Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Why re-reading articles makes so much sense...

Hello there,

if you are like me - busy with so many to-do tasks - and having to start over to read some journal articles, because the last time you started to read this particular article, you stopped for some reason and forgot what it was about, then I have a solution for you, at least this solution works well for me:

For me, having to start over this 40-pages long article about sinking/ floatation of pipelines for the fifth time felt very much demotivating. But I know that this paper is going to be influential for my research. So, I really want to know what it says!

So, what needed to change?

Well, I sat down and thought about what I want to accomplish with my research and what part could this particular author contribute to. After I had done this, I started to read this paper with a different aim: I am taking additional notes on a totally different subject - what to look out for for the setup of physical experiments - as well as the main content.

And this gave me a moment of realization yesterday.
Journal articles are so dense in their content, due to the limited number of pages, that reading it a second time with a different point of view might open up new possibilities, new directions, and might contribute to your work in a totally different way.

I am so excited now to read further in this wonderful article - a pleasurable "candy reading"!

Thank you for listening!
Yours, Stephie.