Read a research paper effectively | Little known AI tools and tricks!
Summary
TLDRThe video provides strategies for quickly and effectively reading research papers, essential for PhD students and researchers. It covers tools like Connected Papers, Research Rabbit, and Lateral.io to help find relevant papers efficiently. The speaker emphasizes starting with review papers, scanning titles, abstracts, and figures, and using AI tools to uncover related work. The method includes focusing on key sections like conclusions and discussion first, before delving into the methods, making the process faster and more productive. The video also promotes the speaker's newsletter and academic writing resources.
Takeaways
- 📚 Reading research papers quickly and effectively is essential during a PhD and research.
- 🔍 There are two primary reasons for reading papers: to find relevant research for your work or to quickly find citations.
- 🔑 Identifying the most impactful papers in your field is crucial for efficient research.
- 🛠️ Tools like Connected Papers, Research Rabbit, and Lit Maps can help explore literature based on seed papers.
- 💡 Keywords are key to finding relevant papers, and tools like lateral.io can assist in identifying contextual links between papers.
- 📊 Review papers are a great starting point as they summarize large areas of research and offer many citations.
- 📝 To read papers effectively, begin with the title, abstract, and figures, then move to conclusions and results.
- 🔎 Skim papers for relevance by scanning titles, abstracts, and tables before diving into the full text.
- 🚀 Tools like lateral.io use AI to help you find connections between papers, making literature reviews more efficient.
- 🌟 Once important papers are identified, focus on understanding conclusions, methods, and results in more detail.
Q & A
What are the two main reasons the speaker reads research papers?
-The speaker reads research papers for two main reasons: first, to stay updated on new developments related to their research and identify relevant methods or skills. Second, to quickly find citations needed to back up assertions or claims in their own research papers.
Why is it important to read research papers effectively?
-Reading research papers effectively is important because it helps save time, ensures that relevant information is extracted efficiently, and aids in incorporating the findings into one's own research. PhD students and researchers spend a lot of time going through papers, so reading them in an organized manner is crucial.
What are the three tools recommended for finding and exploring research papers?
-The three tools recommended for finding and exploring research papers are Connected Papers, Research Rabbit, and Litmaps. These tools allow researchers to start with a 'seed' paper and branch out to related studies in a more structured way than just relying on keywords or search engines like Google Scholar.
What is the role of keywords in searching for research papers?
-Keywords play a vital role in finding research papers as they allow researchers to filter through the vast amount of available literature. Selecting the right keywords helps in identifying the most relevant and impactful papers in a particular field. Poor keyword selection can lead to missing out on important papers or getting overwhelmed by irrelevant ones.
Why should researchers focus on review papers first?
-Researchers should focus on review papers first because they provide a comprehensive overview of a field, summarizing multiple studies into a single paper. This makes it easier to identify important trends and influential research without reading every individual paper in detail.
What is the recommended order for reading different sections of a research paper?
-The recommended order for reading a research paper is: 1) title, 2) abstract, 3) figures and tables with captions, 4) conclusions, 5) discussion and results, and lastly 6) methods. This order helps researchers quickly assess whether a paper is relevant before delving into the more complex sections.
What is Lateral.io, and how does it help researchers?
-Lateral.io is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to help researchers search for papers not just by keywords but by contextual understanding. It can identify connections between different research papers and highlight similar studies, making it easier to discover relevant literature and prioritize which papers to read.
Why should researchers read the conclusions before the methods section?
-Researchers should read the conclusions first because this section provides a summary of the paper's findings and their relevance. By reading it early on, researchers can determine whether the paper is useful for their work without getting bogged down by the details of the methods, which can be time-consuming.
What role do figures and tables play in quickly assessing a research paper?
-Figures and tables are important for quickly assessing a research paper because they visually summarize the data and results. By reading the captions and looking at the figures, researchers can get an overview of the study's findings without having to go through the entire text.
What is the benefit of turning your thesis introduction or literature review into a review paper?
