Although this is written for graduate students and professors, Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s post on carving out time to read–reading quickly and synthesizing important information–offers good strategies for undergraduates as well:
We’ll discuss a simplified method of the AIC (abstract – introduction – conclusion) reading method, which might be useful in helping you locate and make note of information in articles that might be useful to you in future papers you have to write.
Dr. Pacheco-Vega suggests asking the following questions while reading:
- What is the context of this research? Why are the authors doing it?
- What explains the phenomenon they are studying?
- The “BUT THIS IS WHY WE’RE DOING THIS” – the WHY that explains what the paper will tackle and the reasons for it.
