This is dr jay welcome to thesising101 where you should be finishing your degree but your degree is in fact finishing you today. We are focusing on how to read academic papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture efficiently. Let’s get right into it to successfully contribute to knowledge. Which is the purpose of doing research. We must first invest in understanding what is already published and this comes at a steep price of mostly reading academic articles while tips and tricks on how to read academic papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture. Faster may save you a couple of minutes being strategic about what papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture to read will save you weeks. In this tutorial i’ll focus on both aspects starting with the biggest time saver which is identifying the most relevant papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture for this we will apply a version of the pareto principle or the 80 20 rule as an 80 of the literature. Relevant to your topic will come from a select few papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture which i will refer to as key papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture and the rest of what you need to know will be scattered through like 100 other supporting papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture. Meaning not all papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture are equal and as a result does not require an equal amount of investment to identify which papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture we want to invest our time in we have to do some screening in this phase. We first check out the title. This is usually a good indication of whether the paper is related to your study then check out the abstract. A well-written abstract contains a wealth of information. The problem purpose method findings and value. The value gives you an indication of how this particular paper contributes to literature only if the abstract shows potential download the paper into a central space. If this turns out to be a key paper you want to be able to find it easily as you will return to it quite a few times over the course of you conducting your research. There are many tools to help you with organizing your papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture and i strongly suggest that you do get a tool. I prefer using mendeley because it is free easy to install easy to use and it makes finding things and referencing a breeze next.
We read the introduction. This provides you with a little bit more background why the research was important how this paper contributes to literature and also the game plan for the rest of the paper so that the reader knows what to expect next up is major section headings and the first paragraph thereof if it is a good author they will highlight the importance of a major theme in that very first paragraph since this is just the screening phase i usually skip anything after that opening section because that typically would just be additional information and examples if this turns out to be a key paper reading the rest will be very valuable but for now we are still just screening once you’ve gotten the gist of the major section headings quickly check out the sub themes and sub sub themes because good authors will summarize these themes by using very descriptive headings at this point you don’t have to bother reading the paragraphs underneath i recommend you skip the method section of the paper altogether because if you’ve read the abstract and the introduction you will have a good view of the methods that the author used the only times you would want to pay special attention to the method section is if you would like to replicate the study or repurpose the method or research instruments for somewhat similar study skim through graphs tables figures and formula because those are great ways to get the gist of what the author is saying in a quick and efficient manner then of course the conclusion once you have a feel for how relevant the paper is mark it in your tool as such in mendeley i just use the star feature if it is a key paper and leave the rest blank indicating that the rest are supporting papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture at this stage summarize the supporting papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture in one sentence and add keywords i’m not referring to the keywords the authors used but keywords that are specific to your study that relates to the paper and in most cases it will just be one or two keywords because after all these are supporting papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture in total this phase can take anything from two to fifteen minutes per paper depending on how well you know your topic already or how skilled you are at academic reading i usually do phase one in a batch and can get through about 15 papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture in 20 minutes because this is a skill that i’ve built over many years so don’t get discouraged if it takes you a little bit longer you will notice that the more you do this the easier it becomes now that we have differentiated between key papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture and supporting papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture we can invest our time strategically always start with the key papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture you absolutely do not have to read the entire paper to extract value from it as much as we were strategic about what papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture to invest our time in we also have to be clever around what parts of the paper we read since we have done phase 1 for a bunch of papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture we now need to re-read the title abstract and introduction in phase 2 because the two phases could be hours apart if you are already well versed in your topic you can do a keyword search through the background and read only the paragraphs or sections related to those keywords.
Just make sure you check out the headings so that you can be certain of where this bit of information fits in if the topic is very new to you. It would be beneficial to read this in a little bit more detail after a while you will notice that the background and introduction in related papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture are starting to sound the same once you have noticed that pattern you can adopt the keyword search method again skip the method section unless it is something you want to repurpose then pay special attention to graphs tables figures and formula. We previously just skimmed through these are great summaries of what the author is trying to convey and it helps you with your understanding of the subject read the findings limitations and conclusion in detail since these are key. Papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture skimming is unadvisable because most of the claims in your study will be based on these articles and for that reason.
You really need to be sure of what the author is saying. Also this provides you with the author’s point of view on the phenomenon and this will help you with finding your own voice for when you have to give your point of view in your thesis or dissertation the limitations section is quite interesting because it can shape how you need to position your work so that it is clear on how you are contributing to knowledge and it is also a great source of potential barriers or hurdles that you need to look out for in your study if it is a supporting paper it is even easier to get through but before i show you how to read a supporting paper. I just want to share a bonus tip read the supporting paper. Only once you’ve read quite a number of key papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture when we are new to a subject we miss quite a few connections between ideas and concepts. This means you may have incorrectly classified an article as a supporting paper. Because at the time of screening your knowledge on the subject was sparse and you couldn’t recognize the article’s importance. The frequency of incorrectly classifying papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture will drastically decrease over time. The more familiar you become with your subject back to reading tips again start with the title abstract and introduction remember those keywords you wrote in your summary well in the supporting papers agricultural journals, journals of agriculture you can pretty much just do a keyword search and read those sections related to these words very well. This goes for background figures tables and findings since most of the paper will be irrelevant focus only on the bits that you can extract value from read the limitations and the conclusion in detail as this is a way to validate the bits and pieces. You are extracting and just a reminder if at any stage supporting paper is elevated to a key paper. This method will no longer be sufficient so you’ll have to read it in a little bit more detail. And that is it for a supporting paper as a researcher who has done this for a very very long time i can tell you with absolute certainty that there are no shortcuts.
When it comes to improving your knowledge on a subject you are meant to create knowledge on when i was a masters student it took me ages to get through a paper and someone gave me the advice to just read the introduction and the conclusion and i’ll be fine. Yeah i wasn’t fine and neither are any of the students i supervise. That somehow got the same advice. If it is a key paper you are better off making the investment. Do not shortchange yourself because it is a little bit hard especially in the beginning this will become easier. And that’s it for me today. If you have comments or questions just pop them into the comment section i love interacting with you guys that way like this share this subscribe to this this is dr j signing off.
Where to find great research papers?
Various great research journals such as Global Research Letters are a great option and way to help you look up impactful research papers with a great format. Here, you will find a number of various research papers that are provided and made available to you in the journal, which will help you write your own paper.
You can very easily find papers on a variety of topics at Global Research Letters, which will help you with your own research work and understanding of writing and publishing research papers properly. With access to so many amazing research papers, you can practice and learn the process of writing research papers and their importance.