-Turning a thesis introduction or literature review into a review paper can help gather citations early on in a PhD. Review papers tend to receive more citations as they summarize large amounts of research, making them a valuable contribution to the academic community.
Outlines
📝 The Importance of Efficient Research Paper Reading in PhDs
In this video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of reading research papers quickly and effectively, especially during a PhD. Time is often spent searching for relevant papers, extracting information, and organizing it, which can be overwhelming. The video aims to provide tools and methods for speeding up and enhancing paper reading, including strategies for both deep research and quickly finding citations for supporting assertions. The speaker discusses how both in-depth paper reading and quick citation searches are common needs for researchers.
🔍 Tools to Find Relevant Research Papers Efficiently
The speaker introduces three tools—Connected Papers, Research Rabbit, and LitMaps—that help researchers quickly find relevant papers based on a 'seed paper.' These tools go beyond traditional search methods like Google Scholar, which may yield cluttered results. The speaker highlights the importance of selecting appropriate keywords when searching for papers, and mentions that good search practices can help identify the most impactful papers in a field, from which one can then branch out to find more.
📚 Review Papers: A Starting Point for Efficient Reading
The speaker explains how review papers, which consolidate and analyze research within a particular field, are great starting points when reviewing literature. These papers provide a broad view of the field, making it easier to identify key studies. The speaker suggests scanning the title, abstract, figures, and captions first to determine if a paper is relevant, before diving into the full text. Captions in figures should provide a clear summary, helping researchers quickly understand the paper's content.
🤖 Using Lateral.io for Contextual Research Paper Connections
Lateral.io, an AI-powered tool, is introduced as a way to search for papers not only by keywords but by contextual relevance. The tool helps connect papers with similar themes or research approaches. This tool is especially useful for organizing large stacks of research papers and identifying connections between them. The speaker shares that Lateral.io offers a beta version and encourages viewers to try it out for more efficient research paper management.
📊 Diving Deeper into Research Papers for Detailed Understanding
The final step of reading research papers effectively involves understanding the details. After identifying key papers, the speaker advises starting with the conclusions to see if the paper aligns with one's research interests, then reading the discussion, and leaving the methods section for last. The methodical reading approach helps researchers avoid wasting time on irrelevant sections. The speaker reinforces that reading papers in this order can help navigate dense and jargon-heavy research efficiently.
📖 Wrap-up and Final Advice on Research Paper Reading
The speaker wraps up by reiterating the importance of using the discussed tools and strategies to speed up the process of reading research papers. The approach involves letting the most important papers 'bubble up to the surface' before investing time in deeper reading. The speaker also promotes an academic writing toolkit and a growing academic community that helps scholars collaborate and solve problems in what can sometimes be a lonely field.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Research Papers
💡Effective Reading
💡Keywords
💡Connected Papers
💡Lateral.io
💡Citation
💡Review Papers
💡Figures and Tables
💡Artificial Intelligence (AI)
💡Conclusion Section
Highlights
Reading research papers quickly and effectively is crucial for PhD students and researchers.
There are two main reasons to read research papers: to understand new knowledge in your field or to find citations for your work.
You don't always need to read a paper in full; sometimes you only need specific sections for citations.
Tools like Connected Papers, Research Rabbit, and LitMaps can help you explore literature beyond basic keyword searches.
Properly selecting keywords is critical to ensure that relevant papers show up during searches.
Start by identifying the most impactful papers in your field and branch out from there.
Review papers are great starting points as they summarize research and provide many citations.
When scanning papers, focus on titles, abstracts, figures, and tables first to decide if the paper is worth reading further.
Good figures and tables in papers should have captions that allow you to understand the research without reading the full text.
Lateral.io is an AI-based tool that helps you find and contextualize similar papers by understanding their content.
Use tools like Lateral.io to surface the most relevant papers to the top of your reading list.
Once you have the key papers, focus on reading conclusions first to quickly understand their importance to your research.
You can skip to methods last unless they are directly relevant to your research project.
