computer science, machine learning, systems, AI, Stats, CV, and so on. It also offers a bunch of filters, powerful search functionality, and a discussion forum to make for a super useful research platform.

• Google Research  — the research teams at Google are working on problems that have an impact on our everyday lives. They share their publications for individuals and teams to learn from, contribute to, and expedite research. They also have a Google AI blog that you can check out.

How to Read a Research Paper

After you have stocked your to-read list, then comes the process of reading these papers. Remember that NOT every paper is useful to read and we need a mechanism that can help us quickly screen papers that are worth reading.

To tackle this challenge, you can use this Three-Pass Approach by S. Keshav . This approach proposes that you read the paper in three passes instead of starting from the beginning and diving in deep until the end.

The three pass approach

• The first pass —  is a quick scan to capture a high-level view of the paper. Read the title, abstract, and introduction carefully followed by the headings of the sections and subsections and lastly the conclusion. It should take you no more than 5–10 mins to figure out if you want to move to the second pass.
• The second pass —  is a more focused read without checking for the technical proofs. You take down all the crucial notes, underline the key points in the margins. Carefully study the figures, diagrams, and illustrations. Review the graphs, mark relevant unread references for further reading. This helps you understand the background of the paper.
• The third pass —  reaching this pass denotes that you’ve found a paper that you want to deeply understand or review. The key to the third pass is to reproduce the results of the paper. Check it for all the assumptions and jot down all the variations in your re-implementation and the original results. Make a note of all the ideas for future analysis. It should take 5–6 hours for beginners and 1–2 hours for experienced readers.

Tools and Software to Keep Track of Your Pipeline of Papers

If you’re sincere about reading research papers, your list of papers will soon grow into an overwhelming stack that is hard to keep track of. Fortunately, we have software that can help us set up a mechanism to manage our research.

Here are a bunch of them that you can use:

• Mendeley [not free]  — you can add papers directly to your library from your browser, import documents, generate references and citations, collaborate with fellow researchers, and access your library from anywhere. This is mostly used by experienced researchers.

• Zotero [free & open source] —  Along the same lines as Mendeley but free of cost. You can make use of all the features but with limited storage space.

• Notion —  this is great if you are just starting out and want to use something lightweight with the option to organize your papers, jot down notes, and manage everything in one workspace. It might not stand anywhere in comparison with the above tools but I personally feel comfortable using Notion and I have created this board to keep track of my progress for now that you can duplicate:

⚠️ Symptoms of Reading a Research Paper

Reading a research paper can turn out to be frustrating, challenging, and time-consuming especially when you’re a beginner. You might face the following common symptoms:

• You might start feeling dumb for not understanding a thing a paper says.
• Finding yourself pushing too hard to understand the math behind those proofs.
• Beating your head against the wall to wrap it around the number of acronyms used in the paper. Just kidding, you’ll have to look up those acronyms every now and then.
• Being stuck on one paragraph for more than an hour.

Here’s a complete list of emotions that you might undergo as explained by Adam Ruben in this article .

Key Takeaways

We should be all set to dive right in. Here’s a quick summary of what we have covered here:

• A research paper is an in-depth study that offers an detailed explanation of a topic or problem along with the research process, proofs, explained results, and ideas for future work.
• Read research papers to develop a deep understanding of a topic/problem. Then you can either review papers as part of being a researcher, explore the domain and the kind of problems to build a solution or startup around it, or you can simply read them to keep abreast of the developments in your domain of interest.
• If you’re a beginner, start with exploration to soon find your path to goal-oriented research.
• In order to find good papers to read, you can use websites like arxiv-sanity, google research, and subreddits like r/MachineLearning.
• Reading approach — Use the 3-pass method to find a paper.
• Keep track of your research, notes, developments by using tools like Zotero/Notion.
• This can get overwhelming in no time. Make sure you start off easy and increment your load progressively.

Remember: Art is not a single method or step done over a weekend but a process of accomplishing remarkable results over time.

You can also watch the video on this topic on my YouTube channel :

Feel free to respond to this blog or comment on the video if you have some tips, questions, or thoughts!

