How many articles do you read?

[bsharpe269]

Alot of posts I see imply that the writer isnt that familiar with articles/professors in their field which i feel is probably equally if not more imporatant than class work.

 

To see whats normal, Im curious how many journal articles would you say you average a day/week/month? Also, how do you choose which artcles to read.. do you follow specific journals, professrs etc.

 

thanks!

 

 

Edited January 31, 2014 by bsharpe269

[TakeruK]

My goal is to learn about one other research project per day (this is pretty hard for me though, I don't think I have been able to accomplish this for more than 1 week in a row). There are 2-3 seminars per week in my department, so listening to one of those talks count as "one" that day, in my books. On the other days, I try to read one journal article but this is pretty tough when I had a lot of classes to also manage. I think I average 3-4 articles/talks per (work) week. I would like to work on getting this to 5/week.

 

I don't follow specific journals or professors, but what I do is subscribe (or check online) the arxiv preprint server every work day: http://arxiv.org/ (maybe there is an equivalent for your field)? I mostly stick to my own sub-field and I see a list of abstracts every day. If there is an interesting title, an interesting abstract, or an author name I recognize, then that usually encourages me to read it. Sometimes, I also find interesting papers to read as a result of press releases, people posting stuff to Facebook/Twitter, or if a colleague/friend mentioned that they read something interesting. Finally, sometimes there are research group meetings where the goal is to discuss a paper that the prof assigned us to read. 

 

There will be times where I am reading more papers than normal. There are phases (e.g. starting a new project or writing a lit review part of a paper) where I might spend most of the day reading instead of other research work. In these cases, I am purposely following reference trails and seeking out specific papers. I'd call this a "depth" search where the goal is to find out detailed information about my project while the above stuff is more of a "breadth" search where my goal is to learn about what else people are doing. When reading for "depth", I take notes and carefully file/catalogue the PDFs for future use. When reading for "breadth", I usually do not save the PDFs/notes unless the article turned out to be very relevant/useful to my work.

 

I think your question was mostly towards "breadth" reading, but hope this answers both! 

[bsharpe269]

Wow, this is a great method. I should try setting aside an hour a day or so to focus on an article or two.

 

I generally go a few days without reading anything and then curiosity takes over and I pretty much binge on articles for a day. With this method, I probably do a detailed skim on around 10-15 a week but it would definitely be better time wise to distribute it out more!

[GeoDUDE!]

I read an article or 2 every day. That being said, i'm a masters student so it might be a bit different if you are just coming out of ugrad. I've been reading Geophysics and Planetary Science journals for the better part of 4 years. 

[gellert]

25-50 a month.  Partly because I'm working on two meta-analyses and partly because I'm trying to read all the articles my boss (I'm a lab manager right now) assigns to his grad seminar class.  I'll also read any of the articles that show up in my email from journal subscriptions that have interesting abstracts.

Edited January 31, 2014 by gellert

[Monochrome Spring]

I read 50+/month between my two literature reviews and reading another article each day in my desired graduate subfield. I expect that I'll be at 25-50/mo after the literature reviews are done.

[geographyrocks]

I've also wondered this. 

Another question: How do you go about finding articles?  With SO many journals to choose from, how do you find the most relevant journals/articles?

[Monochrome Spring]

I use a database that pulls from many journals. So if I'm looking for papers on X hypothesis, I just search for it and get all relevant papers across journals.

 

When I'm reading just to get more knowledge in my field, I am more broad and put "tropic* plant". I read through the abstracts of every paper available for the month (I do this lit pull monthly), and pull the ones that are most relevant. I have a folder on my computer of papers to read, and I color code it: green = read, purple = key paper in field, no color = need to read.

[GeoDUDE!]

I've also wondered this. 

Another question: How do you go about finding articles?  With SO many journals to choose from, how do you find the most relevant journals/articles?

 

I read nature, science, G^3, JGR, Lithos, EPSL, ect.... idk there are maybe 20 that i've found people in my field publish in ? 

[gellert]

I've also wondered this. 

Another question: How do you go about finding articles?  With SO many journals to choose from, how do you find the most relevant journals/articles?

 

I'm in social psych, so I read all the APS journals in addition to Nature Neuroscience, JPSP, Psych Bulletin, Emotion, Science, and JDM.  Those seem to cover the majority of my interests.  I'll also read anything posted to the websites of PIs whose work I find particularly interesting.

[rising_star]

Start with Web of Science, set up search alerts for journals/articles relevant to your field, etc.

 

The amount you read really depends on where you are in your studies. I didn't read a lot of articles specifically related to applying when I applied to my PhD, but my field doesn't do interviews so there's no need to read up on POI's work. Anyway, I used to try to read at least one article relevant to my interests (my interests span... four-ish disciplines, so there's a lot of options) every day. I didn't always achieve this though and would fall off the wagon for weeks and months at a time. Even so, I recommend it. I'd read one in the morning before getting started with the rest of my day, for example.

