How to read and take notes like a PhD - easy, fast, and efficient

In this video I share with you how I read and take notes. I did this through my PhD and my postdoctoral studies.
I have tried nearly every other reading and note-taking technique but this is the one that stuck with me and I found it the most efficient.
▼ ▽ Sign up for my FREE newsletter
Join 19,000+ email subscribers receiving the free tools and academic tips directly from me:
andrewstapleton.com.au/newsle...
▶ Become a Master Academic Writer With AI using my course: academy.academiainsider.com/c...
▶ Use my Ultimate PhD Kickstart: 12 Point Success System for Aspiring PhDs to start your PhD strong: academy.academiainsider.com/c...
▶ My best KZbin advice curated into an an easy to follow course, Effortless Academia: academy.academiainsider.com/c...
▶ Applying for a PhD? Get my FREE PhD application resource pack to apply with confidence: www.subscribepage.com/freeapp...
▶ Learn what I wish I had known before starting my PhD in my ebook bundle: academiainsider.com/ebook-bun...
................................................
▼ ▽ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - introduction
0:52 - system
3:19 - how it works
10:43 - navigating the slides
12:35 - reading papers in full
................................................
▼ ▽ RECOMMENDED ACADEMIC TOOLS AND SERVICES
AI TOOLS
▶ Best PhD Writing Tool - Writefull - link.andrewstapleton.com.au/w... (Get 10% off with my link)
▶ Chat with PDFs, Websites and more: HeyGPT - heygpt.lemonsqueezy.com/?aff=...
▶ Best Literature Search - Litmaps - app.litmaps.co (Get 10% off with code STAPLETON)
▶ Best Literature Review Writing Tool - Jenni.ai - jenni.ai/ (Get 20% off with code ANDY20)
▼ ▽ RECOMMENDED KZbin TOOLS AND SERVICES
▶ VidIQ - vidiq.com/drandy
▶ Camera - Canon EOS 650D amzn.to/3aDOog6
▶ On camera mic - amzn.to/3iMTzx0
▶ Webcam - amzn.to/43a8YyP
▶ Shotgun microphone - amzn.to/34gzcUX
▶ Portable recorder - amzn.to/3kUzF53
▶ Lighting - amzn.to/2YgbAfv
▼ ▽ Socials for shorts and reels
Instagram: / drandystapleton
TikTok: / drandystapleton

[@lashaist]

My heart sunk when he said no way around reading, lol.

[@Gregwisconsin]

Dude, as one PhD scientist to another: YOU ARE A NATURAL TEACHER AND NEED TO BE IN THE CLASSROOM! I’d take your course “Scholarship for the Natural Sciences Scientist”. Cheers.

[@Ayesha_F]

+1 (Yes, we know you hate Academia, Andy....but you ARE a good mentor and teacher.

[@nivarthidileep]

+1 (for science and technology )

[@deamianalt]

I disagree , he should stay on youtube so he can reach much bigger audience here

[@ThePharmaFuturistbyRahul]

Very True ❤

[@pablofernandez5617]

+1

[@autumnreinhardt-simpson3601]

Funny enough, creating a 20 min presentation of each of my dissertation chapters is how I outline. It also means I have something to present anytime a conference comes up.

[@marcusjenkins5371]

That’s a good idea

[@smiley6699]

me too :)

[@stellaxu7022]

a really smart way to save time :D

[@attaulmomin]

I'll start doing it too. It sounds great

[@Mariacristina_Greco]

