A couple of days ago, when I started to try to read a scientific paper, I spent one hour frequently putting my head in my hands while trying to digest the myriad of science terms that were littered throughout the descriptions. In the end, I gave up on that paper. I was so utterly confused with all the words that reading slowed down to a sentence per thirty seconds, if not a minute or more.
Yesterday, I attempted to read another paper, but as soon as I saw the unfamiliar names and terms popping up, I decided to seek out advice on how to actually understand the paper. After all, there was no point spending an inordinate amount of time doing something if there was a more efficient and effective way to perform the same task.
In the end, after searching online for tips and asking my sister and my dad, I found my dad to be the most helpful. Fortunately for me, my dad had worked in the research field for a number of years, so reading papers should be much easier for him. I sat down with my dad and went through one paper. After that session, I finally knew how to read a paper easily.
- Read the abstract. This part is pretty obvious, since the abstract is a summary of the paper to come. It helps you understand what you will be reading about so you have an idea of what to look out for.
- Read the introduction. Get an idea of why the paper is written.
- Read the methods. This part may be hard, especially if you have not worked in a lab before and know the protocols used, but this helps you understand what was actually done. Plus, this part is usually short; a paragraph to a page at the most.
- Look at the graphs and legends. Instead of reading through the results, which are basically descriptions, just look at the graphs and legends. These are the actual results. If you understand these, you understand what was discovered. Only if you don’t actually understand the graphs, then look at the description.
- Read the discussion. Finish the paper and look at what the implications of the results mean (the author’s interpretation) and what else can be done in the future.
- If you do not understand the paper, read a review. If you cannot understand the paper at all, read a review paper that goes over the topic first. This will help you build up enough knowledge in order to understand what was being performed and discovered in the actual scientific paper.
This may seem pretty straightforward and obvious, but in the beginning, I just read a paper straight through. I did not look at the graphs to really understand the actual data, since I thought the description should be enough. This was a bad idea. Even if I understood the paper, the failure to look at the graphs allowed me to forget the results much faster. I realized that since people took the trouble of organizing their data in order to help other scientists to understand, the results should be easier to remember in that format as well.
I have to read a couple more papers today, so I will be testing this new found method of mine.
I just lapsed into self-doubt for a while there. I realized that in order to be even a little bit competitive in the medical schools that I wanted to apply to, I had to get As from here on out. An A in every single subject; no exception. I have already messed up my GPA so much that I am pressured to not falter at all.
My bad habit came back as soon as I felt the fear of potentially failing. I started to blame other people for my failure last semester. I blamed my dad for pressuring me to take a physics course when I did not want to. I blamed that decision for my demise. I blamed my parents’ influence on changing my original plan from taking biology to taking physics. But I didn’t blame myself.
My dad took what I had to say and let me go as I stormed out of the room, angry at myself and angry at the difficulty of how all these processes were. When I was finally calm enough, he shared a poem with me.
You Can If You Think You Can!
If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win, but you think you can’t,
It is almost certain you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will.
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You’ve got to think high to rise,
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But soon or late the man who wins,
Is the man who thinks he can.
~ C. W. Longenecker ~
I guess I feel better now. I at least know that I have the possibility of succeeding. Rather than focusing on where I could fail, I’ll concentrate more on where I can succeed.
After spending a few hours looking through the course guide online, I finally have a tentative spring term schedule. My current course list includes: Organic Chemistry, Physics (electromagnetism, circuits, waves, optics, and imaging), Introduction to Psychology, and Madness and Medicine. The last course is meant to fulfill a social sciences requirement and so I will be learning about the history of psychiatry.
Although I am not necessarily looking forward to this spring semester, mainly because of the organic chemistry and physics class that I have to take, I am looking forward to the light at the end of the tunnel. Once I am finished with this semester, I am finished with most of my pre-med requirements! All I will have to do is finish taking my last two biology requirements, and then I will be able to concentrate on enjoying the courses in my concentration as well as finishing up cores. Even though the biology requirements won’t be easy, I feel that I would enjoy them more simply because they are related to biology instead of physics.
I am a little nervous for my courses because the reviews for them do not seem wholly favorable. Judging by reviews on the physics course, I will be spending a lot of time struggling through the material. Most of the comments were along the lines of, “Take this only if you are pre-med. But if you are taking the course, you probably are pre-med. It will be hard, but suck it up.” Plus, the professor for chemistry has changed this semester, so I do not have any reviews to fall back on.
When I voiced my concerns to my dad, he just replied, “There’s no point looking at the reviews. Just read ahead about the topics you will be covering in physics so you will be more confident when you have to learn the material.”
That sounds like a better idea than what I am doing right now. I guess I might as well go read about the fascinating subjects on magnets, electricity, etc.
Many people have different study strategies and habits. There are those who complete homework as they listen to music. Others manage to watch a TV show while completing a problem set. And still others complain that studying is boring and not for them; they cannot focus and eventually spend more time trying to concentrate and study at the same time than if they just sat down and completed the work.
