Share your story

Here you can read a stories from current PhD candidates sharing their research experience and what they learned along the way.

“Reading can be hard sometimes…so, do it smart” – Aynur

You may spend hours trying to read, yet get lost in detail, and can’t stay focused on your readings and get enough out of them. This may make you feel doubtful of your abilities, frustrated, and even angry; and the effects of falling behind and feeling like a failure can be distressing. You may even start to mentally torture yourself with “why is reading so hard?” “I will never be able to understand what I read” “I will never be able to keep up with my reading”, and these intrusive thoughts have the power to keep you stuck…Does this sound familiar to you?

I am sure some of you are thinking “Yes, sometimes I have a hard time reading research papers” while reading my story. Many doctoral students are struggling readers who experience difficulties comprehending academic texts. Struggling with your reading does not mean you are not smart or talented. You just need to read smart! Reading is a complex skill and an important part of the research process but reading at a PhD level is different from reading at lower university degree levels.

How much do you read during your PhD? Maybe a lot. When you start your research journey, you may realise that you do not only need to deal with the amount of reading but also with the amount of time, mental energy (brain power), and focus that reading takes. Reading large numbers of academic papers is one of the reasons why for many of us writing a thesis is hard. I know some people are judgemental and believe that PhD students should have the necessary knowledge and skills to deal with academic reading; they only find faults instead of understanding that we sometimes struggle to read, process, and understand large amounts of abstract information.

Writing this short story has allowed me to reflect, and I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned during my PhD. The first thing I’d like to say is that you might need to read the same article multiple times, but always keep in mind  to set a purpose for the reading. Before beginning to read, it is important to establish a purpose and know why you are reading and what you want to get out of what you are reading. By doing this, you will be able to adopt a specific style of reading best suited for your purpose and thus read more effectively.

You need the big picture when you are reading. I found it helpful to first quickly view the text to get a very general impression of the author's main point. Then, the next time you read the same article you can focus on specific sections. I checked articles in the early stages of my PhD when drafting my research proposal, and then I checked some of them again when working on my literature review, writing my results chapter, etc. Reading strategically helped me decide what was relevant and then use those chosen readings in my research.

How to make sense of the text? Well, I would say, “take smart notes”. Reading a lot of information and organising your notes is not an easy job. Also, sometimes it may be easy to take notes but not that easy to use your notes. Avoid taking notes that you won’t be able to use! Trust me, it does not feel good when you realize you spent some of your precious time reading and then taking and organizing notes that are not helpful when it comes to using them -- then you have to go back to the source and read it again. Your notes must be useful; you take them to make writing easier!

To be able to use your notes, organize them effectively, and know where and how to find them. I do not think there is one single way to take notes – try out different strategies and find the one that works for you. Something that worked for me was to keep it simple, make sure the writing is readable, and only include key information. “Copying and pasting” did not work for me! I summarised key points – to save time, I’d suggest taking notes in the form of a bulleted list of statements. I also found it helpful to include references according to APA so that I did not need to check the source again later when working on my Reference List.

I’m sure some of you use tools such as NVivo to organise your notes, but whatever tool you use, one important suggestion is to organise your notes purposefully. When I started my PhD journey, I thought I could take notes the way I did during my MA. I bought beautiful index cards and colourful Sticky Notes. Later, I realized that this was not going to work for me due to the big amount of reading materials I needed to deal with. I imagined myself struggling under the weight of many Sticky Notes not knowing what to prioritise and how to use them. So, I decided to use Microsoft Word instead.

I organised my notes thematically in separate Word documents. Also, wrote down thought-provoking questions (TPQ) as I read and saved them in a different file. When reading those TPQs, I noticed how much my critical reading and thinking skills have improved. Some of my early TPQs were so “naive”, while the later ones were more well-thought and feasible. You can also use these questions for future research.

I found my supervisor’s advice very useful. After you finish reading each article, take a break and think deeply about what you just read. Asking yourself questions such as “Why do these people research this?”, “What is the author trying to say?”, “What is the purpose of these researchers studying this particular topic in this specific way?” is helpful to foster critical engagement with readings – ask “simple” but not “simplistic” questions.

The Student Learning team offers a wide range of resources you might find useful; find out how they may be able to help you!

Aynur Ismayilli Karakoc

School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, VUW