If this tutorial was helpful, you should check out my data science and machine learning courses on Wiplane Academy . They are comprehensive yet compact and helps you build a solid foundation of work to showcase.

Web and Data Science Consultant | Instructional Design

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Asad Naveed

How to Read a Research Paper Effectively

A 5-step approach to quickly appraise a study.

PaperPal is your AI-powered companion for academic writing! Unlike other grammar editors, it's designed specifically for scientific and academic writing.

It goes beyond grammar correction to create concise, effective research content in formal academic prose. Try it out for FREE here: https://bit.ly/3JAYJvV

Hi! In his edition, I will guide you through a step-by-step process to help you read papers effectively and quickly, saving you time and maximizing your understanding. Most people approach reading a scientific paper in a linear fashion, painstakingly going through every detail, every equation, and every graph. This method, while thorough, is time-consuming and often leads to information overload.

So, how can we do it differently? One recommendation is to use the "ACE Method" - a ccelerated c omprehension of papers through e ffective reading.

This is how it works:

1. Scan the Title and Abstract:

This step helps you gain a high-level overview of the paper. It lets you to quickly identify whether the paper aligns with your needs, saving you from investing time in irrelevant content.

2. Read the Introduction and Conclusion:

Identify the big question and/ or the hypothesis. The introduction lets you identify why this research is being done and what problem the project is solving. The conclusion section provides an overview of the paper's key findings and implications to help assess the paper's relevance.

3. Review Tables, Figures, and Charts

Pay attention to figures, tables, and graphs. These charts provide a concise summary of the data and findings, allowing you to glean valuable insights at a glance.

4. Evaluate the Methodology:

Assess the methodology section to understand the study's approach, evaluating its rigor and the validity of the findings.

Identify the exposure, outcome, study design, sample size, data collection, and statistical analyses.

5. Skim through the Results and Discussion:

Read the results section to determine whether the results answer the specific question(s) and whether they are generalizable.

The discussion section to evaluate the authors’ interpretation of the results, the paper's contribution to the field of research, its impact and limitations.

Now, put these skills into practice. Over time, you'll refine your skills and quickly extract the information you need. Remember, practice makes perfect!

When you come across a pertinent paper, you have the opportunity to delve deeper through additional readings, while also capturing your insights and enriching your understanding with personal notes and thoughtful annotations.

In the end, I just want to thank Abrar AbuHamdia, an upcoming LinkedIn creator for inspiring me to write on this topic. You can follow her here: Link

That is it! I hope this was useful. Regards, Asad My Linkedin / My Twitter

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Best tools for screening and reading research papers

There’s a huge amount of relevant and high-quality research on any given subject, but researchers simply don’t have the time to absorb it all. It’s not just a question of discovering the best information, it’s understanding and applying it that matters. The risk is that important findings that could support new studies are being missed.To put this into context: there were more than 3 million articles published in 2018. And the problem isn’t limited to published research.  The number of preprint servers - which are increasingly becoming an important resource for researchers - have grown by over 300% since 2015. Researchers typically spend 45 minutes reading a paper. And the average researcher reads around 250 papers a year. Trying to narrow down the literature that’s going to be most useful to you and then digesting all of that information are now tasks that are almost impossible without the help of technology.So, we’ve pulled together a short review of some of the most useful tools out there for searching and screening research papers. All of the tools presented here are either open-source (free to use and with open-licensed source code) and/or open-access (free to use).

