Papers make me feel slothful. I print them, I try to read them, and then something else catches my attention (email! labmate with new data! teatime! bug on ceiling!) and I cast the critter aside.
Ok, so that's a bad trait. However, since I know about it, I came up with a clever way to force myself to read more during grad school: invite some friends.
From second year through sixth, two like-minded friends and I got together every week or two to discuss a selection of papers. Beforehand, we would pick a topic for the week and email around a few suggestions of what we could read. Usually this meant that one or more of us Pubmedded the topic and chose a few papers based on titles/abstracts. The other two would comment on the list, and we'd whittle it down, typically to 2-3 original papers plus one review.
Inspiration for topics sprang from various sources, but the common ones were:
--New Hot Paper on something piques our interest in the history and background of that topic
--Seminar speaker says something intriguing that we don't understand
--A term or concept frequently gets batted around in our labs or journal clubs, and we always look wise and nod without knowing what the hell it really means
--One of us needs to learn something new for our own research purposes and somehow persuades the other two to help
Then we'd get together for coffee, intellectual discourse, and general raillery. We usually went through each paper figure by figure, talking through the logic and helping each other over the rough spots.
But Jekyll, you say, how is this any different than the journal club I go to every week? Well, if your journal clubs are anything like mine, one person has read the paper for discussion plus a few others and gives the whole presentation; the rest of the attendees have possibly not even printed the paper up for discussion, and can zone out if they're sleepy. It's also a fairly passive way to learn science--having it presented to you.
Since there were just three of us, no one could opt out or be lazy. We always read a group of related papers so that each paper provided context for the other two, which helped us understand the issues at hand.
Most importantly, at the start of each paper session we would gossip about our friends, PIs, labwork, and anything else. That made us happy, it kept the meetings friendly and entertaining, and it gave us all a chance to help each other with lab issues (we were all in different labs). So although we were being nerdy, we were also having fun and becoming good friends.
I've recommended doing something like this to some of my younger grad friends, but none of them have created their own sciencecoffeeklatsch, to my knowledge. Maybe it's not for everyone, but it sure helped me learn a lot about my subfield. I've forgotten a lot of what we talked about over the years (hint hint, PhysioProf: you were going to blog about retaining what you read?) but the context and general knowledge about the field (Prof So-and-so works on X, Prof Such-and-such is a careful scientist, etc) have been invaluable. And it kept me intellectually limber to read work outside my lab's turf. So I'd recommend it if, like me, you're feeling asea in the ocean of papers out there.
15 years ago
4 comments:
I often find watching paint dry more entertaining than reading a paper. Perhaps not the best choice if I want to continue on but eh, I'll have to deal. Your suggestion is most excellent, and I must go find 2 friend from other labs that would be interested.
Maybe everyone feels this way about reading papers. Simply loathsome. Even at my best, when I have nothing else to do, I can rarely finish more than 3-4 papers in a day.
One of my colleagues once told me at the start of my time here at Brilliant U that she reads 10 papers a day. I wanted to reply, 'Like hell you do'. I think a lot of people are trying to fool themselves into loving journal articles!
As for your suggestion- it is a good one, although I doubt in my current or former that I'd be able to find some others who would go through this with me. I guess I will just have to keep reading on my own, interspersed with banging my head against the wall.
oh, that sounds a little like some of my gard friends and I did. (we weren't as organised but the idea was there). Meet up once a month with papers that we all had read prior, gossip a little first "how's things in your end of the corridor" and then go through the papers and then try and see if any of these could impact our research.
Sometimes we focused on one of us, or rather the problems one of us had, and read papers on it and brain stormed if that would help out...
I really miss that here at my Big Institute. We don't even have journal club... and none of my collegues want to "waste time on stuff like that, you can read on your own can't you?!" (I refrain from saying 'yes, but a discussion never hurt anyone'.).
I think I've blogged before about what an outlier I am. I love to read papers.
I tend to do it in little bursts. Sometimes a few a day, sometimes a huge pile all at once (I'm talking 10-20 in a day, but probably not more than that), and sometimes none for a while.
I most enjoy reading when I need something specific. When I have a question, and I'm pretty sure I can find the answer(s) or at least ideas about how to get the answers, in the literature.
Then it's fun to go on the hunt.
MY old journal club was more like your 'coffee klatch' (which I find to be a sexist term, btw, like 'tupperware party').
EVERYONE read the papers and most of us participated in dissecting the figures.
My current JC groups are more passive, and I hate that. But it doesn't help when people send out the paper the night before. I hate that, too. Seems to me if you want us to read the paper, you'll send it the week before out of professional courtesy.
On the other hand, as you become more experienced, you'll find you don't need to read the paper completely or way in advance, in order to decide whether you generally find it interesting and/or believable.
For things that really matter to me I often find myself reading the paper through a few times over, looking for different things each time.
For remembering what you read (not that PP cares what I think)? Here's what I do.
Read once and highlight/underline.
Read again and take notes on the parts you highlighted. Summarize.
Force yourself to think about what it implies.
Then type up your notes and summarize in one sentence what was shown, how it was shown, and what it implies. And if there are things you liked/didn't like about the way they did it or how the data looked? Write that down!
I usually find this is a good starting point for me to remember what I read.
And I usually find myself doing this anyway if I'm going to reference the work in a paper or grant.
(and yes, postdocs do write those!!)
Another thing that can help is to read your notes over out loud. If you're giving a presentation (liked your last post, btw), you'll do this anyway, and you'll probably find you remember those things better than the ones you never presented.
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