*# Key Takeaway Points* 0:00 You don’t have to read every single paper in your field → you need to be able to go through the literature and discern what is good and what isn’t just taking notes never worked for me 0:52 *Filtering Stage* Google Scholar or Elicit to find papers *Google Slides or PowerPoint* → great way to have all of your lit reviews in one place in a visual way Things I put in each paper's slide: - paper title - paper link - as long as we can find it again, that’s all it matters - take-home message - skim abstract and conclusion - summarize → during this stage, you might even don't do it yourself → ask ChatGPT to summarize the abstract in three bullet points at this point, I’m not interested in the details - interesting figures → a *visual representation* of what is in that paper - interesting *visual cues* that could be interesting or useful in the future - other notes - *simple tags to remember why a certain paper was useful* [delete the ones that do not apply to this paper] - lit review - discovery → for example, smth I want to tell people in my group about - must read - method → smth I want to do, I want to apply this or try it - idea → It’s interesting to me right now and I want to ruminate on it for a little bit if I did anything more, I’d spend hours reading papers that might not even be good or that I might not even need 12:35 *Reading the Paper in Detail* *There is no trick to this. There is no shortcut* Maybe, if it’s not 100% important to you, you could read just the abstract, the conclusion, and whatever else interests you, but you have to do it yourself. Underline and take notes on margins Print it and take notes on it, _trust me._ You don’t have to print it, but I noticed that if I read it on the computer I am not really reading it as I should → I would keep _just_ the pages where I’ve written smth: those are the pages that actually interest me

[@prapanthebachelorette6803]

Thanks for the summary

[@ap006]

You are great man! Perfectly summarized.

[@pamthumbela562]

Im not even doing a PhD but I love this so much as a lifelong learner.❤

[@Daniel_Zhu_a6f]

i use Zotero, which is open-source and very featureful: grab paper by doi, tags, folders, markdown (with katex) notes, word/open office integration, csl styles, multiple accounts (with separate databases), and it has a good linux compatibility.

[@colleenstuart190]

Wow, Andy....Thank you for doing soooo much work and helping us PhD students have a less stressful journey...Big ups...you are boss...

[@WMDistraction]

I know you said it doesn't work for you, but notes on Zotero have gotten SUBSTANTIALLY better. You can mark and highlight directly on the document, add individual notes (I use it for book chapters), make general notes, etc. and tag it the whole way. All of this can then be searched centrally or within a specific collection or subcollection. Absolutely fantastic for me.

[@mehmanismayilli1330]

I absolutely agree with you. Zotero improved its pdf reader as well as note-taking capacities. You could tag, and link citations directly.

[@rizkaazizah7869]

Can we use zotero in Microsoft?

[@shazam51707]

So useful tool. Thanks a lot Andy!

[@claricesombra8790]

Amazing Andy!! Thank you so much for sharing this tip! ☺️☺️

[@fangirlacc3625]

This is working for me, Dr! Thank you for the tips and tricks 😊

[@prachikhandekar6936]

Always a pleasure learning from you Andy! As always, this one made me regret why I didn't know about you in the early years of my PhD...i spent 2 years just reading and building a good foundation before I could even begin my process. Anyway, after 7 years of working like crazy, several episodes of paranoia and almost quitting, I got my doctorate in Linguistics last Thursday 😁 February 23rd!! You were a big part of my support system in the past 2 years. Your videos, approach, attitude everything gave me so much hope and vision for my life after PhD. Thank you for doing this!

[@DrAndyStapleton]

Congratulations, Prachi! I'm so pleased to have helped you along the way!

[@avzarathustra6164]

Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar

[@avzarathustra6164]

Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar

[@avzarathustra6164]

Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar

[@avzarathustra6164]

Nice to hear, Doctor Khandekar

[@thembizungu7049]

Andy, this is much appreciated and makes life easier. Not even a PhD student but I love this approach

[@FARIDAHARAHIM]

Yes, agreed, simple and easy to follow

[@_ifly]

Thanks for sharing your research-related videos with us. As a new PhD student, I enjoyed watching them and they have helped a lot.

[@insearchofself9616]

Thank you Andy, this looks quite useful in terms of retrieval . I have done few trials of note taking but this one looks more appealing to me.

[@brunokyamulesire3513]

Dr, thank you for the video. Much needed

[@ameliaarrows2790]

As someone who is interested in PhD research this is super helpful . I might not do the slides but the format is very helpful

[@irem.yilmaz]

OMG! I wish I had known this before I started my research. Thanks so much, Andy. You're a lifesaver!!

[@lorrylabs8278]

I found this really helpful, thank you. I wish I saw this when I started my academic career!

[@harrisonloh9901]

Really like this presentation approach, will try it soon. Also have tried excel in the past which I think mainly shines when comparing numbers between a lot of papers (e.g. processing parameters). Been giving Scott Sheper's Antinet/zettelkasten approach a try for the more in depth reading and information extraction, so that's probably what the detailed reading step will look like for me.

