‘To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature.’
Shakespeare, W. ‘Much ado about nothing’ (1598-99), p 101
The Myth of Reading and Taking Notes
Before starting my PhD, I had never been taught any strategies on how to take notes or read an academic paper. Therefore, I did what every great researcher does and turned to YouTube. There is a gargantuan library of experts whose videos offer systems and methodologies of the perfect system to take notes and how to read papers.
After finishing reviewing YouTube videos, I realised I was no closer to discovering a reliable method. I want to discuss some advice that I have seen being proffered by people who have achieved their PhD. I will follow this up by advice I received within my faculty and finally I will describe the method that I use and why.
First Method
This method introduces the concept of how to record relevant information from papers, collate the information on a template and use tags to easily find the information when and if you should require it.
The goal is to examine the papers, determine what is useful and what is not. After using a variety of software including Excel and a reference manager, the author claimed that he could never find the notes he required and sought a new strategy.
Within Google Slides or PowerPoint, on a blank slide, a template is made that includes a title, the link to the paper, the major message of the paper delivers and any relevant tables or images. There is also a space for further notes. The template is completed with tags in the bottom right-hand corner. The tags are Literature Review, discovery, must read, method and idea.
The tags serve to determine whether the paper is useful. For example, if the paper is to be used within the literature review, then the other tags would be removed and only the literature review tag would remain. If the paper would be a subject of discussion for a supervisory meeting or such, then the discovery tag would remain. The concept continues for the remaining tags.
When it comes to the major message of the paper, ChatGPT is used to provide a 3-bullet point summary of the abstract. As this is a ‘first pass’ (which we shall discuss later), the Chat GPT summary is adequate for the template.
Depending upon the subject of your PhD, the relevant tables or images section can be populated with a table containing figures or images that show a biological process etc. Even though there will be other content that is relevant to what you are researching, this is only a reminder, so it is not necessary to record all the data, just something to prompt memory and to be easily recalled.
The reasoning for this is that the researcher can complete the template quickly enabling them to build a bank of these templates. By utilizing the tags that were embedded upon each template, then the researcher can easily recall all the slides that were relevant for that particular tag. The researcher then is required to search through each slide until the find the relevant one.
With stage 1 complete, the researcher moves onto stage 2 which is reading the whole paper in detail. There are no shortcuts here. Currently the available AI software cannot provide the level of detail that is required at the PhD level. This means printing out the paper, highlighting and taking notes. Allegedly, this encompasses making notes on the physical paper especially the abstract, findings and the conclusion.
If the tag for the paper in question was ‘method’, then the method section of the paper would receive the required attention and the rest of the paper can be discarded. The points that are relevant from the ‘method’ section can be noted in the ‘other notes’ section of the template. The note taking is now complete and thus leads to the second method.
Second Method
This method is based upon the philosophy that you absolutely do not need to read the whole paper at all. The whole process should take about 15 – 20 minutes depending upon the quantity of information the researcher wishes to extract. The paper is read and highlighted within an app called Notability.
Initially, the researcher reads the title for useful information such as results or methods. The next step focuses upon the abstract. The researcher shows how the abstract is written in parts that can be identified as the ‘why’. This question looks towards the gap in literature that the paper is trying to fill. The other parts of the abstract concern the methods used, the results and the discussion / conclusion. This will determine whether or not the paper will be of any further use. Assuming that it will be, moving onto the first and last paragraph of the introduction.
The first paragraph provides a background and an insight into the paper. The last paragraph highlights hypothesis and aims of the paper. The next port of call is the subsection headings contained within the results section. These headings sometimes provide the direction of the final results of the paper, thereby limiting the necessity to read the whole section concerning the results.
As the aim of this method is not to spend too much time on reading the whole paper, the researcher now jumps ahead to the conclusion section of the paper. This is usually a short section and provides information regarding what the author(s) have done, where it sits within the relevant literature, the research space and what the results were. This is sufficient for what is required at this point.
But what if you require more information? The researcher suggests going back into the results section and reading it fully. This will enable you to pick out specific results, graphs, findings, images etc. If the paper contains a limitations section, this should now be read and notes taken about it. What it does not address is what to do if the paper does not include a limitations section. It suggests that the whole paper must now be read to discover the limitations if any are included in the body of the paper.
The researcher then moves onto highlighting any useful references. Should the paper mention that it was based upon the work done by ‘XYZ’, this may be of interest to the researcher and should be highlighted for the purposes of further research. This seems to be the second method completed.
Both of these methods share some common parts. First, both researchers mention that this is just the first pass. Second, both of these researchers work in the science sector where these papers seem to follow a set framework and are laid out somewhat consistently by similar scientists. Third, should any researcher require further information, then the whole paper requires reading.
My Method
As I previously mentioned, I do not have any formal research training so I am open to any and all useful information that can improve my process. The process I utilize is one based upon a detailed search of my online library. I learnt through my graduate degree that to reduce my time searching for papers, I needed to develop the ability to perform searches at an advanced level.
Therefore, my searches are pretty accurate for the subject matter I am looking for. If it is something new that I am searching for and have nothing previously to rely on, my searches incorporate all kinds of keywords. This will narrow down my search results and thus, the results I gather are usually pretty accurate based upon what I require, and I save time and do not have to filter my results as much as someone who does not incorporate these techniques.
I have no experience in science-based papers, but the papers the researchers viewed in the above methods seem to be about 10 or 12 pages in length. The papers that I read are never below 50 pages in length and they do not follow a recognized framework. They may also contain opinions from different sectors of law such as socio-legal, public law, private law or economic-legal theory. Therefore, I cannot be as sure as these other researchers that I can just read part of the paper and that will suffice.
Another aspect of legal journals or papers is that they cross-pollinate other academic sectors. It follows that professionals and academic from these sectors write papers on legal matters. I have recently read papers concerning my research from academic and professionals in economics, finance, business, politics and geography. Therefore, I cannot just skim a paper because these papers come from an unfamiliar source. This means I cannot risk assuming something from these sources and have to read the full paper.
I download these papers into my document manager and highlight relevant parts whilst also adding noted to this. I then upload the paper into my note taking system which brings the highlights and notes and allows me to dynamically link key words and phrases.
This allows me to link a paper with other papers containing the same words, phrases or data. It is more time consuming but absolutely necessary as I require all the details and because of the issues mentioned above, I do not know where in the paper these details may be. I do not use any form of AI to assist me in summarizing papers due to the aforementioned library searches.
The other aspect is that whether this is correct or not, I feel it is cheating. Not in the sense that I am not allowed to use technology, but in the sense that I am cheating previous PhD students who never had an advantage such as AI. I understand that 50 years ago, online libraries did not exist, but I use them. But AI seems to not be a tool to assist a researcher, but to be a tool to replace the art of researching. And surely, researching is the point of a PhD. I will continue to read and write until it becomes my nature.