PhD Researchers Can't Keep Up With the Literature

“I am currently working on my monograph, which requires me to write at least 300 pages by the end of my PhD. However, I am really struggling with getting as many articles and sources as possible to read in one day, and write some paragraphs or take notes based on them. Even on my ideal day, I can only finish up to 3 articles or a book chapter, which is sometimes only enough for ONE SENTENCE. And since it is a monograph, I am expected to trace back almost every reference in the article, cite the o”

“I'm a first year PhD student, slightly overwhelmed by how much I need to/want to read to fill the knowledge gaps I find in my work. It takes me roughly a week to get through a whole paper at the very least. Even then, I don't feel like I'm gaining the knowledge I'm supposed to. A lot of people around me get through multiple papers a week and can make easy conversation about latest finings in the field. I feel myself falling quite far behind playing catch up. I understand that in”

“I'm a first year PhD student, slightly overwhelmed by how much I need to/want to read to fill the knowledge gaps I find in my work. It takes me roughly a week to get through a whole paper at the very least. Even then, I don't feel like I'm gaining the knowledge I'm supposed to. A lot of people around me get through multiple papers a week and can make easy conversation about latest finings in the field. I feel myself falling quite far behind playing catch up. I understand that in”

“I'm a first year PhD student, slightly overwhelmed by how much I need to/want to read to fill the knowledge gaps I find in my work. It takes me roughly a week to get through a whole paper at the very least. Even then, I don't feel like I'm gaining the knowledge I'm supposed to. A lot of people around me get through multiple papers a week and can make easy conversation about latest finings in the field. I feel myself falling quite far behind playing catch up. I understand that in”

“I’m a PhD student in linguistics, hopefully finishing in the next six months. I’m not a very experienced academic writer, and I’m currently trying to write a paper for a sociolinguistics journal. One thing I keep worrying about is whether I’m engaging enough with the existing literature. For context, I work on a language that hasn’t been studied nearly as extensively as languages like English and other well-researched languages. When I read sociolinguistic papers on English, for example, there i”

“My M.S. program in psychology assigns 1-2 research articles to be read then I have to submit an assignment answering questions about the article (summary, methods, limitations, strengths, dependent, independent variable, etc.). I am really struggling with trying to think critically figure out whether to be brief or be in depth on each answer and am worried this will be my undoing. Note: I majored in education for my bachelor's which was much more hands-on so I am struggling with this transit”

“I’d really like to pursue a msc in computer science. As part of talking with a researcher he asked I read one of his papers. I’m reading it and I’m getting it but it’s taken me multiple days. This is my first time reading a paper. It’s 21 pages long including a 2 page biography. My grades are already somewhat borderline-ish for the requirements and I’m a bit scared as my friends who have read some papers say it takes them 2-4 hours to read a paper. The paper has a lot of new concepts and makes u”

“Hello everyone, I wanted to ask, as a PhD student, how do you manage your research? Every day, thousands of new papers and ideas are published. It takes me a long time to read and understand a single paper. Supervisor support is basically nonexistent. It was very difficult at first to do a literature review, and I still struggle with it; I didn't even know how to critically analyze a paper. AI tools have been helpful lately, but without proper guidance and support from my supervisor and depa”

“Hello everyone, I recently got selected for PhD programme in management and it's really difficult for me to read research papers fast and even more difficult to take notes on it.I don't know what part to include in my notes and what to ignore... I am currently spending 2 days on 1 paper. Does anybody have any way on how can I read research papers effectively without wasting so much time and how to take notes on it? It will be huge help. If anybody has any suggestions. ​ submitted b”

“Hi all, I’m looking for advice on something I’m quite nervous about. I have written many book chapters but never journal articles. I work at University A but am doing my PhD at University B. I want to write a Discussion/Forum-style article on a topic I’m personally interested in, but it’s not related to my PhD research. How does affiliation work in this situation? Would I list one university, both, or neither if the article is essentially independent? And how would you write the author bio? Also”

“I'm trying to understand the real-world difficulties people face when working with scientific literature, particularly when searching for, reading, evaluating, and using research papers. I'm not trying to promote anything and I'm not looking for generic answers like "there are too many papers." I'm interested in the specific things that actually waste your time or make research unnecessarily difficult. For example: Finding relevant papers among hundreds/thousands of res”

“I’m starting my PhD journey and I’m honestly a complete beginner when it comes to reading and writing research papers. With a background in Automation/Control Engineering. I’ve been admitted to a PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering at Concordia University , starting soon, and I’ll be working with a professor who is a very strong researcher in his field (h-index around 70). The problem is that I’ve basically never had to read research papers seriously before. I recently opened one of my”

“I am lucky to have the whole summer to focus on an article. I’m curious how many hours people can really focus on the deep parts of work, the actual reading and research. I want to set an ambitious yet doable goal for myself in terms of putting my phone to the side and really focusing on writing, but I am wondering what’s realistic. I’ve mostly been writing in the morning and then just stopping and spending the afternoon with my kids. I don’t think I could write all day and be that productive. (”

“Grad student and medical student here, and I’m realizing that reading one paper somehow turns into opening ten more. I don’t actually hate reading papers. A lot of the studies are interesting, especially when they connect to clinical topics or something I might see in practice later. The problem is that every useful paper has references that also look useful, and those papers lead to even more papers. After a while my brain feels like a mess. I’ll have tabs open for guidelines, systematic review”

“Genuinely curious how people in fastmoving fields handle staying on top of the literature without it becoming a second fulltime job. I work adjacent to a STEM research environment and watch researchers constantly juggling new preprints, journal alerts, and citation rabbit holes. It feels like for every paper you read, three more appear that are relevant. At some point the literature review process has to have some kind of system behind it, otherwise how does anyone actually write a focused manus”

“This might be a silly question, but I’m a PhD student in humanities (BA to PhD), and I’m struggling to structure my days. When I have coursework, it’s easy because deadlines keep me on track. But during the summer or whenever I don’t have classes, I feel completely lost. How many hours do you usually spend on reading, writing, or research each day? submitted by /u/Born_Sea7123 [link] [comments]”

“Hi everyone, I'm an applied linguistics researcher. I recently completed my PhD and I'm currently preparing a postdoctoral research proposal. I'm looking for one program , not a combination of tools. I have ADHD, and I get overwhelmed when my workflow is spread across multiple applications. If I have to use one app for references, another for PDFs, another for notes, and another for writing, I quickly lose track of everything. In the past, I used MAXQDA for literature reviews, and I”

“I work in an interdisciplinary research area, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to stay current with the literature across all the fields that inform my work. Keeping up with my primary discipline is already a challenge, and following developments in adjacent fields often feels impossible. I'm curious how others manage this in practice. Do you rely on literature alerts, specific databases, curated newsletters, or systematic review habits? Do you depend on collaborators in adjacen”

“Hi all — I’m a student interested in learning how the amount of repetitive lab work varies across different areas of wet lab research. If anybody would be willing to answer the questions below, would really appreciate it! What is the goal of your research? What does the workflow for one typical trial / run look like? How much time is spent on repetitive / manual labwork per trial? How many trials do you typically do in a day or week? How many trials does it (very roughly) take to yield a publish”