Hi,

I have had a childhood habit of reading a-to-z of everything I had to read. It always gave me a clear idea about what there is to know about the certain topic. But now, in doing my literature review, this habit is not helping me at all. It takes longer time to finish each article and also make me read less papers in the allotted time. Can anyone suggest me how can I optimize my reading according to available time and deadline?
Since I am in social science, my whole research in based on reading rather than lab sessions, so it is vitally important for me.

Please help.

Regards

Hello! I had the same problem (as well as poor memory on occasion!) so I picked up the teach yourself speed reading book. It really changed the way I approach literature. These are the steps that I use now:
1) Scan - title, subheadings and images/figures. This will give you an idea of exactly what is in the paper.
2) Make a list of questions that you want to answer/things you want to learn from the paper. Make sure this is quite extensive.
3) Read the abstract and the first line of each paragraph, highlight the paragraphs that answer any of your questions. If you come across new questions add them to your list.
4) finally read those sections that are necessary only. Answer all of your questions. If you have, then your done, no need to read any more.
5) If you have poor memory (like me) review the paper the following day along with the notes that you made to answer your questions.

The book also gives some tips on how you can physically read faster that might be useful.
Hope this helps!

Hi

In a similar discipline, check out my post 'Anyone started a PhD this yr?' I got a few helpful tips from members there.  Everyone is different, but so far I read the abstract of all my saved articles that have some bearing on what I'm researching, and only (at present) read the most relevant in full, I have to read slowly to take in and take notes along the way, check out the bibliographies, and from the bibliographies you can pick out some key resources. From my notes I can look back to see which will be the most useful articles, and also this helps to build a picture of what is a good piece of research and what isnt.  This is helping me at the moment, but as I am also at the trying to write lit review stage, I will be most interested to see what those further ahead than me have to say. :-)

Dear friends,

Thanks for your kind replies. These are really practical and helpful tips.

@Java: I also used to do the same. I also used to summarize each paper along as I read them. But as the reading list became most extensive, it became too tedious. And also I tended to forget parts that I have skimmed though. Another important aspect was that after several months, some papers, which seemed not-so-relevant turned to have contained a good content for some aspects of the research. So I needed to go through them all over again, having forgotten by then, the most I already grasped because of the newer articles included in the list.

@Siwee: Your approach is quite methodical and I am now finding it out, that I am quite forgetful (a new phenomenon added to the list of what I cannot do, after starting my PhD). The book title you suggest is "Teach from yourself speed reading", isn't it? Can I can it from amazon?

Thanks again.

Yes, Teach yourself speed reading, its part of the Teach Yourself series and is written by Tina Konstant. But there are any number of books that will help you to improve. Sarah

That's great advise Siwee! I have exactly the same problem with reading, I'm really slow and as I'm learning lots of new information I take notes on that and then go look for the bibliographies, it's just such a slow going process for me that I really have to catch up on my reading!

I'm going to try some of those tips though and see how I get on. I'm trying to do my lit review also, so is taking notes for each paper worthwhile for reference at a later stage? (i.e. for the lit review/thesis/presentations)