Tools to build a repeatable search strategy

At the heart of 2Dsearch is a graphical editor which lets you formulate search strategies using a visual framework where concepts are expressed as objects on a two-dimensional canvas. Search terms can be combined using Boolean operators into groups which can be expanded or collapsed to facilitate transparency and readability. This gives a more intuitive approach to search strategy development and validation. 2Dsearch consists of a query canvas and a search results pane, as shown below:

The application can take an existing search strategy and turn it into a visual structure. Take the following example: ((telemedicine |telehealth |"Internet based"|telecare|"web based"|"mobile phone"|telemedical|videoconferencing|"text messaging"|"e mail"|telephone|"cell Phone"|pda|"e health")(diabetes|diabetic|insulin))| Telediabetes Although relatively simple, this query is still difficult to interpret, optimise or debug. However, when opened with 2Dsearch, its structure becomes much more transparent:

Visual search structure in 2DSearch

You can also use its automated search suggestions to identify and include related concepts:

Automated search suggestions in 2DSearch

2Dsearch also provides support for automated translation to the syntax of other databases. For example, if you select the Query tab on the result pane, you’ll see our original query expressed as a Boolean string, along with a number of automated translations. Search strategies can be shared and exported as traditional Boolean strings.By offering new ways to for search strategies to be validated, shared and made reproducible, 2Dsearch can help academics search the world’s scientific literature in a systematic manner.

Tools for analysing search results

There’s a growing number of tools available for building and analysing citation networks. Here are just a few of the ones we’ve found to be effective when analysing a collection of articles.

Citation Gecko

Citation Gecko is an easy-to-use online tool that creates focused co-citation networks from seed papers. Seed papers can be added in the following ways:

• uploadinga BibTeX file
• connecting to your Zotero library
• connect to your Mendeley library
• select from search results

As you explore the cited-by and citing relationships, you can select these as new seed nodes to progressively build a citation map of the literature in your field

Similarity network tools make use of pre-built semantic indexes that are based on topic modelling or keyword co-occurrence. This allows semantically or thematically related papers to be clustered together. Search strategies can then be refined in a visual way which may reduce the cognitive load of filtering and reviewing a large number of search results.

Open Knowledge Maps (OKM)

OKM is an easy-to-use online tool that clusters search results according to semantic connections such as topics and keywords, which are automatically extracted from the source documents.Simply enter search term, choose a source repository (PubMed or BASE), and OKM will generate clusters that allow you to zoom in to explore semantically related papers.

Generated maps are given a persistent, shareable URL, and maps can be embedded on any web page.OKM helpfully shows which papers are Open Access via the unlocked padlock icon. When you select a paper in a cluster, OKM shows the article metadata and abstract in the margin, with a link to the full text article.

We can imagine a future tool that combines the functionality of Citation Gecko with OKM to show both citation and semantic relationships between papers.

As with Citation Gecko, Iris.ai starts with a seed paper (via a public URL). It differs from other tools in that the input can also be a research question, although this requires a minimum of a 100-word description to be added for context.Similar to Open Knowledge Maps, Iris then clusters the results by keyword/concept, and as with OKM, it also generates a persistent URL that you can bookmark and share.

Search result clusters in Iris.ai

You can then drill down into each concept cluster to view semantically related papers. Selecting a paper allows you to then run a new search using that paper as the seed.

Connected Papers

Connected Papers is a new tool that also gives you a more visual overview of an academic field. Add a paper and it will create a graph for you of similar papers on the subject. It lets you build multiple graphs for relevant papers so that over time you can build up a visual understanding of the field you’re interested in, including trends, popular works and dynamics.

Tools for text mining and summarizing articles

Once you have filtered promising papers using the approaches described above, the next step might be to automate extraction of the knowledge they contain, to help give you a greater understanding of their findings and relevance.

GATE (General Architecture for Text Engineering)

The open-source GATE platform allows you to assemble a pipeline of prebuilt text mining components (or build your own) which you can run over a collection of documents. The output can be exported to various formats (XML, CSV) for later analysis.Some of the benefits of GATE include:

• no programming ability required to build your own text-mining pipeline
• comprehensive documentation
• online and in-person training courses
• the number and variety of plugins that enhance the out-of-the-box functionality

Unlike GATE, spaCy does require programming skills in Python to use, although there are many tutorials online, including the excellent spaCy documentation at https://spacy.io/usage sciSpacy is a spaCy plugin that is useful for analysing biomedical papers, particularly for identifying concepts, abbreviations and negations.