[Queen of Kale]

I read 3-4 papers a week but many more abstracts.  I also skim more articles than I actually read.  But I try to read one broad article in my field, one classic article, and one related to a project.  Sometimes more if I'm doing a lit review for a proposal or paper.

 

Edited to add that this wouldn't include papers for class, which would be maybe 5 a week on average but with big burst of reading near paper deadlines.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Queen of Kale

[geographyrocks]

Start with Web of Science, set up search alerts for journals/articles relevant to your field, etc.

 

 

That's a great resource!  I use ReadCube to organize the articles I already have, but it is a very tedious process to find articles through the school I go to.  I basically have to search for each journal I want (or scroll through their list of journals), go to each journals site, and then search for articles that are interesting.  It can be very time consuming. 

[rising_star]

geographyrocks, you should definitely NOT be searching that way. Huge timewaster. You should be using the large databases, which of course vary by field but in general PubMed and Web of Science are the biggies. Also, what would be faster would be to search the site of whichever major group publishes that journal: ScienceDirect (Elsevier), Project MUSE, JSTOR, Wiley-Blackwell, Sage Publishing, etc. Even using those would save you time over your current approach. If you're desperate and your school's search is really that bad, use Google Scholar. It's not comprehensive but it's better than going through journals one by one. Also, talk to a reference librarian because there may be an easier way to run your searches that you just don't know about...

[geographyrocks]

geographyrocks, you should definitely NOT be searching that way. Huge timewaster.

Heh...tell me about it!  As soon as I'm able to, I'm going to start using Web of Science. 

There is no problem using the search engine when I'm looking for specific articles (for a lit review), but I'm not able to search through sites like ScienceDirect via the proxy my school has.  I'm not sure why, but it always goes from free to paid as soon as I try.  It could also be that I haven't spent a lot of time using it aside from looking for specific articles so I haven't figured out the tricks yet. 

This site is such a great resource! 

[bsharpe269]

For those of you you arent keeping up with reading in your field, how have you nailed down a research topic?

[Geologizer]

I'm probably solidly at about 20 or so per month on average over the last year or so. Some months a lot more, some a bit less. Depends on how many seminars I have. Though when I think journal articles, I think JGR, Tectonics, ESPL, etc. (~15-20 pages on average plus whatever supplemental stuff). Science and Nature papers are so short it barely even counts. They're short and sweet, closer to pleasure reading.

[TakeruK]

I'm probably solidly at about 20 or so per month on average over the last year or so. Some months a lot more, some a bit less. Depends on how many seminars I have. Though when I think journal articles, I think JGR, Tectonics, ESPL, etc. (~15-20 pages on average plus whatever supplemental stuff). Science and Nature papers are so short it barely even counts. They're short and sweet, closer to pleasure reading.

 

It's true that Science and Nature are super short but they often come with a ton of "Supplemental Information" and since they leave so much out, you end up having to read several longer articles to fully understand the significance! However, I think these are great for discussion groups--their short length encourages others to read it and only the person leading the discussion really needs to read all of the extra stuff.

[meowth]

Oh whoops, I checked less than five when I was thinking of it in terms of sociology, but I'm still volunteering in a psych lab where I'm doing a lit review so I go through maybe 20-50 a month. But I can get away with skimming a lot of them.

 

I have a lot of gender studies booked checked out that I'm trying to make my way through right now though.

I haven't really looked for general sociology articles though (which is the field I'm switching to for grad school). I guess I find it more important to keep up with stuff more specific to my interests even if they're not technically in the field or a proper journal article.

[Crucial BBQ]

Alot of posts I see imply that the writer isnt that familiar with articles/professors in their field which i feel is probably equally if not more imporatant than class work.

 

To see whats normal, Im curious how many journal articles would you say you average a day/week/month? Also, how do you choose which artcles to read.. do you follow specific journals, professrs etc.

 

thanks!

One thing I found with articles is that if you search for what-ever niche you are interested in, the same handful of authors comes up time and time again.  Sometimes I feel like I know these people as if they were my professors, their names appear that often.  

 

I find it more important, though, seeing as how once you are through with school--undergrad in particular--journal papers and research articles become your "course work", reference materials, "fact" checkers, and so on.  

 

The first year I did research I read only a few.  Perhaps maybe five total for the entire year.  I was a biology student who managed to work myself into chemistry research.  I was told that if I could do the math, I could do the research.  Math aside, I was horrible at chemistry.  I had to use reference books.  During my last year of doing research as an undergrad I was reading perhaps up to five a week.  I say perhaps because many of them were only partially read.  I struggled with research design, so I tended to go from the abstract to methods to conclusion.  If the conclusion peaked my interests, I would go back and read the entire piece. 

 

Since I have been out of school, I have not read many.  

 

How do I choose which papers to read?  Generally, I start with a particular topic.  After I find a few papers that are worth my while, I look to see who cited the paper, then I follow those citations to those respective papers.  Sometimes I will follow up on a particular citation within the paper.  

 

I do not follow specific journals.  

 

For those of you you arent keeping up with reading in your field, how have you nailed down a research topic?

I find the more I read the more my interests change broadly.