Using these tools and strategies can significantly speed up your research paper reading process.
Reading research papers in a strategic way, instead of cover to cover, saves time and helps you focus on what's most relevant to your work.
Transcripts
reading research papers quickly and
effectively is so important during a phd
and research in general you spend so
much time trawling through papers
finding the right ones extracting the
information and then trying to organize
it all together can be an absolute
nightmare so in this video i'm going to
share with you the tools that you can
use to actually make paper reading and
sort of
understanding much quicker and more
effective just beyond you know just
reading the
sections in a certain order and there
are two reasons in my research why i
kind of read research papers the first
one is the typical research path where i
wanted to know what was new in the world
what i needed to know what was related
to my research
methods and skills that i wanted to
bring into my own research and there's
no getting beyond the fact that you do
have to then read some very sort of like
dense papers
in their entirety to really understand
how you can incorporate their research
into yours and find those gaps and
there's also another reason a less kind
of in-depth reason why i read papers is
because i just needed a citation right
this is just some of the things i said
in my introduction in other papers or my
literature review
my supervisor would simply say
needs a reference and i'm like oh okay
and so i go in i type in keywords i try
to find a paper that i can reference in
my
my introduction or my paper whatever i'm
doing and that is very sort of uh quick
because you you only have to look at
like one or two sections of the paper
and i'll be talking about that in that
in this video as well you know if you
just need a citation to back up what
you're saying or support an assertion
that you're making
it can be very easy and we'll talk about
the tools that you can use to find those
quick and easy kind of contextual
references
in this video all right let's get into
it this video is brought to you by my
newsletter go check it out at
andrewsdalton.com dot a u forward slash
newsletter link is in the description as
always and there when you sign up you'll
get five emails over about two weeks
everything from the perfect daily
schedule to tools that i use during my
research
as well as how to write the perfect
abstract and more so go sign up and
you'll get that straight into your inbox
i'll see you there okay one thing i
don't see enough channels talk about on
youtube is when you are reading research
papers effectively you actually need to
find the appropriate research papers
quickly and be able to kind of separate
them out from all of the rubbish all of
the stuff that's on the side that isn't
directly related and it can get really
sort of like confusing especially when
keywords um start kind of you know
overlapping some areas may use keywords
that are similar to yours and it can get
a little bit muddy so really it's about
finding the uh the the rose amongst the
thorns is that how you say it but it's
about finding the most important and
impactful papers in your field and then
branching out from there
there are three tools that i've seen and
i recommend
it comes down to connected papers
research rabbit and lit maps those three
tools allow you to kind of use a seed
paper and go out and explore the
literature and it's much kind of easier
than going to google scholar and relying
on search terms and ands and quotation
marks and you know if you don't know how
to search properly on google go check
out those modifiers those search
modifiers and they'll make your life a
whole lot easier so absolutely it relies
on keywords and when you're writing your
paper not enough
effort goes into really selecting the
right keywords and i talk about that in
my ebook
and how to select the right keywords
where to find them how to make sure
people actually find your paper when
they're searching
for your research oh what was that um
and so yes
keywords allow you to find papers and
then using tools like the three that i
mentioned you can also kind of branch
out and there's typically one or two
very influential
reviews or papers in your field that you
can use to kind of branch out so that is
how i would start make sure that you can
identify the most impactful papers and
branch off from there
once you have found your papers of
interest you need to make sure that you
read them effectively so this is only
the first step once you've got this kind
of stack of papers a digital stack if
it's on a file on your computer you need
an easy way to kind of sort through them
and i like to start with the review
papers the review papers are
really cheap ways of getting loads of
citations um if you sort of turn your
introduction of your thesis or the you
know the
literature review into into a
review paper it's a really easy way of
collecting loads of citations early on
in your phd so consider doing that if
you haven't already but uh once you've
got all of these research papers start
with a like a review paper a review
paper is one that looks at all of the
research in the field and kind of
combines it into kind of a meta
study and that is a really great place
to start and then from there you can
start identifying oh well this one's
important and you can go read it now
when you pick up a
paper
the first thing you do is scan it scan
