How to critically read a research paper?
Reading and analysing lots of papers requires skill and structure to find, comprehend and evaluate insights. Here’s how Enago Read can help you to critically read and stay focussed.
Start by selecting a paper from your project that you want to critically read.
Step 1 – Plan your investigation and formulate your questions
Use the customisable critique template to make a list of the things that you want to know and what questions to ask yourself as you read.
Step 2 – Create Key Insights and decide where to begin
Key Insights collates and organises the content of your research paper into sections, so you can get to the insights faster.
Step 3 – Systematically find, read and question the information
Key Insights is an insight collator, not a paper summariser. It uses advanced algorithms to organise the information into sections, ready for you to examine.
Read to comprehend, before analysing and questioning. If you come across new terminology or unfamiliar concepts, you can find wikis, short reads and lectures to help you better understand.
You can also read the paper in full or view the paper information to see the references, tables, figures or images contained within the paper.
Tags are a useful way of recalling papers that contain similar concepts, themes or information, if you are reviewing lots of literature. Adding tags as you come across insights will enable you to find papers based on what’s important to you and help connect the dots later.
Step 4 – Interpret and critique what you found
After reviewing each section, go back to your questions and complete your critique, to help you to recall and remember what you read.
Enago Read provides the tools to help you to critically read, remember the insights and connect the dots.
