How to read and take notes like a PhD - easy, fast, and efficient
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 พ.ค. 2024
- In this video I share with you how I read and take notes. I did this through my PhD and my postdoctoral studies.
I have tried nearly every other reading and note-taking technique but this is the one that stuck with me and I found it the most efficient.
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▼ ▽ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - introduction
0:52 - system
3:19 - how it works
10:43 - navigating the slides
12:35 - reading papers in full
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My heart sunk when he said no way around reading, lol.
Dude, as one PhD scientist to another: YOU ARE A NATURAL TEACHER AND NEED TO BE IN THE CLASSROOM! I’d take your course “Scholarship for the Natural Sciences Scientist”. Cheers.
+1 (Yes, we know you hate Academia, Andy....but you ARE a good mentor and teacher.
+1 (for science and technology )
I disagree , he should stay on youtube so he can reach much bigger audience here
Very True ❤
+1
Funny enough, creating a 20 min presentation of each of my dissertation chapters is how I outline. It also means I have something to present anytime a conference comes up.
That’s a good idea
me too :)
a really smart way to save time :D
I'll start doing it too. It sounds great
*# Key Takeaway Points*
0:00 You don’t have to read every single paper in your field → you need to be able to go through the literature and discern what is good and what isn’t
just taking notes never worked for me
0:52 *Filtering Stage*
Google Scholar or Elicit to find papers
*Google Slides or PowerPoint* → great way to have all of your lit reviews in one place in a visual way
Things I put in each paper's slide:
- paper title
- paper link
- as long as we can find it again, that’s all it matters
- take-home message
- skim abstract and conclusion
- summarize → during this stage, you might even don't do it yourself → ask ChatGPT to summarize the abstract in three bullet points
at this point, I’m not interested in the details
- interesting figures → a *visual representation* of what is in that paper
- interesting *visual cues* that could be interesting or useful in the future
- other notes
- *simple tags to remember why a certain paper was useful*
[delete the ones that do not apply to this paper]
- lit review
- discovery → for example, smth I want to tell people in my group about
- must read
- method → smth I want to do, I want to apply this or try it
- idea → It’s interesting to me right now and I want to ruminate on it for a little bit
if I did anything more, I’d spend hours reading papers that might not even be good or that I might not even need
12:35 *Reading the Paper in Detail*
*There is no trick to this. There is no shortcut*
Maybe, if it’s not 100% important to you, you could read just the abstract, the conclusion, and whatever else interests you, but you have to do it yourself.
Underline and take notes on margins
Print it and take notes on it, _trust me._
You don’t have to print it, but I noticed that if I read it on the computer I am not really reading it as I should
→ I would keep _just_ the pages where I’ve written smth: those are the pages that actually interest me
Thanks for the summary
You are great man! Perfectly summarized.
Im not even doing a PhD but I love this so much as a lifelong learner.❤
I know you said it doesn't work for you, but notes on Zotero have gotten SUBSTANTIALLY better. You can mark and highlight directly on the document, add individual notes (I use it for book chapters), make general notes, etc. and tag it the whole way. All of this can then be searched centrally or within a specific collection or subcollection. Absolutely fantastic for me.
I absolutely agree with you. Zotero improved its pdf reader as well as note-taking capacities. You could tag, and link citations directly.
Can we use zotero in Microsoft?
Andy, this is much appreciated and makes life easier. Not even a PhD student but I love this approach
Yes, agreed, simple and easy to follow
Always a pleasure learning from you Andy! As always, this one made me regret why I didn't know about you in the early years of my PhD...i spent 2 years just reading and building a good foundation before I could even begin my process. Anyway, after 7 years of working like crazy, several episodes of paranoia and almost quitting, I got my doctorate in Linguistics last Thursday 😁 February 23rd!! You were a big part of my support system in the past 2 years. Your videos, approach, attitude everything gave me so much hope and vision for my life after PhD. Thank you for doing this!
Congratulations, Prachi! I'm so pleased to have helped you along the way!
Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar
Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar
Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar
Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar
Wow, Andy....Thank you for doing soooo much work and helping us PhD students have a less stressful journey...Big ups...you are boss...
Thanks for sharing your research-related videos with us. As a new PhD student, I enjoyed watching them and they have helped a lot.
I cannot express my gratitude enough for this. I’ve gone my entire undergrad and Masters never really having learned an efficient way to research literature. You’ve just earned a subscriber, thank you buddy.
OMG! I wish I had known this before I started my research. Thanks so much, Andy. You're a lifesaver!!
Here you'll find the best mentors who are much more willing to share and inspire!!! Can't appreciate this enough, Andy (with joyful tears. I'm not a PHD student but someone who wants to gain better researching skills
Thank you Andy, this looks quite useful in terms of retrieval . I have done few trials of note taking but this one looks more appealing to me.
Being a visual learner myself, I have been struggling with wordy Excel. This method will definitely help me. Thank you Andy. Love how crisp and simple, yet so helpful your videos are!
This was so, so helpful! Thank you so much! You're an excellent teacher, and your ideas are so good! I agree, I'd much rather have physical copies of things, and I'm very visual, so the slides work much better for me than long blocks of text-only notes. Thank you!
