<p>I'm a younger researcher so I have no personal advice, but I have found this method by Michael Nielsen quite effective.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One unusual but very useful style was to set a goal like reading 15 papers in 3 hours. I use the term &quot;reading&quot; here in an unusual way. Of course, I don't mean understanding everything in the papers. Instead, I'd do something like this: for each paper, I had 12 minutes to read it. The goal was to produce a 3-point written LaTeX summary of the most important material I could extract: usually questions, open problems, results, new techniques, or connections I hadn't seen previously. When time was up, it was onto the next paper. A week later, I'd make a revision pass over the material, typically it would take an hour or so.</p>
<p>I found this a great way of rapidly getting an overview of a field, understanding what was important, what was not, what the interesting questions were, and so on. In particular, it really helped identify the most important papers, for a deeper read.
For deeper reads of important papers or sections of books I would take days, weeks or months. Giving lectures about the material and writing LaTeX lecture notes helped a lot.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In particular, I found his opinion on identifying useful material mirrored my own:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most material isn't worth spending a lot of time on. It's better to spend an hour each seriously reviewing 10 quantum texts, and finding one that's good, and will repay hundreds of hours of study, than it is to spend 10 hours ploughing through the first quantum text that looks okay when you browse through it in the library. Understanding mathematics deeply takes a lot of time. That means effort spent in identifying high quality material is often repaid far more than with (say) a novel or lighter non-fiction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666615" rel="noreferrer">whole comment</a> is definitely worth the read.</p>
<p>As far as managing your materials go, I have yet to find an application as useful as <a href="http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/" rel="noreferrer">Papers</a>. It hooks into your institution's library proxy and allows you to get at licensed content quickly without VPNing in to campus. It's also great for organizing papers by topic and searching over your library via author, title, conference, etc. Unfortunately it's Mac OS X specific. I'm curious if anyone has experience with alternatives on other operating systems.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-10-17T13:30:26.257Z
Find some tools here: http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/2255/1546
Raphael
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-10-17T16:05:33.710Z
mendeley isn't that bad.
Suresh Venkat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-10-17T12:28:54.393Z
2011-10-17T12:28:54.393Z
2020-06-17T09:38:08.363Z
user7545
<p>A list out classic, benchmarkable review papers:</p>
<p>Type 1: Framework Based Review
Paul, J., &amp; Benito, G. R. (2018). A review of research on outward foreign direct investment from emerging countries, including China: what do we know, how do we know and where should we be heading? Asia Pacific Business Review, 24(1), 90-115 (ADO Framework)
<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602381.2017.1357316" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602381.2017.1357316</a></p>
<p>Type 2: Review of a Theory in a Specific Field
Gilal et.al (2018). The role of self-determination theory in marketing science: An integrative review and agenda for research. European Management Journal.
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2018.10.004" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2018.10.004</a></p>
<p>Type 3: Theme-Based Systematic Literature Reviews with Directions for Future Research Kumar, A, Paul, J &amp; Unnithan, A (2019). Masstige Marketing: A Review, Synthesis and Research Agenda. Journal of Business Research
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.030" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.030</a></p>
<p>Type 4: Review Aiming for Theory/ Theoretical Model/Framework Development
(These are types of the Review articles published in Academy of Management Review &amp; Academy of Marketing Science Review)
Paul, J., &amp; Mas, E. (2019). Toward a 7-P framework for international marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing,1-21
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2019.1569111" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2019.1569111</a></p>
<p>Type 5: Structured Review Focusing on Methods, Constructs, Context and Theories
Canabal, A., &amp; White III, G. O. (2008). Entry mode research: Past and future. International Business Review, 17(3), 267-284.
<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593108000036" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593108000036</a></p>
<p>Type 6: Bibliometric Analysis Review
Randhawa, K., Wilden, R., &amp; Hohberger, J. (2016). A bibliometric review of open innovation: Setting a research agenda. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(6), 750-772
<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpim.12312" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpim.12312</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-18T00:39:56.810Z
2022-04-18T00:39:56.810Z
noman
<p>Not sure if correct area, but here goes.</p>

<p>Starting a PhD in Trust and Reputation Management in Communications networks (lots of graph theory, probabilistic analysis, etc), and have lots of reading ahead of me. </p>

<p>Can anyone advise the best ways to manage academic reading and what I should be noting for literature review/progress reports, etc?</p>

<soft-question><advice-request><research-practice>
PhD Development; Literature Review Tactics
Andrew Bolster
# PhD Development; Literature Review Tactics

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-10-17)

Not sure if correct area, but here goes.