For those who don't want to download, install and learn new software, or don't want to write their own code, we built Scholarcy . Part of our goal was 'text mining for the rest of us': a simple way that anyone could upload a paper, or collection of papers, and return structured information such as keywords, key concepts, section summaries, facts, findings, and bibliographic references. Scholarcy provides a number of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to extract this type information at scale from a collection of research papers, speeding up analysis.Scholarcy also has a web application which renders the information extracted from a paper as a summary flashcard, that can be saved to a library for review, sharing, annotation and export.

Open Access Article - NPJ

Scholarcy Summary Flashcard

Unlike the original PDF, the summary card is responsive, and automatically resizes to fit your current device, so you can keep up to date with research wherever you are. The card shows the main concepts in the paper, linking them to their definitions in Wikipedia to provide the background knowledge needed to get the most from the article.The summary flashcard also highlights important facts and findings, as shown here in a summary of the introduction:

Expanded Summary Flashcard with important points highlighted

The study aims and findings are also summarised in the 'Highlights' tab, and the figures are extracted and cross-referenced in the text.

Scholarcy Highlights

For more advice and tools to help you read and write research papers, visit our blog .

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How to Read Research Papers

Last Updated: October 11, 2022 References

This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. This article has been viewed 9,883 times.

Research papers can be a great resource for academic information and scholarly references. Reading research papers can also help you understand how to write a good one. Start by skimming the paper, identifying key details that stand out to you. Then, do a critical read of the paper, reading it carefully a second or third time so you can look at it in depth. Once you have done a critical read, analyze the key arguments and ideas in the paper so you can fully understand it.

Skimming the Paper

• For example, if you read a title like “What Global Poverty Means in the 21st Century,” you can assume the paper will address the issue of global poverty in modern times.

• Ph.D stands for a doctor of philosophy and is the highest degree awarded by a university. M.D. stands for a doctor of medicine and is given to an individual who earns their medical degree.

• If you have a difficult time understanding the abstract of the paper, this may be a sign the paper is poorly written or does not have a clear focus.
• Abstracts that contain a lot of jargon or complex wording may indicate the paper will be hard to understand, especially if you do not have an academic background.

• For example, you may read headings like “Analysis of Poverty Statistics” or “Exploration of Poverty Solutions.” The author may also use questions in their headings, such as “Why is Poverty a Problem?” or “How Can We Address Poverty?”

• Check the citation style of the references to ensure they are correct, based on whether the paper was written in APA style, MLA style or Chicago style.
• Look at the title of the reference to check that the subject matter relates to the topic of the paper.
• If you are reading a paper about a topic you know well, you may check the reference list to see if you recognize any of the sources. You can then lean on your familiarity with them to better understand the paper as a whole.

• If you have a hard copy of the paper, mark it up with a pen, pencil, or highlighter as part of your note taking while you read. As you skim, look at the key details in the paper, rather than do a close read.
• Skimming the paper can take 1-2 hours, depending on how long the paper is.

Doing a Critical Read

• Some research papers have a research question instead of a hypothesis, where they pose a question to the reader and explore it in detail. A good research question will be specific, focusing on a particular idea or topic within a larger idea.
• For example, you may come across a hypothesis like, “Global poverty levels continue to rise due to the exploitation of workers in third world countries.” Or you may find a research question like, “How does the United States contribute to rising poverty levels in third world countries?”

• The body sections are often the most complex and detailed in the research paper. Take your time when reading these sections so you can look at them critically. Depending on the length of the paper, it can take 1-3 hours to fully unpack the body sections.

• Check for any graphs or charts that are poor quality or improperly labeled, as this may be a sign they are bad visuals.
• Read the labels on the graphs, charts, and figures to ensure they relate to the topic of the paper and are not misleading or incorrect.

• In some conclusion sections, the author may offer possible solutions for a topic or propose next steps that a governing body or an institution can take to address the topic.

Analyzing the Paper’s Ideas and Arguments

• Ask yourself questions like, “Is the author’s solution clear and easy to follow? What are the gaps or missing pieces of the author’s argument? Can I disprove or dispute the author’s argument?”