[@Mo-xn4cx]

thats just what ive figure out on my own the last couple weeks. presentation gives you such a overview of all your stuff you researched.

[@dystephiary]

Thank you so much!! Trying this method now!!

[@Statch011]

This is brilliant! Thank you.

[@Melissa-ju1pm]

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

[@introvertmalie]

This was so, so helpful! Thank you so much! You're an excellent teacher, and your ideas are so good! I agree, I'd much rather have physical copies of things, and I'm very visual, so the slides work much better for me than long blocks of text-only notes. Thank you!

[@zovi123]

Always a great video. Much appreciated. Now off to reading some papers.

[@0101799]

Thank you so much for your method, Andy!!!

[@soniakaushik3067]

Very Useful video…definitely gonna try this way. 😊

[@MelodyDobrinin]

I have asked so many people about this exact topic. This really makes sense, going to see if I can incorporate the PowerPoint aspect into my system.

[@xinyuan6649]

Here you'll find the best mentors who are much more willing to share and inspire!!! Can't appreciate this enough, Andy (with joyful tears. I'm not a PHD student but someone who wants to gain better researching skills

[@EmmaFlewitt]

Amazing idea, thank you. Going to literally go try this now.

[@Profsomboon]

Thank YOU, Your presentation save me a lot of time to go through a big pile of information.

[@SimmoC]

I cannot express my gratitude enough for this. I’ve gone my entire undergrad and Masters never really having learned an efficient way to research literature. You’ve just earned a subscriber, thank you buddy.

[@rutger4131]

I will definitely try the presentation trick! Also, reading from paper is superior for me as well.

[@rihambasheer5548]

I will be trying this right now. Going through literature has me overwhelmed sometimes. Thank you very much.

[@anonymous_t223]

Nice guide Andy. I'd recommend instead of taking the full links to the papers, it's better to use the doi for each paper as it is much shorter. Also I've seen people are using obsedian as a note organizing tool.

[@mi_art_fashion]

OH MY GOD!!! this is really educative for me. Thank you so much

[@kitzonk.]

This is brilliant! Thanks so much!

[@huihuizhu5850]

Super useful and there’s not a single word that wastes time. Thanks.

[@imanearrafiki]

This is amazing ! Thank you

[@ilkimguler6740]

As a masters student, I’ll definetly use this, thank you so much!

[@anuradhajayan414]

Hey Andy, that was a complete eye opener for me ...normally I have not seen people telling us such small and important things...thank you for the videos...

[@jeread5193]

Lots of good ideas here thank you!

[@feronikasuhartono]

HONESTLY - I can not thank you enough forthis video and some of your previous ones! I have felt exhausted and overwhelmed and feeling quite inadequate in this academic and research domain. Not one of my lecturers have broken down these tips, techniques, methods or approach - in the way you have successfully done! You are awesome! Much gratitude and appreciation!

[@DrAndyStapleton]

You are so welcome!

[@AT.Mad_Hatter]

Being a visual learner myself, I have been struggling with wordy Excel. This method will definitely help me. Thank you Andy. Love how crisp and simple, yet so helpful your videos are!

[@anupriyayadav7928]

Thankyou Andy for such a helpful technique😊

[@banhbengconuong]

many thanks Andy for your tip!

[@arnomuskens4636]

Have just started a masters degree, your advice is gold. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[@qistinaludin752]

Thank you so much for the info!

[@gorluxor]

Great content, very useful

[@ericyaoaglozo9197]

Thanks for this technique. It's going to make someone's life easier.

[@maximrojkov1700]

Thank you for another informative video, For reviewing of manuscripts additional A3 blank sheet of paper makes the process even easier, but still very oldschool. Much better than usual A4 for notes and outlining ideas.

[@shakespearaamina9117]

Thank you Andy!

[@JuanSanchez-lk2gc]

All I have to say is a big Thank you! In my university this miss explaining how to properly read articles meant to be, for example, an antecedent for the investigation. This video solved it to a large extend.

