Everyone knows that the number of publications is growing every year, this is especially noticeable in biology. I'm wondering how other cope with this volume. Is it possible to scale up reading articles?
Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#2Maybe it's curating that ought to be scaled. Most articles are a crappy product of a system where quantitative indicators are set, but qualitative indicators are forgotten.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#3In my opinion (professional mathematician), one shouldn't try to scale up.
A generation ago, there were a hundred times as many articles as anyone could read. Now, there are a thousand times as many. (In 2018, there were 33,486 mathematics papers published to the arXiv. [1])
I believe that the best strategy remains the same: simply pick what you do want to read, and read it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#4In my opinion (professional mathematician), one shouldn't try to scale up. A generation ago, there were a hundred times as many articles as anyone could read. Now, there are a thousand times as many. (In 2018, there were 33,486 mathematics papers published to the arXiv. [1]) I believe that the best strategy remains the same: simply pick what you do want to read, and read it. [1] https://arxiv.org/help/stats/2018_by_a…
100% agree with this (professional mathematician, previously in academia, now in industry). There is too much to read, so don't try to scale up. Reading articles take a lot of time and willpower and most articles that are published are usually crap. Instead, I (ab-)use opinions of others to figure out what to read. Often I share my work and ideas with others and ask for their feedback or suggested articles. People are better filters than any rss feed or newsletter.
Similar, I rarely read news. I think it's a waste of time. Instead I use that time to (globally) read Science and Nature. Very high quality articles that often have big impact in the world. I can suggest this habit to everyone.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#5In my opinion (professional mathematician), one shouldn't try to scale up. A generation ago, there were a hundred times as many articles as anyone could read. Now, there are a thousand times as many. (In 2018, there were 33,486 mathematics papers published to the arXiv. [1]) I believe that the best strategy remains the same: simply pick what you do want to read, and read it. [1] https://arxiv.org/help/stats/2018_by_a…
You're right. It dependes quite a lot on the field. I am not a mathematician, but I have an assumption that in mathematics is not so dynamic. Biology is quite dynamic (but not as much as computer science). I think this is due to the fact that biology is an experimental science.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#6Maybe it's curating that ought to be scaled. Most articles are a crappy product of a system where quantitative indicators are set, but qualitative indicators are forgotten.
You won't know if it's crap or not until you read it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#7In my opinion (professional mathematician), one shouldn't try to scale up. A generation ago, there were a hundred times as many articles as anyone could read. Now, there are a thousand times as many. (In 2018, there were 33,486 mathematics papers published to the arXiv. [1]) I believe that the best strategy remains the same: simply pick what you do want to read, and read it. [1] https://arxiv.org/help/stats/2018_by_a…
This + when you find someone you like and can understand go consider reading everything else they wrote, look at their references, consider reading them too.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#8Skim, do not read... if the work seems relevant to your interests and the best practices are followed, have a look at the conclusions. If still interested, have a look at the paper credentials, if it is peer-reviewed, from reliable publisher, etc. Pretty any good researcher out there has been peer-reviewed at least once in his career, be it a conference or a journal, so you can safely ignore vanity press, complete outliers and fully independent proponents.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#9In my opinion (professional mathematician), one shouldn't try to scale up. A generation ago, there were a hundred times as many articles as anyone could read. Now, there are a thousand times as many. (In 2018, there were 33,486 mathematics papers published to the arXiv. [1]) I believe that the best strategy remains the same: simply pick what you do want to read, and read it. [1] https://arxiv.org/help/stats/2018_by_a…
I agree completely. There always has been too much to read, and the best strategy remains to read what you can while recognizing that you may be missing something. I make every effort to find as much related literature as possible but I am continually amazed by some of the work that I find years afterwards that I missed the first time around.
On a similar note, I remember reading a biography of physicist Lev Landau years ago (Dorozynski's The Man They Wouldn't Let Die). If I recall correctly --- and please correct if I am wrong --- there was a part where the author described Landau's intentional reluctance to read papers, at least early on in the research process. Landau wanted to formulate original approaches to problems, so he did not want his thinking influenced by how things were previously done. I do not agree with the idea but I do find it interesting that some researchers in the past have valued the opposite of reading widely.
Re: Ask HN: How do you scale up your scientific reading?
#10In my opinion (professional mathematician), one shouldn't try to scale up. A generation ago, there were a hundred times as many articles as anyone could read. Now, there are a thousand times as many. (In 2018, there were 33,486 mathematics papers published to the arXiv. [1]) I believe that the best strategy remains the same: simply pick what you do want to read, and read it. [1] https://arxiv.org/help/stats/2018_by_a…
I agree completely. There always has been too much to read, and the best strategy remains to read what you can while recognizing that you may be missing something. I make every effort to find as much related literature as possible but I am continually amazed by some of the work that I find years afterwards that I missed the first time around. On a similar note, I remember reading a biography of physicist Lev Landau y…
My postdoctoral mentor didn't go that far. But he did say that when he read a book, and encountered the statement of some lemma or theorem, he liked to try to figure out how to prove it himself instead of reading the proof there.
There is also the infamous "exercise" in Serge Lang's algebra book (scroll to the bottom):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_pEp00B111JYWU1NmY4MjktZTN...