Research methodology

1. Scientific Literature Three Pass Reading

2. Types of Scientific Literature
Journal Articles
Letter: Short, immediate, major significance, wider audience
Original Article
Review Article
Monographs
Collection of years/decades of a body of specialised work
Handbooks/ Encyclopaedias
Expert summary for wider audience
Textbooks
Educating beginners
Evolution
to a
Theory

3. Organisation of a Technical Report
 Title: Short sentence for key contribution
 Author and Affiliation
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Literature Survey
 Methods (Experimental or Theoretical)
 Results and Discussion
 Conclusion
 References

4. The Three Pass Approach
The Three passes, Adapted from Keshav [2007]
1. Observe, 5–15 mins
2. Judge, 10–15 mins
3. Understand, few hours
The First Pass
 Read Title, Abstract, and Introduction
 Browse through section headings, skip contents
 Read Conclusions

5. First Pass Notes
Note the following points
 Bibliographic details (underline communicating author)
 Type of article: Letter, Original, Review
 Nature of the work: Expt., Comp. Simul., Theory
 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1038/nature11311
 Digital Object Identifier: Persistent URLs for online documents
 Broad area: Look for keywords in title and abstract

6. First Pass Notes
 What is the main question addressed?
 What is the answer provided?
 New observation reported ?
 Is a new hypothesis being proposed ?
 Existing hypothesis being tested on a new system ?
 First pass should not be critical, just note down objectively.
 Summarise in less than 30 words
Should take from 5 to 15 minutes

7. Second Pass: Judgemental
 Look at Figures and Illustrations
 Graphs have error bars (statistically significant conclusion)
 Axis properly marked (not shoddy or casual reporting)
 Figures are neatly drawn
 Is the problem stated clearly ?
 Is the solution properly justified ?
 Is the methodology adopted appropriate ?

8. Second Pass: Judgemental
 Has the author published similar work (look for references and
citations in Scopus) ?
 Confidence in author’s experience
 Incremental additions may not be significant
 Note down your judgements, including the problem
 Write Statement and thesis in your own words.
Should take another 15 minutes.

9. Third Pass: Understanding
Understanding and Reviewing
 Read methodology carefully
 Read relevant literature (cited refs and books)
 Read every sentence critically and the assumptions made
Mental Recreation of work
 If you were to repeat how would you have proceeded
 Verify mathematical proofs, where possible.
 Brings more clarity and insights
 Presents ideas for alternate approaches and extensions

10.  Are there any missed literature?
 Write down the overall purpose as you see it: Problem & Thesis
 Does the introduction establish this ?
 Body of the Work
 Is the paper focussed on this goal ?
 Are the reasons or assumptions, that justify the claim valid ?
Critically Reviewing an Article

11. Critically Reviewing an Article
 Body of the Work: Are there sufficient and reliable evidence to
support the reasons?
 Conclusion: Is it strong finish or simply a weak summary of the
paper?
 Check the grammar and spelling, and note down typos.
 Examine the citations (completeness, correctness, and formatting
style)
 Your final comment: Are you convinced by the reasoning & the
evidence?

12. Sources for Literature
Search Resources
• SCOPUS (for general search)
• ISI Web of Knowledge and Citebase (citation searches)
• Engineering Village Compendex and Inspec (general search)
• Google Scholar, Yahoo Mindset (for web search of scholarly
articles)
• Patents search (Google, Free-Patents, Scopus Patents Tab)
• Wikipedia, Google, may be used to get broad ideas but cannot
yet be considered authoritative search.
Review Journals Search
• Annual Review series
• Advances series
• Reviews of . . . series

13. Starting Points
• Keywords Search
• Problem description statement
• Article/Report given to you
• Advisor: Ask, Validate your list
• Citation Based
• Given a bibliographic information (Source title, year, volume,
page)
Sources for Literature

14. Keyword vs Citation Search
Keyword Based Citation Based
● Best when no relevant article is
known
● Wrong keywords =>
considerable delay
● Chances of missing an important
work could be high
● Experience for good starting
guess
● Each survey is freshly done
● Easy to manage initially
● Best when a relevant article is
known
● Related articles found instantly,
mostly relevant
● Ancestory chain of relations
shows important work
● Only one article required
● Builds upon the literature survey
done by others
● Can get messy to manage

15. Traditional Method
 Use a separate hardbound book.
 Serially number the articles as you get them
 Include bibliographic info
 Summarise your first pass read notes.
 Categorise (last section of the book)
 Put numbers (labels) under categories
 Use categories as starting point of writing report
Organising Literature

16. Taking Electronic Notes
During first and second pass:
1. Highlight important sentences in PDF (use Acrobat, PDF-
Xchange viewer or android and Apple apps on a tablet)
2. Take notes on a word processing software (Google Docs,
LibreOffice, Word)
3. Organise by Topic and Ascending year of publication
4. Copy & paste the downloaded filename, DOI
5. Copy & paste highlighted sentences, figures
6. All notes in one place. Helpful in analysing literature.

17. Taking Electronic Notes

18. http://satzsrinivasan.blogspot.in/2010/07/mrbrain-part-3-mind-mapping-technique.html
Mind Map: An Example