Physics

Deep reading

Reading academic articles can be challenging. It is okay if you don't understand everything on the first try, but it does mean that you will have to pass over a paper more than once. Here are a few steps to take to become familiar with the content.

1. Pre-reading

   • Investigate the source (journal or publisher). *See the SIFT method below for tips.
   • Get acquainted with the structure of the article.
     • Academic papers often follow this sequence: Abstract, Introduction/background, Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion.
     • Review articles that summarize literature on a topic up to the time of writing do not follow the standard format. They are usually organized with topic headings.
     • The different document types covered by Web of Science may give you an idea of what to expect.

2. Scanning the paper

   • Look up unfamiliar terms.
   • Check on facts to understand background information.

3. Marking-up the paper

   • Highlight keywords and main ideas.
   • Note results that are relevant to your research.
   • Mark references that would be useful to look up later.

4. Following-up

   • Trace claims and locate interesting references.
   • Find citing papers (more recent papers that cite it). This is easy to do by pasting the title of the paper in Google Scholar.