Questions tagged [reading]
Questions concerning how to critically read and evaluate scholarly material.
119
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Would it be well-received to ask for the LaTeX source of a textbook?
My screen reader has a hard time with PDF documents. As I delve into more niche textbooks, I increasingly find them only in print/PDF rather than EPUB.
This makes it difficult to learn when the screen ...
7
votes
1
answer
558
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Reading takes too long (as a mathematician)
Reading a script, a book or a paper in mathematics can sometimes be so time consuming.
Sometimes it takes me hours to read a single page, because something just makes no sense.
But I find reading ...
2
votes
1
answer
265
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How do we tell the purpose of a text (paper, article) if it is not stated explicitly? [closed]
Recently, I've been teaching myself Academic writing to enhance my critical thinking and English (I'm an ESL student). Following the textbook (A sequence for Academic Writing), I was tasked with ...
2
votes
1
answer
209
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If someone reads my manuscript, makes helpful suggestions and I thank them at the end, have I now removed them from the pool of potential reviewers?
There's a senior researcher who literally "wrote the book" on the topic of a paper I'm writing. I'll draw from and cite the book but introduce some new things.
As I am new to this long-...
5
votes
3
answers
282
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How to read survey paper properly and efficiently?
I want to know how to make the best use of survey paper? When I'm new to a particular field, I try to grab some survey paper. However, these papers just outline briefly each methods without going deep ...
3
votes
3
answers
617
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How to read a lot of research papers?
TL; DR: At least for the next few weeks, I'm going to be overwhelmed with reading a lot of research papers one after the other, sometimes even at the same time. How to deal with this? Are there any ...
28
votes
9
answers
11k
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What should I do when my PhD adviser sends me a paper to read?
I'm currently in a PhD program in Electrical Engineering. Sometimes, my adviser will send me papers with a small note such as "I thought this may be relevant to your work. Please have a look and ...
3
votes
2
answers
194
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Best way to read academic/scientific books [duplicate]
I’m a computer science student in the second semester. I passed all my first exams fairly well and can follow my lectures quite decent (usually).
But whenever I want to dig deeper into a topic and try ...
5
votes
3
answers
429
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What are some good techniques for reading a textbook?
I'm a newly admitted grad student for computer science. I've always had an extremely difficult time with taking notes, reading, and retaining information from reading. I find that I'm only able to ...
6
votes
3
answers
209
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How to tackle slow processing when studying new material?
This might not be the best place for this question, but I don't know where else to turn. I'm a 32 year guy currently doing a bachelors in biochemistry. I'm definitely doing a masters after this, and ...
5
votes
1
answer
608
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First year of PhD, I feel anxious all the time because of the coursework
I'm in my first year of a linguistic PhD program. I have courses to take, which is nice because I always think these would equip me with deeper knowledge about this field and prepare me to be a decent ...
18
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5
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Do topmost professors have something to read daily (in their locally saturated domain)?
I have this doubt from last year. This doubt arose in me after an academic incident.
Incident
During last year, I presented my progress before a panel of four experts and it went almost well. The ...
0
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1
answer
315
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How to overcome "reader's block" as an undegraduate student?
This semester I am reading lots of textbooks. In the beginning I learnt a lot by reading books but soon after, the amount of my learning started to decline. I feel like I have hit the reader's block ...
2
votes
0
answers
2k
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What is the best e-Ink device for academic paper reading and hand annotation? [closed]
Having just started my PhD, my academic paper reading and review has ramped up dramatically and so far I've tried the two predominant methods of doing so: on a laptop or with physically printed papers....
0
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1
answer
195
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Question about research procedure [closed]
It is a well known fact that to be a good researcher, one needs to read a fair amount of technical papers. I am primarily interested in mathematical sciences. My questions are the following:
How do ...
7
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7
answers
2k
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How to approach an academic journal [closed]
To begin with, suppose I want to get up-to-date with the content of Journal of Financial Economics. The specific journal has published several volumes in the period 1974-2020. So far, I 've ...