• For example, the author may discuss solutions to global poverty rates that feel new or different to you. Or they may present a new approach to measuring global poverty rates that you might find engaging and exciting.

• Note if the ideas in the research paper feels new compared to other works in the field. Check for any ideas or solutions in the paper that contradict the ideas in other scholarship on the topic.

• You can then refer to your list of questions if you have to discuss the paper in a class or for an assignment.
• The list of questions and concerns can also come in handy if you have to compose a summary or review of the research paper for a class.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p83-keshavA.pdf
• ↑ https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~michaelm/postscripts/ReadPaper.pdf
• ↑ Matthew Snipp, PhD. Research Fellow, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Expert Interview. 26 March 2020.
• ↑ https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~wgg/CSE210/howtoread.html
• ↑ http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/07/09/how-to-read-research-papers/
• ↑ https://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Spencer.Rugaber/txt/research_paper.txt

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Literature Review

12 Best AI For Summarizing Research Papers

Discover the 12 best AI tools for summarizing research papers, designed to help you quickly extract vital insights and save time.

Aug 17, 2024

As a student or researcher, you know the challenges of sifting through a mountain of academic papers to find the most relevant information for your work. The process often feels tedious and overwhelming, but it doesn't have to. AI for summarizing research papers can help lighten the load. This guide will explore how these tools can help you improve your literature search , write efficient research papers, and get excellent study material with AI. Otio's AI research and writing partner is a valuable tool to help you achieve your goals. It can summarize academic papers to boost your literature search, so you can write efficient research papers and get unique study material with AI.

Table Of Contents

What is a research paper, what is a research paper summary, can ai summarize research papers, how to summarize a research paper in 10 simple steps, benefits of using ai for summarizing research papers, supercharge your researching ability with otio — try otio for free today.

A research paper is an expanded essay that presents your interpretation, evaluation, or argument. When writing an essay, you use everything you know and have thought about a subject. When you write a research paper, you build upon what you know about the subject and deliberately attempt to discover what experts know. A research paper involves surveying a field of knowledge to find the best possible information. And that survey can be orderly and focused if you know how to approach it. 

What Is the Typical Structure of a Research Paper? 

The basic structure of a typical research paper includes Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Each section addresses a different objective.  The problem they intend to address -- in other words, the research question, in the Introduction; what they did to answer the question in Methodology; what they observed in the Results; and what they think the results mean in the Discussion.

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• Systematic Review Vs Meta Analysis • Impact Evaluation • How To Critique A Research Article • How To Synthesize Sources • Annotation Techniques • Skimming And Scanning • Types Of Literature Reviews • Literature Review Table • Literature Review Matrix • How To Increase Reading Speed And Comprehension • How To Read Research Papers • How To Summarize A Research Paper • Literature Gap

A research summary describes a study's findings to the audience in a brief yet concise manner. A well-curated research summary represents you and your knowledge about the information written in the research paper. 

What's Inside a Research Summary? 

Since the purpose of a summary is to give an overview of the topic, methodology, and conclusions employed in a paper, it requires an objective approach. There should be no analysis or criticism.

AI for summarizing research papers uses artificial intelligence tools to extract crucial insights from academic literature, significantly reducing the time needed to get the information you need. AI can quickly read, understand, and condense complex papers into easily understandable, digestible summaries. Instead of reading a paper, you can use an AI tool to produce a summary covering the essential findings and insights. 

Research Paper Summarizer: What Can It Do?

So, what can an AI research paper summarizer do? The primary function of these tools is to read academic papers and generate summaries. However, depending on the tool, there can be a range of features to help researchers and other academics. For example, some tools allow users to upload papers and instantly receive a summary. In contrast, others let you interact with the papers for detailed notes on specific sections, keywords, or passages. 

