Do You Have Any Advice For How Not To Get Overwhelmed When Reading Scientific Literature, Mainly Primary

Do you have any advice for how not to get overwhelmed when reading scientific literature, mainly primary research articles? I have to present one at the end of this month for in order to graduate from University and I'm trying to read through and understand it, but every couple of lines I start having a miniature panic attack because I feel as if I don't understand ANYTHING that I am reading

BOY HAVE YOU COME TO RIGHT PLACE BC I READ SCIENTIFIC PAPERS EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. /cries a bit

Don’t read the abstract first thing. I know a lot of people do, but that’s a big mistake if you’re not a super duper level 100 science genius. If you read the abstract without knowing the science really well, it’s going to sound like gibberish soon. Read the abstract last, because it serves as a good summary.

Instead, start with the introduction. This will give you the background information you need, and it always starts out very broad.

Skip the methods part for now. Read the Results after you read the intro, and refer back to the Methods section if you don’t know what some assay is, how the mice were fed, etc. But sometimes the methods section isn’t very helpful since they go into too much detail. That leads me to..

Don’t know something? Look it up! So you come across something like “aneuploidy”, and you have no idea what it means. Don’t try to gather information from context clues; just straight up Google it, or ask someone who knows. This is the most important thing. No one is ever going to understand everything in a paper (unless they wrote it, of course). Even the top scientists have to Google stuff all the time when reading other papers. Sometimes, you can even refer back to the references in the back of the paper for answers.

Jot down notes. Once you find out what aneuploidy is, write it down on the margin of the paper so you can refer back to it. Maybe even draw a small diagram too as an example.

Annotate the figures. The figures are very very very important. They’re what tells the story. If you understand everything in the figure–the question asked, the method used, what the x- and y-axes mean, etc, what the result was–then you will understand the entire paper. So scribble away. Draw arrows. Write notes. Circle things. Define acronyms. Color code stuff. This is what all the primary papers I read look like when it comes to figures:

(Also pay attention to the Figure legends. Sometimes they’ll tell you extra information)

Explain the figures out loud. If you can explain it in your own words, you’ve got it down! You’re going to have to do this for your presentation anyway.

If it helps, write down important observations/figure summaries on a separate piece of paper so you have something you can quickly reference when putting together your presentation.

As far as the presentation goes, I like to create my slides in this order: Title, Background, Hypothesis, Questions Asked (basically a summary of what they wanted to find), Question #1 (which is essentially what Figure 1 should be about), (Additional background if necessary), Method(s) used to answer Question #1, Figures that answer Question #1, Question #1 conclusion, Question #2, etc, etc, until finally, Conclusion, Future Goals. You may have a different format, but just throwing out the one I use.

You can do it! The trick to reading scientific literature is really… Google/ask questions for things you don’t know, and really understand the figures. And with anything that’s hard at first, practice will soon make it easier :) Good luck! If you need help with the specific paper, you can send me the first author’s name, title, and year published and I can see if I can help you with anything :)

Learning to like Physics

I actually cannot believe how much I used to hate Physics until last year, but then I actually took the time and effort to understand it and?? it’s so cool and fun and easy?? unreal.

It literally seemed impossible for me and I legit thought I wouldn’t be able to graduate because I was never gonna pass Physics (I’m a Math major so we actually have 4 required Physics courses). I don’t know what the point of this is but, don’t be afraid of Physics guys!! (or any other subject!!) yes it’s frustrating as hell and you feel dumb for not having a clue about what is happening or how to work out the problems but I swear once it clicks for you (and it will) it’s gonna be great.

So if anyone needs a step by step (for college/uni), here’s one:

Google is your best friend, the internet has plenty of videos/papers/worked out problems for you to check out. The most important thing to look for is drawings and videos that help you visualize what’s going on. In most of general physics, the key is to see what forces are acting, and from that follows everything else.

Know your core equations. Honestly it’s always the same ones in the end.

For mechanics: you absolutely gotta know Newton’s Laws, Work and its relation to Kinetic/Potential Energy. Momentum is also important.

For thermodynamics: pV = nRT, Boyle/Gay Lussac etc (note that they’re all connected), Carnot’s Cycle.

For electromagnetism: Maxwell’s equations. This is as far as I’ve gotten in my studies.

Understand where the formulas come from, rather than learning them by heart. For me, this was necessary because my memory is absolutely shit so there was no way I could remember every variation. But most of the formulas actually do make sense, and once you’ve drawn out a diagram of what’s happening, you can work them out yourself.

For the previous point, I suggest you watch and rewatch your professor’s explanation until you get the gist. Don’t get discouraged if it’s not immediately crystal clear, seek out other explanations if you need to. Then try to do it yourself.

ASK. FOR. HELP. I cannot stress this enough, do not feel ashamed about asking questions in class or during office hours. There are no stupid questions, and you’re paying thousands every year for people to teach you. Also physics is hard, so you’re pretty much expected to not understand immediately. Moreover, I can guarantee there’s at least one other person in the room with the same question who’s too afraid to ask. I was that person, and I failed the class because of it. Don’t be me.

Practice until you’re able to do most variations of standard problems. Once you’re able to do a certain problem, try to change it and see what happens. You don’t have to crunch the numbers all over again, go with your intuition first. Then you can calculate everything and see if you were correct.

This is all I’ve got at the moment. It applies to General Physics because I’m still pretty shit at Mathematical Physics (Rational Mechanics?) lmao, which is why I don’t talk about Lagrangians and such here.

If anyone has any other tips (for Mathematical Physics as well!) , please feel free to add them. Note that I’m from Italy, and this is what it was like for me. Other countries might have different ways of testing or focus on some formulas that I haven’t included. Do what works for you, obviously.

Good luck STEM students, I know it’s hard, but hopefully worth it in the long run :)

How to Defeat Procrastination

How to Defeat Procrastination | A Mini Guide

Use your intrapersonal intelligence. Ask yourself when and why you procrastinate. Use your insights to identify the appropriate strategy to deal with those issues.

Identify a purpose or meaning. Sometimes, it simply isn’t enough to do something for the sake of doing it. Know why you want to do it, it’ll be easier then. List down your goals, and beside it, identify the benefits. So that, when you feel your spirits drooping, you can look at the list be reminded of why you have to do it.

Take charge of the situation. Gather up all the supplies and materials you need to get started. Choose a work environment where you can really really focus on what you are doing. Take responsibility!

Prioritize and stick to the order. When you feel overwhelmed, make a list of tasks that needs to be done. Tackle the high-priority tasks first.

Relax your personal standards. If you’re a serial perfectionist (like me), lower your unrealistically high standards and expectations. You can still continue to produce quality work without it always having to be the BEST.

Face your fear of failure. Focus on your positive traits. I’m hella sure you’ve got plenty of those! Focus on your accomplishments, and the skills you’ve acquired! Go in front of your mirror and tell yourself affirmations and positive pep talks!

Visualize success. Visualize yourself working through the task, feeling positive about your work, and complete the task on time. Believe you can do it and you will!

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purpletelescope

1 year ago

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purpletelescope

4 years ago

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

NewScientist

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

NHS Choices

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites.

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

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purpletelescope

1 year ago

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

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