2
votes
4
answers
316
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Tracking reading progress of documentations or ebooks [closed]
Challenge: I need to read a lot of documentations and websites, but often in random order. I need to track which articles of a website, or which pages of a documentation I already read. I want to mark ...
-1
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1
answer
216
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Why do formal research papers keep statements that should be interpreted informally?
In several domains, I came across many popular research papers that do contain statements that should be interpreted informally. If someone interprets them formally, it leads to a totally wrong ...
0
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3
answers
443
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How to read research papers?
I am reading some papers from Arxiv which were advised by a professor. Also the papers are published by a professors. My question is as follows: How to prove the professor that I have read the paper (...
5
votes
2
answers
156
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Dive into a paper using a reading course
I hope this question is appropriate for this site. Maybe community wiki might be a good option.
I was the TA in a course for undergraduates last term. I student approached me after the course ended ...
3
votes
0
answers
683
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Should I buy a printer or an iPad pro for reading articles? [closed]
I assume everybody on this site needs to read articles frequently, which is why I consider this silly question relevant. Due to covid and home-office, I've lost consistent access to a printer, so I ...
0
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1
answer
238
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How do you develop research skills?
I'm a PhD student in applied mathematics
I’m in a quiet period since I’ve submitted all that my supervisor asked for (I’m a first year), I like to read as many articles as I can get my hands on. I’ll ...
0
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1
answer
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make sense of index terms in dl.acm.org website
I am a graduate student. I plan to submit my master project this year.
While browsing relevant papers in my research field, I wonder how making sense of index terms on the site dl.acm.org
For an ...
3
votes
3
answers
488
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Which software converts academic publications from PDF to Word without mangling complex formatting?
I'm asking about this in StackExchange Academia rather than a software-recommendation site because I have conversion problems specific to the layout of academic publications. I'm helping a student who ...
2
votes
1
answer
294
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How to read and organize academic materials [duplicate]
It's a questions that haunts me for some day. I am a phd in computer science and recently when I need to read materials of different forms and take note, I somehow don't know how to decide. With the ...
3
votes
1
answer
492
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Is there any free alternative to Mendeley desktop app on Windows?
I have been using Mendeley for a very long time now. I use it for organizing and reading articles. I just noticed that it keeps removing files randomly from the folders and groups. I don't know the ...
5
votes
1
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143
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Journal article suggestion website or application
I'm finishing up my PhD in mathematics at the moment. I like to read journal articles from a wide range of different disciplines, and I wonder if there's some kind of service that might suggest ...
7
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4
answers
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Is it common for undergraduate students to feel overwhelmed by the reading assignments? How to deal with it?
I'm in the second year of an International Affairs undergraduate program.
When classes first began last year, I - like most of my peers - felt overwhelmed by the amount of text assigned for reading, ...
-1
votes
2
answers
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What are best practices for dealing with OCR'ed but ugly papers ("picture of text on top of the text")?
Many PDFs of old papers are only an image of text. Other papers have been converted with optical character recognition (OCR). By OCR'ed, I mean the text is electronically typeset, and so there are no ...
4
votes
1
answer
283
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How does one avoid bikeshedding in paper reading groups?
We read papers once a week in my group, and I'm additionally part of a graduate class that involves reading multiple papers a week.
I've noticed that, when asked to think about limitations or future ...
29
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6
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Do active researchers in mathematics read a paper in detail?
Context:
As a researcher you need to read many research papers by others. In the case of mathematics, a paper consists of:
Results (theorems, lemma, propositions)
Proofs that consist of the technique ...
1
vote
1
answer
167
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I am reading a paper that I barely understand. How can I make the best of my mentor in this situation?
Half of my inability to understand the paper comes from not being acquainted with the folklore of this particular part of the field, and the other half might be because I am lacking general background ...
4
votes
2
answers
514
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Is it okay to request to do a reading project with a professor at a later time if he had politely denied it before?
I was planning to do a reading project with a professor in my institute and had asked him in the last semester whether it would be possible for me to do it under his guidance. However he had politely ...
