IZBR

Hi! My name is Isaac Basque-Rice, I'm A Security Engineer and former Abertay Ethical Hacker, and this website is a repository for all the cool stuff I've done, enjoy!

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Scientific Paper Notes

This page comprises the notes I have taken from a number of resources (linked intermittently) on how to read scientific papers, and producing a literature review

If you find this helpful, please consider getting me a meal deal :)

How to Read a Scientific Paper Efficiently

Notes taken from this video by Prof. Pete Carr of the University of Minnesota.

• DO NOT READ THE PAPER IN ORDER
• Structure of a Scientific Article:
  • (1) Title
  • (2) Keywords
  • (3) Abstract
  • (5) Intro
  • (7) Experiment/Methodology
  • (6) Results and Discussion
  • (4) Summary/Conclusions
  • (8) References
• An algorithm for reading a paper
  • Feel free to stop reading at any point if there is no interest in the paper
  • Three-Phase algorithm (he says two but its really three lmao)
  • Phase 1 - Survey the Paper
    • Read the title and keywords
    • Read the abstract
    • Jump to conclusions
      • If the conclusions are irrelevant there’s no point continuing
  • Phase 2 - Read the paper
    • Look at tables, figures, and captions
      • This is what was done in the work
      • Doesn’t take much time
      • Getting into details will slow down the reading
    • Read the introduction
      • Provides with background information
    • Read the results and discussion
      • The heart of the paper
      • Will take most time
    • Read the experiment
      • How the work was conducted
      • Only need to read this if you’re really interested & need to understand what was done to understand the meaning
  • Phase 3 - Notes
    • When done, you can stop
    • Note taking is a good idea so you don’t have to read the whole thing again
    • Lets you know at a glance what papers you need and do not need
• The faintest writing is better than the best memory

How to Write a Literature Review in 30 Minutes or Less

Notes taken from this video by David Taylor as well as the accompanying website

• Lit review is just a report (Don’t let it scare you!)
• Is 5 steps
• Step 1: Extract Summaries
  • Write a paragraph from the notes collected in the previous section
  • Separate them into paragraphs and citations
    • In-Text citation at the beginning of each paragraph
    • Author’s last name outside of parentheses
    • Refer back to the source (“the authors present…”)
    • Year of publication only needs to be referred to once, in the in-text citation
• Step 2: Reorder Summaries
  • Reread all summaries carefully
  • Find similarities and difference
  • Reorder paragraphs into a logical list
  • No single correct way to rearrange paragraphs
    • Cause-Effect
    • Problem-Solution
    • Series of Advances
    • Myths-Realities
    • Ancient-Modern
    • Effective-Ineffective
  • Label each paragraph with a high-level overview such as the ones above
• Step 3: Divide Into Body Paragraphs
  • Combine or divide paragraphs (if necessary)
  • Based on two factors:
    • Factor 1: How closely related the summaries are
      • If the high-level overview is the same for paragraph A and B, combine them
      • If not, keep them separate
      • Also combine if the two paragraphs talk about something you can relate (geography etc.)
    • Factor 2: How long will the paragraph be?
      • Try to limit to 10-14 lines
• Step 4: Shape the Paragraphs
  • Add topic sentences and transitions
  • Turn the summary paragraphs into real paragraphs
    • e.g., “as far back as 2006, XYZ stated that…”
  • If more than one sentence in a paragraph, new sentence or “thought bridge” must be added between them
    • First add topic sentence, e.g., “the call to action was headed by researchers who began to study Topic X…”
    • Then add thought bridge, e.g., “XYZ’s findings were replicated in ABC’s (yyyy) study, which concerned Topic Y”
• Step 5: Add Introduction and Conclusion
  • Introduction:
    • Do as normal
    • Use a sentence such as “the following literature review…”, signals to the user that it’s not your personal opinion, claim, or argument
  • Conclusion:
    • Open conclusion with a restatement of the thesis, brings the user back to the overall point
    • Common ending is to comment on any gaps or flaws in the research reviewed