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

[@lashaist]

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

[@MumtahenaJim]

ikr 😆

[@d7om1bigdeal]

😂

[@GEMSofGOD_com]

Drawing postcards?

[@pamthumbela562]

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

[@pin65371]

I'm in the trades and I love watching this guys videos. I am more in the planning and execution side of things now than doing the actual work and I've had times where something I watched in videos like his have come in handy.

[@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_11122]

+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

[@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.

[@grow3384]

Thanks a lot!

[@TejusVignesh]

Legend.

[@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.

[@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

[@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

[@faroukyusuf805]

Excellent video. Here are some potential additional tags. 1. Core Literature 2. Key Insights 3. Conceptual Framework 4. Essential Reading 5. Research Methodologies 6. Theoretical Background 7. Empirical Studies 8. Controversial Debates 9. Recent Developments 10. Policy Implications 11. Comparative Studies 12. Interdisciplinary Approaches 13. Critical Analysis 14. Review Articles 15. Historical Context

[@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🙌🏾

[@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?

[@cadea7578]

@@rizkaazizah7869yes I have many friends who use it on Microsoft

[@alexeykrylov9995]

1:30 this kind of paper categorization by tagging with review / discovery / must-read / method / idea is a great idea by itself - making it visible in the list why I need this particular paper. Need to incorporate it into my process.

[@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!

[@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

[@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.

[@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. 😊

[@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!

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@gabby3363]

this is genuinely going to change my life

[@arnomuskens]

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

[@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!

[@endgamealert5758]

Many thanks for this! Just starting my Masters by Research course and have done a few papers with this format. Already, I can tell this will save so much time.

[@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

[@jw7903]

the video is a life saver.🙏🙏🙏 before that I need to read around 400 pages a day during final exam and I'm a desperate dyslexia

[@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.

[@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.

[@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...

[@_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.

[@nabinghimire2006]

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

[@K1Kut4TV]

I'm going into Clincial Psych doctorate this is going to invaluable - Thank you !

[@supremegamer4717]

Never even thought to use chatgpt like that, genius!🤩

[@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.

[@SMGorska]

Thank you! I was looking for the most effective way to store sources for the literature review and take notes 😁 I'm so glad that I came accross this video!

[@SibtainNaqvi-sz5vh]

Thanks man.......I was really annoyed by the literature review and your tips help me to reduce the burden and kind of a give me encouragement to trust chat gpt😂

[@rutger4131]

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

[@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

[@mahmudaislam5428]

Love love love andy. So good. It was my first day of Phd today at the University of york, uk. I have been watching you for a while. Now i have got my dream phd❤

[@DrAndyStapleton]

Best of luck with your PhD!

[@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!

[@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.

[@Kakirachan]

I asked and you delivered 🎉🎉🎉

[@mmcguireiphone]

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

[@burtleboeuf1429]

Well, you've basically created a simplified, bespoke reference manager. The advantages are that it suits your way of working, I like the ability to cut and paste the image as a visual tag (although that probably works better for some subjects than others). Cons: you are doing one paper input at a time, you are also filling out fields manually. All of these things can be automated by actual reference management software. Also, ref. managers can output and format citations to documents (if thats your thing). So just bear that in mind.

[@colilaobalioca]

This tip's beneficial to me as I'm studying for a master's degree now and need to read tons of literature reviews to make my assignment trustworthy

[@jaybestnz]

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

[@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...

[@huihuizhu5850]

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

[@irem.yilmaz]

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

[@brandoneberl9922]

Excellent advice. Thanks for sharing! :)

[@Lucida1818]

I’m preparing for a Master of Education by research Currently investigating articles for a research proposal and I’m old school too. Thanks for the presentation slide tip. I would print out the article and make notes on the pages too.

[@malielanijoy]

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!

[@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!

[@joylinopraise]

Thank you so much for such a helpful tips. I just wanted to add a very slight comment on this that the tags on the right low corner can be with their special characters like so that it can be searched more easily. the word 'method' can be searched on the other sections of the page if there are hundreds of materials summarized. Thanks again! I myself is also a PhD. candidate, found it very helpful.

[@asliiiihankara]

this will heal my all academic headaches.

[@BatistaDiscovery]

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

[@mariyakossidi8746]

I appreciate your help, Andy! I've been struggling with taking notes in Mendeley, Zotero, Excel as It is so time-consuming. I am lost in sorting out these notes and remembering the main point. Probably your method will help me. Thank you!

[@Profsomboon]

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

[@rihambasheer5548]

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

[@NatureLead]

HI Andy, I got to say your note taking template is really useful, thank you for that. I have also been using GPT for fast skiming papers for my PhD as well, and I was able to go through papers a lot faster these days. What I did was asking GPT to read specific sections of a paper and give specific pieces of information. The only problem is that I have to repeat a lot of the insturctions. Being a lazy software guy, I ended up building a little web app using their API, so I can be even lazier. 😆. Just have to copy and paste in, say, abstract or conclusion section, and it will spit out the key points i look for

[@isabeladeniran]

This is so cool! What prompts do you use, if you don't mind?

