<p>I'm going to be involved in a structured research program this Summer.
In preparation, I'm reading some research papers, but they are not fun. Any tips on making this activity more enjoyable?</p>
<p>Make it a drinking game?</p>
<p>If you want to read research papers, and dislike reading research papers, there’s not a lot of leeway in making it fun for you.</p>
<p>i still haven’t quite figured out how to do this either…</p>
<p>Not sure how technical the papers you are reading are , but I suggest being close to a computer so you can wiki the many words you will encounter that you dont know. I will help with understand what the paper is about.</p>
<p>start with the abstract, that’s sort of a summary. then sometimes i skim over the various experiments. then i dive in with the intro and the rest of the paper.</p>
<p>good idea FordGT…</p>
<p>You don’t have to read papers in order from start to finish. A more interactive way would be to start with the Abstract, and then read the Introduction if you’re not familiar with the background. Afterwards, head straight for the Results to learn what the authors found; test yourself and see if you can describe the point of each figure or equation. The Methods section should be read last to see how they got their results.</p>
<p>Reading papers takes practice. You have to get used to the format, then terminology, and the writing style. It’s still hard for me, but it’s much less tedious than when I was an undergraduate.</p>
<p>its really frustrating when you dont know what every other word is and you get really excited when you see the word “the”</p>
<p>Why not form a study group? Assign one or two research papers to each student in your study group to review thoroughly. Take turns presenting. Each one presents the objectives, methodology, conclusions, and discussions in a small informal seminar setting to others. Follow up each presentation with a discussion regarding what were the strengths of research techniques adopted in that paper, what were the weaknesses, and whether you agree with the conclusions or not, and why not.</p>
<p>Order pizza and pop. Enjoy your journal club! You will not only learn a great deal from the papers themselves but your learning will be greatly enhanced due to understanding varying points of view.</p>
<p>If it’s a paper you have NO IDEA on, or little background in, I would suggest googling the general topic first. Say for example, if you were to read a paper on the effect of dopamine on cerebellar cells (something I just made up). If the words “dopamine” and “cerebellar” means nothing to you- it doesn’t help to plow through the paper and read it just to read it. It’s not fun after you spend 2 hours reading 5 pages and realizing you didn’t understand ANYTHING. So I would suggest google what dopamine is and what cerebellum is…that way at least you have a very very general background. In addition, papers are written for the scientific community, not the layman’s person. That’s why when you read something in the newspaper about a “scientific discovery” it’s pretty far fetched from what the paper actually reads. </p>
<p>Also (sorry for the long post)- there are review papers that basically composites a bunch of papers and summarizes them- often in much more understandable language. They’re not hard to find. The bottom line is before you seriously read a paper, make sure you have the background to understand it. It is not going to help if you just memorize the terms, you have to understand the implications of the findings, what flaws the experiment has, and YOUR own interpretation of it.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with jbc and jhu on this one. research papers can be hard to plow through. if you don’t understand the basic principle of what your talking about, like what the topic even is, then google it. then read the abstract (it might take 2 or 3 times to understand it). at this point you should to look at the results to see if it worked - were the results significant? Check out the P-value, which is usually given in the papers I’ve read, and if it’s less than .05 then their results were significant - which means they were conclusive. this will tell you if the experiment “showed something” in a sense. then skim the rest of results/intro. most of the time you don’t have to “read” the whole paper to understand what’s going on/the methodology behind it. good luck! you have my sympathy - it’s rough. order some good food and just try and push through it.</p>
<p>With respect to the original title of this thread…</p>
<p>I don’t think writers of scientific studies worry too much about the entertainment value of their publications among undergraduate readers.</p>
<p>Read relevant review articles and perhaps, seminal articles in the field. Find someone senior to you and ask for a short list of references.</p>
<p>BTW, what is the topic.</p>