Starting a PhD in Trust and Reputation Management in Communications networks (lots of graph theory, probabilistic analysis, etc), and have lots of reading ahead of me.

Can anyone advise the best ways to manage academic reading and what I should be noting for literature review/progress reports, etc?

**Tags:** soft-question, advice-request, research-practice

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2011-10-17. Score: 12

I'm a younger researcher so I have no personal advice, but I have found this method by Michael Nielsen quite effective.

> One unusual but very useful style was to set a goal like reading 15 papers in 3 hours. I use the term "reading" here in an unusual way. Of course, I don't mean understanding everything in the papers. Instead, I'd do something like this: for each paper, I had 12 minutes to read it. The goal was to produce a 3-point written LaTeX summary of the most important material I could extract: usually questions, open problems, results, new techniques, or connections I hadn't seen previously. When time was up, it was onto the next paper. A week later, I'd make a revision pass over the material, typically it would take an hour or so.
>
> I found this a great way of rapidly getting an overview of a field, understanding what was important, what was not, what the interesting questions were, and so on. In particular, it really helped identify the most important papers, for a deeper read.
> For deeper reads of important papers or sections of books I would take days, weeks or months. Giving lectures about the material and writing LaTeX lecture notes helped a lot.

In particular, I found his opinion on identifying useful material mirrored my own:

> Most material isn't worth spending a lot of time on. It's better to spend an hour each seriously reviewing 10 quantum texts, and finding one that's good, and will repay hundreds of hours of study, than it is to spend 10 hours ploughing through the first quantum text that looks okay when you browse through it in the library. Understanding mathematics deeply takes a lot of time. That means effort spent in identifying high quality material is often repaid far more than with (say) a novel or lighter non-fiction.

The [whole comment](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666615) is definitely worth the read.

As far as managing your materials go, I have yet to find an application as useful as [Papers](http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/). It hooks into your institution's library proxy and allows you to get at licensed content quickly without VPNing in to campus. It's also great for organizing papers by topic and searching over your library via author, title, conference, etc. Unfortunately it's Mac OS X specific. I'm curious if anyone has experience with alternatives on other operating systems.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Find some tools here: http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/2255/1546  
> **username_3**: mendeley isn't that bad.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2022-04-18. Score: -2

A list out classic, benchmarkable review papers:

Type 1: Framework Based Review
Paul, J., & Benito, G. R. (2018). A review of research on outward foreign direct investment from emerging countries, including China: what do we know, how do we know and where should we be heading? Asia Pacific Business Review, 24(1), 90-115 (ADO Framework)
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13602381.2017.1357316>

Type 2: Review of a Theory in a Specific Field
Gilal et.al (2018). The role of self-determination theory in marketing science: An integrative review and agenda for research. European Management Journal.
<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2018.10.004>

Type 3: Theme-Based Systematic Literature Reviews with Directions for Future Research Kumar, A, Paul, J & Unnithan, A (2019). Masstige Marketing: A Review, Synthesis and Research Agenda. Journal of Business Research
<https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.030>

Type 4: Review Aiming for Theory/ Theoretical Model/Framework Development
(These are types of the Review articles published in Academy of Management Review & Academy of Marketing Science Review)
Paul, J., & Mas, E. (2019). Toward a 7-P framework for international marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing,1-21
<https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2019.1569111>

Type 5: Structured Review Focusing on Methods, Constructs, Context and Theories
Canabal, A., & White III, G. O. (2008). Entry mode research: Past and future. International Business Review, 17(3), 267-284.
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593108000036>

Type 6: Bibliometric Analysis Review
Randhawa, K., Wilden, R., & Hohberger, J. (2016). A bibliometric review of open innovation: Setting a research agenda. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(6), 750-772
<https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpim.12312>


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