Hi,

What is the best way to read scientific papers? For example, I have research paper, I need to know the best approach to read the paper and get the idea.

Any suggestion?

Probably there are so many ways. But I found a way is interesting to me. He is an undergrad student and has read quite a few papers.

This was thought to him by an eminent professor in his college.

Essentially almost all papers are composed of about 6 sections
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Basic concepts
4. Introduced concepts
5. Results
6. Conclusion and future work

The normal way is to go about the paper one section after another. But my professor used to tell if you go about it that way you will never be able to understand it as most probably you'll get bored by the time you reach the 4th section. (Introduced concepts)

He used to tell us to directly refer to the results section and observe how the results have been obtained and what are the methods that have been employed to obtain the same. After this one will get a fair idea of what the author wanted to do. Then go to the "Introduced concepts" part. Good journal articles will have at the most 2 new concepts and they try to explain that in detail. There is a high probability that one might not understand this (well as a student I couldn't understand some papers)

Refer back to the basic concepts to understand the topics you are finding tough. This way you will be able to co-relate the basic concepts to the ones being introduced. After this, go to the abstract and try to compare what you have understood and what the paper actually is!!

If you want to work on the same area as mentioned in the paper, it is advised to go through the introduction section as it will give you a fair idea of how that particular topic has evolved. After which one can go through the conclusion and future work sections which usually give a clue on how to take the work forward.

This usually works on most of the papers. If it doesn't well this is my first post on Quora and I am sorry for having wasted your time.


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Besides @researcherbook answer, try this also-


Reading papers becomes faster and easier the more expertise you gain. That being said, I would define effective reading as minimizing the energy you expend. Most scientists read papers in a specific order, possibly truncating before the last step, and most authors of scientific papers are cognizant of this style of consumption when they write their paper. The order is:

1. Abstract. If it doesn't seem that the paper will be interesting/relevant/elucidating based on the abstract, most people will stop reading. Many papers will restate the abstract at the end of the introduction and in the conclusions (not all papers will delineate sections with special headings though), so if the abstract isn't clear, you might check those other places.

2. Figures and figure captions. In a well-constructed paper, the story told in the figures is effectively an outline of the paper. Also, graphic information is often easier to absorb than verbal information in scientific communication. If you're an expert in the field, you will probably stop after the figures.

3. Introduction (if you are not yet an expert) or

4. Methods (if you are an expert)

5. At this point, if you're feeling interested or obligated, read the rest of the paper in the order it is presented.

One final point: in every field, there are papers that are so exquisitely well written that they will singlehandedly lift you out of the muddle produced by all the other papers. Seek out these papers, and don't give up until you find them. They won't necessarily be the ones with the largest number of citations.

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