[@musicmuse09]

i started with this approach before (not exactly as shown with the nice template) but didnt quite continue with it as sometimes i would find a bunch of papers while writing a paper and there is not enough time to compile them into a ppt. But I have recently discovered tools like Zotero to have a note taking function and also able to preview the pdf where one could highlight the sentences that are interesting. Also it syncs with Research Rabbit that is useful when one needs to see how the paper is linked to others. Still I think I agree that this approach is useful for gathering the most important and relevant papers for the research. Thanks!

[@vitalinamotors]

I've just started my student research and I haven't any idea how to deal with all the information I've found. Thank you for this idea. I definitely have to try it.

[@Pickett1312]

I always say the inventor of KZbin is a genius, and videos like this one is the reason why. Just brilliant! Thank you Andy🙌🏾

[@thomasbell3099]

Haha...I am literally throwing out (recycling waste) boxes and boxes and boxes of peer review journal articles I used in ~2017 as I am listening to this vid! Best to you and to all watching these extemely helpful and insightful videos!

[@jaybestnz]

Those tags and the idea of having them is amazing. If it was hashtagged then you could make it searchable for review

[@Maram379h]

thank you, it best method I have ever seen

[@activatedbywellness8971]

I just want to say thank you for all your work on these videos. I am starting my PhD this summer and because I have been out of school for a while, I am taking this time to lay all the foundational knowledge and tools into my brain. Your videos have been immensely helpful!

[@joneskwasi8265]

Helpful information. Thanks

[@kobbyobeng6895]

Excellent Andy

[@knw-seeker6836]

thanks so much for the reading videos much appreciated 👍

[@jimmyflinn8718]

What a great explainer. 😊

[@nabinghimire2006]

i was looking something on this topic today as PhD student, and I just found it here

[@michaelkibblewhite7598]

Yeah so agree you need to be heard more! Good on you!

[@farahabdelnabi7399]

Thank you for this advice

[@BatistaDiscovery]

Dudeee, you English is very easy to understand and you video help me a lot. Best regards from Brazil.

[@PoofPoofxxD]

Thank you very much for the great video! Really learned some useful tricks here!

[@DrAndyStapleton]

You're very welcome!

[@bhagyashrijoshi1482]

Great video… I shall try this for my literature…. Hope it works as need to finish thesis in three months now

[@arnavdurani9962]

Andy, I'm not even doing a PhD but now I want to do one just to be able to put this method into action

[@KIRAN_ARANYA]

Full of informative thank you. Love from India 🇮🇳

[@gregalexandermusic4652]

Thank you for your resources! Your methods and videos have given me a new perspective on how I approach my PhD research. Working on my thesis has become a lot less stressful!

[@ahyanirf6727]

Thank you so much, it worked

[@photonosh]

This method works for me. Thanks

[@carrieben-yisrael8206]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am a 45 yo old masters/phd bound student and I have tried all the digital stuff to really engage with the work. Your video just gave me permission to print. I’ve always done my best work with by engaging in the margins and using post it notes. Then I move it into my Zotero or digital notes app. I did undergrad in the late 90s so all we really had was note cards and post its. I’m going to stop fighting what has always worked best for me and lean in to how I best make those connections. 😊

[@jimcrawley7363]

Great! Prompted to produce tis to thanks you: Steps in your process: Preparation: Find a paper that you want to read and take notes on. Open a presentation deck and create a new slide using the template. Copy and paste the paper title and link on the slide. Reading: Read the paper and identify the main take-home messages. You don’t have to read every word or detail of the paper. You can use strategies such as skimming, scanning, reading abstracts or conclusions, or looking at figures or tables to get the gist of the paper. Writing: Write down the take-home messages on the slide using bullet points. Use concise and clear language to summarize the main points of the paper. You can also use quotes or paraphrases if you want to capture specific words or phrases from the paper. Make sure to cite your sources properly if you do so. Visualizing: If there are any interesting figures or other notes that you want to remember, copy and paste them on the slide or write them down. Figures can be graphs, charts, diagrams, images, or any other visual representation of data or information in the paper. They can help you to understand complex concepts or patterns more easily. Tagging: Add tags to your slide that describe the topic, theme, method, field, or any other relevant aspect of the paper. Tags can help you to organize your notes and find them later when you need them.

