Tip

Most of us enter the PhD thinking that we can read. Most of us are embarrasingly wrong.

Reading (correctly) is arguably the most important, overlooked part of a PhD. Keeping up with all of the literature is an impossible task, and anyone that tries to do so is bound to fail. Dedicate some time to finding a flow that works for you (i.e. one that you consistently use), and after you find this, don’t spend more time modifying it. If it works, don’t fix it!

I hope that what I write here might help someone else too in organizing their research ideas just as it helped me when I started getting serious about research (and my future self whenever he forgets this flow).

Reccomendations

  1. Set up an RSS feed collection, I use NetNewsWire because it is libre and just works!

    • Use it and subscribe to journals of your choice (see list below)

    • Prioritize the journals where most of your research is from, but also give space to some that might not be of utmost importance at first glance. It is useful to have some knowledge about what other areas are working on (e.g. some research in photonic crystals could be applied to crystalline, solid-state materials).

    a) The Google Scholar feature for creating alerts is useful for very specific topics

  2. Write as you read !

    • There are two kinds of reading: skimming and understanding

    • Don’t listen to any music as you read! (Turn off the radio – C.S. Lewis), make it intentional

  3. Think about the big picture

    • Think about the relevance of the work, i.e. why is it that this research matters and how does it fit in the global scope? If it does not fit, it will not be worth your time.

  4. The routine

    • You only get around 4 hours of useful brain power. Use it wisely, and keep less intensive tasks towards the end of the day.

Reading checklist

I recommend having these questions in mind when reading a paper.

  • Problem: Gap the paper is trying to fill?
    • Challenges: What makes the problem tough?
  • Goal: What is the paper’s main objective?
  • Method & Result: Key mechanism and it’s effectiveness in addressing the problem
  • Strengths & Weaknesses: What the paper does well, and where is it lacking?

Journal list

Here are some journals that I follow through their RSS feeds.

Warning

When you add the RSS feeds for any journal, it will be overwhelmingly full of articles. You might be tempted to skip through them all just to get rid of the 100+ unread notification. Dedicate some time to reading the titles+abstracts, this will prove useful for consistency.

  • Materials Science and Computational Materials

    • Nature Materials

    • npj Computational Materials

    • Physical Reveiw Materials

    • IOP 2D Materials

  • Editor’s Suggestions

    • PRB, PRE, PRL

      • I would generally stay away from the APS’ entire journals selection, as these journals become either irrelevant or way too general to follow; the editors are already filtering the journal for you, and it will not be as useful to your research as a custom alert