by quinet
How do you read papers?:
[Via Gobbledygook]
Working in science is as much about reading papers as it is about writing papers. There are usually two ways you can come across an interesting scientific paper:
- Active Searching. Literature search on a particular topic
- Passive Browsing. Scanning the literature in regular intervals for papers of interest
The focused active search is typically used when you collect information for a research project or write a paper or grant proposal. This is stuff for another blog post and can be better explained by a science librarian like Oliver Obst or Frank Norman. Now I want to talk about different ways to keep track of the current literature in your field. I would assume that most if not all people involved in science do this in one way or another, and I also think that many people are struggling with the best strategy (see Richard’s related post on this topic: Too many fish in the sea).
[More]
Very good discussion of how researchers browse the literature, something that has become harder to do as the information glut increases. The post ends with this:
In 2010 I want to use a tool that scans Pubmed or other databases for papers of interest based on the papers stored in my reference manager. The tool would give me a weekly report that can also be printed out for reading and note taking.
We need to get Apple’s Genius modified for journals. In iTunes, I select a song, click the Genius button and have a list of songs that are similar. How about take my Endnote file and let me browse with a single click. I know there are attempts but nothing is as simple as Genius.
