Schedule a meeting with your librarian
Here's a link to my appointment calendar. Find a time that works for you and book it.
Keep track of your research
A document like this research log template can help you stay organized with your research. It can also help you extract the most relevant information from a paper efficiently.
Read Efficiently
Check out these tips on how to read a technical or scholarly paper. Don't worry, you won't spoil the ending if you skip around as you read.
Try these steps if you find an article or book and can't read it.
The structure of a paper can tell us where to find certain information. Many research articles follow a similar structure.
Introduction
What did the authors do (big picture)?
Why did they do their research?
Methods
How did they do their research, often step by step?
Results
What happened when they did their research?
Discussion/Conclusion
What did they learn from their research? How did they interpret the results?
First, consider your purpose for reading—what information are you looking for? Your research log can help answer that question.
Then examine the title, authors and publication date.
Next, read the abstract and keywords.
If the article looks promising, skim the parts most relevant for your purposes. This will usually include the discussion/conclusion, introduction, results and related figures. The reference list helps point you to other relevant papers.
An efficient way to approach an article is to read the sections out of order and focus on the parts most relevant to your purpose for reading. Don’t forget to take notes!
If the article doesn’t look promising, skip it!