Topic outline

  • Research reading and writing

    Prev Next

    Reflection

    1. What research reading strategies seem to work for you? Why? 
    2. What strategies would you use to address the following real research reading challenges of research candidates?

      • I have so much reading to do. How can I manage it? (or ‘I feel as if I am drowning in the amount of reading I am doing’).
      • I take about 4–6 hours to read a paper and worry about being too slow.
      • I am not sure if what I am reading is the best quality. How do I know the journal is a good quality journal?
      • My supervisors asked me to read 200 papers in the next two weeks.
      • The reading is too hard and I cannot understand it.
      • I am not remembering what I have read.
      • My supervisors have asked me to become more critical in my reading, but I don't know what this means nor how to do it.
      • I have read about 40 papers related to my topic, but don't know how to organise them to write about them.

    Check out the handout 'Strategies to respond to research reading challenges' at the end of this resource page for some suggestions. 

    Tools for working with reading and thinking critically while reading research
    Learning to be critical as a researchers requires you to ask key questions as you read. Three tools provided in the attachment (Becoming more critical) at the end of this resource may help you develop critical analysis skills while reading. 

    Recommended strategies advised by experienced research scholars
    • Start by developing an overview of your field—find review articles.
    • Use peer-reviewed research articles or papers as well as, or rather than books because they have the latest information. Books are already 2–3 years old by the time they are published.
    • Use books for general background information or specific theories.
    • Keep going into the literature or ‘immerse yourself in the literature’—think about and find hidden problems, interesting perspectives, ask new questions.
    • Read with a purpose in mind—have data in your mind, before starting to read.
    • Develop an annotated bibliography (EndNote can help, and use Excel).
    • Read, think and write at the same time.
    • Write a summary—highlight vocabulary or expressions that are new to discuss with your supervisor.
    • Write about the gap—what is known, what is unknown.
    • Respond to the critical questions (write your thoughts into the Research notes in EndNote, Zotero or Mendeley, or into OneNote). 

    The next step in research reading is to organise your reading and connect readings with one another to write your research story or literature review. 

    • Be well-organised with your readin­g by using bibliographic management tools available to track references and group or categorise them.
    • ‘Mentalise’ or internalise the main ideas that you have thought about from a reading in relation to your own research topic.
    • Connect your readings to one another according to sub-topics and in relation to your research—use mind mapping, flowcharts and other forms of visuals to do this. 
    • Use Excel as a way to develop an overview of all your readings. List all your sources and key aspects of the reference according to your priorities—eg Author | Date | Type of Source | Title | Contribution | Questions raised | Method. Additional headings could include and are not limited to: Cited by | Journal name | Site of experiment | Water type to treat | Aim of study | Plants used | Sampling & analysis | Conclusion | Recommendations | Time scale of expt | whatever is relevant for your research.

    A segment of an Excel spreadsheet listing three papers by Author, Date, Title, Journal, URL, Type and database.

    Part of an Excel spreadsheet listing Author, Date, Title of article, Journal, Site of experiment, Water type, AbstractImages of the Excel spreadsheet used with permission from Dr Jeni Ayres, UniSA STEM. Jeni's thesis was focused on remediating waste water. 

    This topic was written by Dr Monica Behrend.

    Prev Next