HONESTLY - I can not thank you enough forthis video and some of your previous ones! I have felt exhausted and overwhelmed and feeling quite inadequate in this academic and research domain. Not one of my lecturers have broken down these tips, techniques, methods or approach - in the way you have successfully done! You are awesome! Much gratitude and appreciation!
You are so welcome!
i use Zotero, which is open-source and very featureful: grab paper by doi, tags, folders, markdown (with katex) notes, word/open office integration, csl styles, multiple accounts (with separate databases), and it has a good linux compatibility.
thats just what ive figure out on my own the last couple weeks. presentation gives you such a overview of all your stuff you researched.
As someone who is interested in PhD research this is super helpful . I might not do the slides but the format is very helpful
I always say the inventor of TH-cam is a genius, and videos like this one is the reason why. Just brilliant! Thank you Andy🙌🏾
This is working for me, Dr! Thank you for the tips and tricks 😊
Amazing idea, thank you. Going to literally go try this now.
Amazing Andy!! Thank you so much for sharing this tip! ☺️☺️
Hey Andy, that was a complete eye opener for me ...normally I have not seen people telling us such small and important things...thank you for the videos...
I have asked so many people about this exact topic. This really makes sense, going to see if I can incorporate the PowerPoint aspect into my system.
I just want to say thank you for all your work on these videos. I am starting my PhD this summer and because I have been out of school for a while, I am taking this time to lay all the foundational knowledge and tools into my brain. Your videos have been immensely helpful!
Have just started a masters degree, your advice is gold. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Really like this presentation approach, will try it soon. Also have tried excel in the past which I think mainly shines when comparing numbers between a lot of papers (e.g. processing parameters). Been giving Scott Sheper's Antinet/zettelkasten approach a try for the more in depth reading and information extraction, so that's probably what the detailed reading step will look like for me.
Nice guide Andy. I'd recommend instead of taking the full links to the papers, it's better to use the doi for each paper as it is much shorter.
Also I've seen people are using obsedian as a note organizing tool.
I will be trying this right now. Going through literature has me overwhelmed sometimes.
Thank you very much.
Undergrad here- I found your channel by accident a few weeks ago and have stayed mostly because I enjoy the humor but also for the clear and helpful content. Personally, I’m a big fan of the built-in search function, tags, and color coding in Google Keep but can see the usefulness of being able to have separate files using Slides.
All I have to say is a big Thank you! In my university this miss explaining how to properly read articles meant to be, for example, an antecedent for the investigation. This video solved it to a large extend.
i started with this approach before (not exactly as shown with the nice template) but didnt quite continue with it as sometimes i would find a bunch of papers while writing a paper and there is not enough time to compile them into a ppt. But I have recently discovered tools like Zotero to have a note taking function and also able to preview the pdf where one could highlight the sentences that are interesting. Also it syncs with Research Rabbit that is useful when one needs to see how the paper is linked to others. Still I think I agree that this approach is useful for gathering the most important and relevant papers for the research. Thanks!
Super useful and there’s not a single word that wastes time. Thanks.
Thank YOU, Your presentation save me a lot of time to go through a big pile of information.
I will definitely try the presentation trick! Also, reading from paper is superior for me as well.
I've just started my student research and I haven't any idea how to deal with all the information I've found. Thank you for this idea. I definitely have to try it.
I found this really helpful, thank you. I wish I saw this when I started my academic career!
Thankyou Andy for such a helpful technique😊
Dr, thank you for the video. Much needed
Thank you for your resources! Your methods and videos have given me a new perspective on how I approach my PhD research. Working on my thesis has become a lot less stressful!
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
Those tags and the idea of having them is amazing.
If it was hashtagged then you could make it searchable for review
So useful tool. Thanks a lot Andy!
Haha...I am literally throwing out (recycling waste) boxes and boxes and boxes of peer review journal articles I used in ~2017 as I am listening to this vid! Best to you and to all watching these extemely helpful and insightful videos!
This is brilliant! Thank you.
As a masters student, I’ll definetly use this, thank you so much!
Thank you for another informative video,
For reviewing of manuscripts additional A3 blank sheet of paper makes the process even easier, but still very oldschool. Much better than usual A4 for notes and outlining ideas.
This is brilliant! Thanks so much!
I usually don't prefer to print the publications basically to avoid the attached costs to it (because I have to print them at home). But I am very grateful that adobe reader allows to use multiple windows of the same publication. This allows me to just switch from the part where I read, to the figure which the text is about and have simoultaneously the option to jump to the method used in the figure. (I have always 3 windows open with the publication and 2 windows for the supportive information (1 window for picture & 1 window for the descripition (if they are separated). This helps me a lot to work with the paper (because I have only one small laptop display (it is a surface) where it is not (at least for me) suitable to split the windows.
Great vid btw Andy :D
Dudeee, you English is very easy to understand and you video help me a lot. Best regards from Brazil.
Always a great video. Much appreciated. Now off to reading some papers.
Thank you so much!! Trying this method now!!
This is amazing !