the out of it like don't even worry
about you know following sentences one
thing i do is i just pick it up and i go
title abstract and just leave it at that
initially if the abstract interests me
i'll scan the figures and the tables and
i'll kind of look at the captions a
really great paper and figures
should completely have a caption that
allows you to understand the figure
without having to read the text of the
paper and so uh by just scanning title
does that interest you yes move on
abstract read that quickly does that
interest you yes look at the figures the
figures and the tables will give you an
idea of exactly what sort of research
was done and then a certain figure may
catch your attention read the caption
and that is how you kind of get a quick
overview of what this paper can offer
your research or
provide to your document that you're
writing if something catches your
attention when you have this first pass
over this research paper title abstract
figures and tables captions you can go
oh i wonder if in my other massive stack
of uh
research papers that i need to read i
wonder if there's something similar in
there there is an awesome new tool
called lateral.io
lateral allows you to search amongst all
of these research papers not only with
keywords but contextualized kind of
understanding they've got an artificial
intelligence that goes and scans all of
these other papers so you can kind of
start to connect the dots and then from
there if there are similar kind of
contextual understandings in these other
papers i would raise those to my top of
my read list and then start to collect
those together now this tool lateral io
they've reached out to me and this isn't
a sponsored video but they've given me
access to the beta
version and you can sign up using my
link below so go check it out in the
description because you'll get free
access and immediate access to the beta
version so go test it out i'd be really
interested to know how you use it and
what you think about it so lateral.io i
think that's going to be a valuable tool
for researchers who want to read review
papers journal articles and other kind
of texts quickly and effectively
the last and final step of reading a
research paper effectively is actually
just you know going through everything
else so once you've kind of collected
this information the process we've been
through is essentially allowing all of
the important papers to bubble up to the
top once they're there you've looked at
their title you've looked at their
abstract you look to the figures and the
captions you also then use that
information to go away and bubble up
other interesting studies using
lateral.io but now you've got this kind
of collection of papers that are very
important to you and this is where you
now need to sort of like understand the
paper in much more detail and really
there is no getting around simply
reading the paper um but you don't read
it from start to finish you can start
with the conclusions that's a very
important part so go to the conclusions
and be like okay does this exactly match
what i want it to say
is it super important to me and then
i'll look at the research
details so the summary and the
description and the discussion about
what they've done and then the very last
thing i read is the methods if the
methods
are related to my research then they
become very important but normally i
don't look at the methods until i've
read everything else and a research
paper is presented you know as this kind
of like structure but as a scientist as
a researcher you should not read it in
that order because it's just going to
waste a load of your time particularly
because research papers are dense
they're thick they're full of kind of
field specific terminology that are
confusing to almost everyone that's even
a little bit outside of that field so
yes read papers in this way use the
tools i've mentioned in this video to
make it quicker and more efficient and i
feel like that is the best way to read
research papers effectively
in this video i've just talked about all
of the tools and tricks that you can use
to read research papers quick and
effectively let me know in the comments
if you know of any other tools that can
help people or any other tricks and tips
that you've got for really kind of
speeding up the process which can be
incredibly long incredibly boring
and it's all about getting through those
things quickly the research papers read
them effectively let the interesting
ones bubble up to the surface and then
those are the ones you should spend more
time on and that is probably the most
effective way to read and then looking
at the title abstract then the figures
and tables the captions then the
conclusions then the discussion and
results and very last the methods that
is how you read a research paper and
save yourself a ton of time
if this video has been useful to you
please go check out academiainsider.com
there you'll find my ebook the ultimate
academic writing toolkit where i go
through everything you need to know
about writing peer-reviewed papers
effectively and quickly and it's very
much related to reading so go check it
out and also you can join my forum my
community where there's a bunch of
really awesome academics helping each
other get better solve problems because
academia can be lonely and confusing and
that community is growing quickly and
together we can help each other
you
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