As a pre-med student, I can say that studying takes up a sizable amount of my time. Even though I’m not always happy when I have to sit down to study when I could be doing something else more pleasurable and more active, I eventually find some sort of fun in learning new material. Or if anything, the prospect of failing will reduce me to a panic that will motivate my focus.
However, even though I try to be a good student, my study habits can be dodgy a lot of the times. They shift from pure procrastination to full-blown day-to-day study marathons. From this gigantic contrast, I can easily tell what works for me and what doesn’t in terms of studying efficiently and actually retaining information. From these experiences, I compiled a list of study tips.
- Find a motivation before you study. Many times, studying is long-term rather than short-term. In colleges especially, studying is usually related with tests. Many people copy one another’s problem set and neglect to actually learn the material until a night or two before the test date. However, this is unconstructive studying behavior. Much of the information learned will be fresh for the test, but gone a week later. This can be disconcerting when that material will be needed later on in your life (so pre-meds, make sure to study physics, chemistry, biology, and orgo chemistry early). Thus, I look at studying as the long-term goal of being able to retain new information better, which means that I can do less studying later on when I am scrapped for time. This thought process usually motivates me to sit down for that weekly three to four hours review session where I review what I learned that week and take notes. I make sure to write my notes as comprehensive as possible so that I only need to review my notes in the future rather than having to go through lecture slides or even worse, a textbook.
- Find a good study space. This step is very important. It sets the stage for distractions or helping you to focus. I find that empty, small tables are usually good study spaces. The lack of objects on the table besides my studying materials helps me to focus. I also like studying in the library because the milieu of other people studying motivates me to settle down and study too.
- Make sure there is no visual stimulation that will distract you. This means to turn off any streaming TV shows that may be on Youtube and close the Hulu window. If there is a shiny coin on the table that is distracting, remove it as well. Remove anything that could possibly become a deterrent to studying. I find that this step usually takes a lot of self-control, but once this step is over, everything becomes more easy. My mind will start settling down as I try to concentrate on what I am studying. The first few minutes will always be hard, because my mind is always on something else, but it will eventually start to focus on what I need to be learning, rather than what I want to see. Remember, studying is a need and does not have to be a want.
- Create a musical playlist that helps you focus. This step is not always the best for everyone. There are those who can only study in peace and quiet, but I usually like a little music to play in the background. This helps me to settle down and start focusing because I trained my mind to hear a type of music and get into the studying mood. This also helps me to not become distracted. For example, in the library, there are people who may be whispering or come in and out noisily; music cancels all this bad noise out and allows me to focus on my studies as if I was in an isolated system. When creating the musical playlist, it doesn’t matter what type of music is in the playlist. As long as you like the music, then it’s okay. There are those who can only study with ambient music, but I am one of those people who like catchy tunes interspersed with instrumentals.
- Study. It may seem stupid to write “study” in a tips list for studying, but it’s important. I found that as I studied more, I learned to be able to study more. I became increasingly better at focusing. When I didn’t study, I started to lose that ability. Thus, my winter break has been pretty much an unproductive period because my procrastination and laziness has only fueled my procrastination and laziness and made my studying skills regress. As with anything, practice makes perfect. In this case, practicing how to study will help make studying more efficient.
- Read out loud and slowly. I only use this method when I really have trouble focusing, but sometimes it helps to calm me down when I read a passage out loud and slowly. By slowly, I mean practically pausing word by word. Once I get a sentence out of the way, my mind is a lot more focused and I am ready to speed-read.
Although these skills aren’t 100% guaranteed to help jump-start your studying career, I hope that they may help someone out there to be able to focus more. They do seem pretty obvious and common-sense, but it’s amazing how many people complain about their grades when it is because they cannot study correctly.
So if you’re procrastinating, stop. Find that motivation to study and keep that in your head. Take away the distractions and focus. As you study, you may even start to like the material. There have been many times in which I had trouble focusing but once I actually understood a key sentence or two, I really felt as if I learned something and became excited to learn more.
Good luck studying!
The blog has yet another design change. Although I actually did like the last design, my sister simply abhorred it. In her words, “A two year old could have made that.” That may very well have been true, since it was so simple.
Hopefully, this design will stay for a while and will entice me to write more entries. The search bar is also finally back, so whoever would like to use that function may do so.
This design is made entirely with CSS and XHTML except for a header photo. I realized that I am not good at writing entries with pictures, so I might as spruce up this website with a photo in the header, just so the website does not look that bland.
While coding the design, I also discovered that CSS3 is currently being implemented in different browsers. That really made me feel old and behind; the last time I coded a layout, CSS2 was in the new thing. But I embraced the new functions. Finally, I could create a shadow behind a picture and create round boxes without having to use photoshop to provide picture edges. However, this function is only available in Firefox and Opera. Hopefully, Internet Explorer is not far behind in implementing CSS3 changes. They do make designs so much easier to create and much more eye pleasing.
If there are any problems with the layout, please leave your browser name and version in your comment and I will see to fixing the code.