Thank you
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am a 45 yo old masters/phd bound student and I have tried all the digital stuff to really engage with the work. Your video just gave me permission to print. I’ve always done my best work with by engaging in the margins and using post it notes. Then I move it into my Zotero or digital notes app. I did undergrad in the late 90s so all we really had was note cards and post its. I’m going to stop fighting what has always worked best for me and lean in to how I best make those connections. 😊
Very useful. Thakyou.
Your videos are sooo helpful for me as a PhD student although I am from a social science field! Thanks a million
That is exactly why you are in a social science field. Because if you were in some pure science field u would know that such "how to" videos are not of any help.
Thank you so much for your method, Andy!!!
OH MY GOD!!! this is really educative for me. Thank you so much
Andy, I'm not even doing a PhD but now I want to do one just to be able to put this method into action
thank you, it best method I have ever seen
Lots of good ideas here thank you!
Thanks for this technique. It's going to make someone's life easier.
Amazing insights. I would say I use highlighting, but what I do is highlight similar or agreeing concepts with each other across multiple papers so I can easily synthesize them in my work.
I’m starting grad school this coming fall and found this video helpful. I think I’ll look into some of the programs like Zotero or Google Keep mentioned in the comments for thesis specific papers. But I can also see this being useful for specific courses if there are a lot of papers to keep track of
Thanks Andy!
many thanks Andy for your tip!
Thank you so much for the info!
Thanks for this video
Yes! The idea of making a quick summary is essential for research.
But, honestly most of the things you mentioned in your video don't work for me personally... or I do them in some other way (Some of them I have been doing in the past).
Tho, it's always good to hear and see what other people do and try to improve
Keep up the good work.
Very Useful video…definitely gonna try this way. 😊
Amaxing advice
loved your tag system!!! let me make a humble recommendation, to use obsidian. there's a learning curve, but it will fit nicely on your process and give more possibilities to insights and to make an overall vision of the cumulative knowledge
Thank you for this advice
I am glad that this video come up in my TH-cam ❤ thanks for the help Andy! Subscribing you is a must
Lit. Review is a nightmare and a must, thanks for the cues!
this is genuinely going to change my life
Helpful information. Thanks
i was looking something on this topic today as PhD student, and I just found it here
thanks so much for the reading videos much appreciated 👍
I asked and you delivered 🎉🎉🎉
Excellent Andy
What a great explainer. 😊
Thank you so much for such a helpful tips. I just wanted to add a very slight comment on this that the tags on the right low corner can be with their special characters like so that it can be searched more easily. the word 'method' can be searched on the other sections of the page if there are hundreds of materials summarized. Thanks again! I myself is also a PhD. candidate, found it very helpful.
This is beautiful! Newest subscriber❤
Helpful.
I’m thinking of setting up forms with check boxes. I also want to map the articles using tags and another using authors
Thank you so much, it worked
Great video… I shall try this for my literature…. Hope it works as need to finish thesis in three months now
Full of informative thank you. Love from India 🇮🇳
Yeah so agree you need to be heard more! Good on you!
Great! Prompted to produce tis to thanks you:
Steps in your process:
Preparation: Find a paper that you want to read and take notes on. Open a presentation deck and create a new slide using the template. Copy and paste the paper title and link on the slide.
Reading: Read the paper and identify the main take-home messages. You don’t have to read every word or detail of the paper. You can use strategies such as skimming, scanning, reading abstracts or conclusions, or looking at figures or tables to get the gist of the paper.
Writing: Write down the take-home messages on the slide using bullet points. Use concise and clear language to summarize the main points of the paper. You can also use quotes or paraphrases if you want to capture specific words or phrases from the paper. Make sure to cite your sources properly if you do so.
Visualizing: If there are any interesting figures or other notes that you want to remember, copy and paste them on the slide or write them down. Figures can be graphs, charts, diagrams, images, or any other visual representation of data or information in the paper. They can help you to understand complex concepts or patterns more easily.
Tagging: Add tags to your slide that describe the topic, theme, method, field, or any other relevant aspect of the paper. Tags can help you to organize your notes and find them later when you need them.
Thanks for sharing❤
Thank you Andy!
Using this system for saving and organising your videos :) truly useful
Awesome Sir...
🤩
Great content, very useful
This method works for me. Thanks
I remember you had an older video I watched in the past talking (I can't find) about the same method, which was taking notes using powerpoint. My advisor suggested a similar method to yours of taking notes but using a Word document and summarising each paper using bullet points.
the video is a life saver.🙏🙏🙏 before that I need to read around 400 pages a day during final exam and I'm a desperate dyslexia
Omg that’s so good thanks!!
HI Andy, I got to say your note taking template is really useful, thank you for that. I have also been using GPT for fast skiming papers for my PhD as well, and I was able to go through papers a lot faster these days. What I did was asking GPT to read specific sections of a paper and give specific pieces of information. The only problem is that I have to repeat a lot of the insturctions. Being a lazy software guy, I ended up building a little web app using their API, so I can be even lazier. 😆. Just have to copy and paste in, say, abstract or conclusion section, and it will spit out the key points i look for
This is so cool! What prompts do you use, if you don't mind?