3
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2
answers
429
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How to make sure one understands each and every detail while reading a textbook/research paper without leaving any gaps?
I am a physics Master's student. I have good grades, with CGPA above 9(/10)(However, all courses in my university are graded on a curve so the actual marks are significantly lower than 90%). This has ...
4
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6
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What is a recommended strategy on exercises in a mathematical textbook at graduate level? [duplicate]
When I read a mathematical textbook at graduate level to learn and master a particular subject that I am unfamiliar with, I always struggle with the strategy on the exercises. Sometimes I spent one ...
4
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3
answers
346
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How to fall in love with reading? [closed]
I've searched the Stackexchange sites and found several potentially good places to ask this question but I have eventually chosen here as here where I personally found it best fits.
I'm an academic ...
6
votes
1
answer
286
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How to find related work in academic writing in the most time-efficient way?
I noticed that, for each research project, there comes a point where I have to consult the literature, and find all the previous research related to the current project.
Unfortunately, I seem to be ...
6
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7
answers
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For a first year math PhD student, should the student read their graduate level math textbooks page by page, sentence by sentence? [closed]
Question is: For a first year math PhD student, should the student read their graduate level math textbooks page by page, sentence by sentence?
I often hear professors say that that's a bad idea, and ...
1
vote
1
answer
277
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How to make notes on journal readings – necessary, or emergent skill?
I'll preface by saying I honestly have a load of anxiety associated with this by now, such that it detracts from reading.
I have never been a note-taker (only taking them when forced to by teachers, ...
74
votes
7
answers
13k
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Is it normal to have a hard time comprehending academic papers?
I am starting my PhD in statistics program next year, and I have some concerns.
In my institution, there is a mandatory course that every PhD student has to take in lieu of taking one qualifying ...
1
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1
answer
198
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How can you read an excessive number of pages in a short amount of time? [closed]
I'm taking 3 online classes. Each has a book I have to read. Each chapter is around 100 pages long in all of them, and I have a week to read them. I'm not able to do some of my assignments, because I'...
3
votes
3
answers
258
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Recommended course weight for online quizzes outside of class
In many of my classes (mainly with undergraduate students), I begin every class session with a reading quiz, that is, a short, simple multiple-choice quiz on their assigned reading, to make sure that ...
1
vote
1
answer
617
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Why don't we still have a good eInk reader device for research papers? [closed]
There are so many people in academia. A lot of people who are not in academia also read research papers. And I'm not talking about the formatting part. I'm talking about just looking up research ...
3
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3
answers
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How can I tell if a paper is too old to be a reference for my research?
Current scientific databases hold papers that were published over the past few decades (I haven't checked what is the oldest paper available, but I remember seeing papers from the 1960s, there might ...
2
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2
answers
349
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"Breaking in" to reading papers in an unfamiliar field?
I graduated from my undergraduate degree about a year ago and took a job in industry. While completing that degree, I did research with a professor related to machine learning. However, after ...
27
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6
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6k
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Difficulty reading scientific papers in two columns
It sounds stupid, but I came to realize that it's significantly more difficult for me to read scientific papers when they are typeset in two columns than papers in which the text appears in one column....
4
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1
answer
871
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Is it okay to struggle with the content of research paper you are reading?
I am a PhD student works in computational theory. I have been doing coursework for nearly three years and right now I am starting to reading research papers. I am making progress very slowly, taking ...
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1
answer
204
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Reading or listening to audio books [closed]
What's better, reading a book or listening to audio books?
I've done a bit research, and most places say that on isn't superior to the other.
But I'm not convinced by that, since I don't see the logic ...
4
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4
answers
483
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How do I read a textbook or monograph with good comprehension?
I’m not a native English speaker but my reading ability is good. However, when it comes to academic books, I feel that my comprehension is slow. What strategies or methods can I use to help me improve ...
55
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7
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In academia, does the amount of material that one has to learn diminish as time progresses?
From my own point of view, the first year of a PhD is heavily packed with new information, theory, techniques, conventions, experimental abilities, etc. Let us call all these elements "material". This ...