[@Kakirachan]

I asked and you delivered 🎉🎉🎉

[@Music-rd3xq]

Undergrad here- I found your channel by accident a few weeks ago and have stayed mostly because I enjoy the humor but also for the clear and helpful content. Personally, I’m a big fan of the built-in search function, tags, and color coding in Google Keep but can see the usefulness of being able to have separate files using Slides.

[@gabby3363]

this is genuinely going to change my life

[@unr3achabl35ky5]

I usually don't prefer to print the publications basically to avoid the attached costs to it (because I have to print them at home). But I am very grateful that adobe reader allows to use multiple windows of the same publication. This allows me to just switch from the part where I read, to the figure which the text is about and have simoultaneously the option to jump to the method used in the figure. (I have always 3 windows open with the publication and 2 windows for the supportive information (1 window for picture & 1 window for the descripition (if they are separated). This helps me a lot to work with the paper (because I have only one small laptop display (it is a surface) where it is not (at least for me) suitable to split the windows. Great vid btw Andy :D

[@radityarizky9004]

I am glad that this video come up in my KZbin ❤ thanks for the help Andy! Subscribing you is a must

[@catbaril9072]

Omg that’s so good thanks!!

[@armanahmadian4373]

Thanks for this video Yes! The idea of making a quick summary is essential for research. But, honestly most of the things you mentioned in your video don't work for me personally... or I do them in some other way (Some of them I have been doing in the past). Tho, it's always good to hear and see what other people do and try to improve Keep up the good work.

[@andy0ne310]

This is beautiful! Newest subscriber❤

[@sumeyyasarikaya3073]

Your videos are sooo helpful for me as a PhD student although I am from a social science field! Thanks a million

[@kushalgokhale9114]

That is exactly why you are in a social science field. Because if you were in some pure science field u would know that such "how to" videos are not of any help.

[@doruktopcu]

Lit. Review is a nightmare and a must, thanks for the cues!

[@JohnnyClement2023]

Thanks for sharing❤

[@mmcguireiphone]

Using this system for saving and organising your videos :) truly useful

[@HobittLuv411]

I’m starting grad school this coming fall and found this video helpful. I think I’ll look into some of the programs like Zotero or Google Keep mentioned in the comments for thesis specific papers. But I can also see this being useful for specific courses if there are a lot of papers to keep track of Thanks Andy!

[@labibbidabibbadum]

Beautiful. I do sort of similar things, but nothing like as templated and simple. I’m in industry not academia and I’m the only person I know who fires up Google scholar rather than Google when I’m looking for new ways to do things. Google is full of easy to read marking schmeel, Google scholar is full of hard to read gold. Thank you!

[@JulioMartinsVerso]

loved your tag system!!! let me make a humble recommendation, to use obsidian. there's a learning curve, but it will fit nicely on your process and give more possibilities to insights and to make an overall vision of the cumulative knowledge

[@lattice737]

Alright, so I have some beef with the academic convention of having a stack of printed out papers. I use one of the full-screen iPad Pros with Notability and Google Drive. I get all the benefits of marking them up and reading them without having to print anything. And if I find myself wondering about some paper I read, I can search Notability using keywords from the actual paper AND my written margin notes. Extend this to textbooks (which I did), and I basically never had to buy a book or print a paper again. It's kinda funny, because I literally saw my lab mates walking around with papers or with stacks of books and papers while I would literally walk in with just a laptop and my iPad and work all day. Pretty sure I looked like the laziest academic with my clean desk--the equivalent of the kid who just brings a pencil to class in high school (if even that). By the time I was able to start getting some results, everyone collectively was like, "Oh you *have* been learning and working"

[@auditon2038]

Amazing thank you.

[@tuppy]

Helpful. I’m thinking of setting up forms with check boxes. I also want to map the articles using tags and another using authors

[@OGEETOMO]

Amazing insights. I would say I use highlighting, but what I do is highlight similar or agreeing concepts with each other across multiple papers so I can easily synthesize them in my work.

[@doctoralvlog]

Andy, I am with you on this 100%. Ppt worked the best for me. Excel, notion, onenote didn't work.

[@gretalukoseviciute2058]

Very useful. Thakyou.

[@pradeepielts]

Awesome Sir... 🤩