• Literature Search Template • ChatGPT Prompts For Research • How To Find Gaps In Research • Research Journal Example • How To Find Limitations Of A Study • How To Do A Literature Search • Research Concept Map • Meta-Analysis Methods • How To Identify Bias In A Source • Search Strategies For Research • Literature Search Template • How To Read A Research Paper Quickly • How To Evaluate An Article • ChatGPT Summarize Paper • How To Take Notes For A Research Paper

1. Read The Entire Research Paper

Before writing an effective summary , you must first read and understand the research paper. This may seem like a time-consuming task, but it is essential to write a good summary. Make sure you understand all of the paper's main points before you begin writing.

2. Take Notes As You Read

As you read, take notes on the main points of the paper. These notes will come in handy when you are writing your summary. Be sure to note any necessary information, such as the main conclusions of the author's writing. This helpful tip will also help you write a practical blog summary in less time.

3. Organize Your Thoughts

Once you have finished reading and taking notes on the paper, it is time to start writing your summary. Before you begin, take a few minutes to organize your thoughts. Write down the main points that you want to include in your summary. Then, arrange these points in a logical order.

4. Write The Summary

Now that you have organized your thoughts, it is time to start writing the summary. Begin by stating the author’s thesis statement or main conclusion. Then, briefly describe each of the main points from the paper. Be sure to write clearly and concisely. When you are finished, reread your summary to make sure that it accurately reflects the content of the paper.

5. Write The Introduction

After you have written the summary, it is time to write the introduction. The introduction should include an overview of the paper and a summary description. It should also state the main idea.

6. Introduce The Report's Purpose

The summary of a research paper should include a brief description of the paper's purpose. It should state the paper's thesis statement and briefly describe each of the main points of the paper.

7. Use Keywords To Introduce The Report

When introducing the summary of a research paper , use keywords that will be familiar to the reader. This will help them understand the summary and why it is essential.

8. State The Author's Conclusions

The summary of a research paper should include a brief statement of the author's conclusions. This will help your teacher understand what the paper is trying to achieve.

9. Keep It Concise

A summary should be concise and to the point. It should not include any new information or arguments. It should be no more than one paragraph long.

10. Edit And Proofread

After you have written the summary, edit and proofread it to ensure it is accurate and precise. This will help ensure that your summary is effective and free of any grammar or spelling errors.

1. Otio: Your AI Research and Writing Partner  

Today, knowledge workers, researchers, and students suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. 

Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button, this problem will only get worse. Otio solves this problem by providing researchers with one AI-native workspace . It helps them: 

1. Collect a wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos. 

2. extract key takeaways with detailed ai-generated notes and source-grounded q&a chat., 3. create draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. .

Otio helps you to go from the reading list to the first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster . Here are our top features that researchers love: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI-assisted writing. 

Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!  

2. Summary By Google Docs: An AI Summarizing Feature  

Recently, Google announced a new "summary" feature in its online docs. This feature will automatically generate a summary of the content written in Google Docs. This summary-generating feature uses the latest AI technologies to quickly and precisely summarize the entire content in seconds. It focuses on the main ideas and best sentences and then writes them in the summary section with one click. This will help students generate the best paper summary without any hassle.  

3. Summarizer: An Online Text Summarizing Tool  

A text summarizer is a free online tool that can be used to create a summary of a text within seconds. Students can use a summarizer to provide an overview of the main points in the paper. Besides this, an online text summarizer can help students save time when writing a research paper. By creating a summary of the text, they can quickly and easily create a concise version of the paper that can be used as a reference point, with a single click.  

4. SciSummary: A Smart AI Summarizer for Research Papers  

SciSummary is an AI summarizer that helps summarize single or multiple research papers. It combines and compares the content summaries from research papers, article links, etc.  

5. Quillbot: Advanced Summarizing Tool for Research Papers  

QuillBot uses advanced neural network models to summarize research papers accurately and effectively. The tool leverages cutting-edge technology to condense lengthy papers into concise and informative summaries, making it easier for users to navigate vast amounts of literature.  

6. Scribbr: An AI Tool for Academic Writing  

Scribbr is an AI-driven academic writing assistant with a summarization feature tailor-made for research papers. The tool assists users in the research paper writing process by summarizing and condensing information from various sources, offering support in structuring and organizing content effectively.  