[@beltaya276]

thats awesome! would you be willing to share this web app?

[@NatureLead]

@@beltaya276 i would actually, not sure if anyone would ever ask, lol. now that we got one(you). I could try to make it publically available, just need to make some changes to it so that it can be used by public users and stuff.... Can you PM me or something, we can follow that up.

[@joshrosaia9334]

Excellent, thanks.

[@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.

[@ilkimguler6740]

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

[@promiserobinson5113]

This video was RIGHT on time! Thank you!!

[@xervoo6419]

I will take inspiration from this and integrate it into obsidian. For a while I’ve been taking highlights and importing it into the program but the notes become unwieldly, having a simply overview in this style might be more useful.

[@zenon1o15]

Yeah I'm thinking of making like an overview callout on the top of my imported notes, and instead of a presentation I tend to make like a short essay connecting different papers together. Doesn't obsidian have a slides feature?

[@xervoo6419]

@@zenon1o15 It does, but it's pretty terrible if you ask me. I have a similar system, but generally keep the essay / topic note combining papers separate from the papers themselves. Essentially following the zettelkasten system, where the permanent / evergreen notes are the ones combining inforation from various papers on one topic.

[@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.

[@michaelkibblewhite7598]

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

[@lanaevenhar7857]

Your videos are invaluable! Thank you !

[@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.

[@KIRAN_ARANYA]

Full of informative thank you. Love from India 🇮🇳

[@RaoBlackWellizedArman]

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.

[@Mr.HandSanitizer]

Such a good workflow, I am bombazooled T-T/ For the life of me, my desktop will always be a mess when switching tabs, websites, notes, Zotero and everything to be fairly referenced within a project even with multiple monitors or the computer's keyboard shortcuts, always getting a headache due to motion blur & those mini animations btw shortcuts, my poor eyes. The PPT/slides notes + (summarize/website referenced) is the best idea ever! Aghhh, I got all this fancy equipment and the solution was so simple. Even I can get a presentation straight out the gate with this! 😭💖

[@dystephiary]

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

[@EmmaFlewitt]

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

[@Melissa-ju1pm]

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

[@beatrizsilvestre3859]

That is amazing! I am a really visual person, and this is organized and visual 😍 thanks for share

[@osman01003]

Similar to the index card idea (by Umberto Eco, the Italian professor).

[@PoofPoofxxD]

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

[@DrAndyStapleton]

You're very welcome!

[@isidorajaksicperovic5250]

For me personally it's easier to read papers in PDF for a few reasons: 1) I can mark important parts of it and leave more comments; 2) I can find important terms and key words without reading the whole paper; 3) I can copy-paste important parts if I want to cite them; 4) I will save a lot of space; 5) I can sort papers in different folders (based on the topic, research field etc.) and 6) I can make myself more organized than having hundreds of papers and not being able to find what I am looking for in that mess (I am talking from my experience 😁). This is just my impression and what turned out to work for me after having a bunch of papers that I didn't know what to do with anymore. 😅 I print only crucial things. And by the way, the idea with Power Point presentation is awesome! Thank you for sharing that! 😊

[@shazam51707]

So useful tool. Thanks a lot Andy!

[@rocioelizabethbanosrodrigu4522]

I love your Channel!! Make this profession easier, Can you do a vidéo about strategies for writing quicker please, Thank you! 😊

[@raihankenjirizqillah9547]

I wish I had found this video much sooner. Regardless, thank you very much. I hope that one day (somehow), I’ll have the chance to meet you in person and express my gratitude directly.

[@tantipiccioni]

Different people - different ways. I found this method even more complicated than using just excel (of which I never thought about as a reference management tool).

[@bhagyashrijoshi1482]

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

[@doctoralvlog]

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

[@anupriyayadav7928]

Thankyou Andy for such a helpful technique😊

[@doruktopcu]

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

[@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.

[@omarthesolid]

I remember you had an older video I watched in the past talking (I can't find) about the same method, which was taking notes using powerpoint. My advisor suggested a similar method to yours of taking notes but using a Word document and summarising each paper using bullet points.

[@claricesombra8790]

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

[@alanduval4255]

Seems like this would benefit from being put into Obsidian (or a similar PKM system), so you can link all the keywords between all these summaries.

[@andy0ne310]

This is beautiful! Newest subscriber❤

[@ericyaoaglozo9197]

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

[@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!

[@fangirlacc3625]

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

[@alibadawy9034]

Try using notion tables. I think you will love it.

[@blessingomoyemen1759]

As a 3rd year PhD. student, all I want to say after watching 3 of your videos is, where have you been all my life?

[@AidanAIJobs]

The documind tool is epic!

[@darkguardian1314]

Smmry (actual spelling) and other websites also give summaries of long articles and heat maps of sentences related to keywords.