7. TLDR This: A Smart Summarizing Tool for Online Articles  

TLDR This uses advanced AI to effectively filter out unimportant arguments from online articles and provide readers only with vital takeaways. Its streamlined interface eliminates ads and distractions while summarizing key points, metadata, images, and other crucial article details. TLDR This condenses even very lengthy materials into compact summaries users can quickly consume, making it easier to process a vast range of internet content efficiently.  

8. AI Summarizer: An Automatic Research Paper Summarizer  

AI Summarizer harnesses artificial intelligence to summarize research papers and other text documents automatically. The tool streamlines the summarization process, making it efficient and accurate, enabling users to extract essential information from extensive research papers quickly.  

9. Jasper: A Versatile AI Summarizing Tool  

Jasper AI is a robust summarizing tool that helps users generate AI-powered paper summaries quickly and effectively. The tool supports the prompt creation of premium-quality summaries, assisting researchers in distilling complex information into concise and informative outputs.  

10. Resoomer: A Smart Tool to Help You Summarize Text  

Resoomer rapidly analyzes textual documents to determine the most essential sentences and summarizes these key points using its proprietary semantic analysis algorithm. By automatically identifying what information matters most.

Resoomer can condense elaborate texts across diverse subjects into brief overviews of their core message. With swift copy-and-paste functionality requiring no signup, this specialized tool simplifies the reading experience by extracting only vital details from complex writings.  

11. SummarizeBot: An AI Bot for PDF Summarizing  

SummarizeBot, an AI that can summarize PDF, leverages advanced natural language processing to rapidly summarize research papers, articles, and other documents by identifying key points. 

It employs AI to extract central ideas and vital supporting details like evidence and conclusions. With customizable summary lengths and support for multiple languages, SummarizeBot provides holistic overviews, including sentiment analysis, so users comprehensively understand the content's core focus and importance.  

12. SMMRY: An AI Research Paper Summarizer  

SMMRY employs AI-driven algorithms to generate summaries of research papers, offering key insights in a condensed format. The tool streamlines the summarization process, extracting critical information from lengthy research papers and providing users with concise and informative summaries.

1. Save Precious Time With AI Summarizers

Research papers can be long and tedious. With a busy schedule, it can be challenging to carve out the time to read through them. AI summarizers help you quickly scan through papers and get the essential points without compromising your understanding of the material.  This can help speed up your research time without sacrificing quality.

2. Grasp Key Insights With AI Summarizers

AI summarizers extract the core ideas and key findings from research papers, helping you grasp the main insights without getting bogged down in the details. This enables you to stay informed about the latest advancements in your field without investing excessive time in reading lengthy papers.

3. Simplify Complex Concepts With AI Summarizers

Research papers often contain complex concepts and technical jargon that can be challenging to understand. AI summarizers break down these complex ideas into simpler terms, making it easier for business leaders like yourself to comprehend and apply the knowledge to your work.

4. Improve Collaboration With AI Summarizers

AI research paper summarizer facilitates effective collaboration by providing concise summaries that can be easily shared with team members or colleagues. Instead of sharing an entire research paper, you can share a summarized version, ensuring everyone is on the same page and saving time for everyone involved.

5. Explore Diverse Perspectives With AI Summarizers

AI summarizers allow you to explore various research papers and viewpoints within a shorter time frame. By summarizing multiple papers, you can gain insights from different sources and perspectives, enriching your understanding of a particular topic. 

Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today ! 

Researchers today face a growing content volume, making staying organized and managing research increasingly challenging. With the ability to create content at the click of a button, this problem is only going to get worse. AI research tools can help facilitate the academic writing process by improving organization, enhancing productivity, and ultimately alleviating the stress that comes with content overload.  

How Otio AI Research Tools Work  

Otio helps researchers manage their workflow with an intelligent AI-powered research assistant that understands the needs of academics. Using Otio , you can collect, summarize, and create a first draft of your research paper or essay faster than traditional methods. The platform even comes with features that help you write the paper as you go to produce high-quality work in a fraction of the time.

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