How do you keep track of scientific literature in your field?

[vassalloef]

Hello everyone,

I am an undergraduate student doing research in theoretical physics. Next fall will be my senior year, so, in anticipation of going to grad school, I am trying to take advantage of the opportunity I have to do research this summer to form some of the habits that make a good researcher.

One of the things that I have struggled with is keeping up with the literature in my field. It always seems like my professors can quote me at least ten papers off the top of their head in relation to any niche question that exists, whereas I am barely aware of the few papers that I'm trying to understand at the moment.

Now, since I'm new in this field (I was doing AMO research until last semester) I recognize that I couldn't possibly know as much as a professor who has been working in this area for decades. However, I still want to start preparing for when I actually have to spend several years doing research on one subject in grad school. So, here's my question: how do you keep up to date with the advances/publications/literature in your field? I am especially interested in learning about what kinds of habits you have formed over the years and how you execute them.

Thank you!

 

[jedishrfu]

There's a software tool called Obsidian that can help you create a kind of wiki collection of notes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian_(software)

https://obsidian.md/

The unique features of Obsidian are:
- all notes are in markdown (easily edited text-based file format)
- equations can be entered into your notes using latex notation (rendered by mathjax)
- images can be inserted into your notes
- program source code can be inserted with major language syntax highlighting supported
- its highly customizable with themes, and plugins.
- notes can be linked by either common tags or by referencing the note

They also have a methodology that some Obsidian users use called Zettelkasten method:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten

https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/

Obsidian supports Zettelkasten method.

Obsidian also has a graph mode so you can view how your notes are linked. Many grad students have posted video tutorials on youtube on how they use Obsidian. The software is free but their business model is in sharing notes across devices which some users subscribe to.

I use it on my ipad and mac-mini sharing the Obsidian vault (where the files are stored) on icloud and it works well with an internet connection but is a bit sluggish when using phone tethering.

I

 

[ohwilleke]

I read arXiv preprints in the fields that I'm interested in every day that they are posted and blog about the most notable ones.

 

[Choppy]

Most of keeping up to date in your field simply comes down to reading a lot.

I have alerts set up on Google Scholar that send out summaries of recently published articles based on my keywords of interest. The alerts are not perfect, but they catch a lot of interesting stuff.

 

[jedishrfu]

Its also good to take notes whenever you learn something like the prof mentioning an article in passing.

Many successful students immerse themselves in the literature trying to get up to speed. The key issue will be how much you can retain when reading a paper. For a field expert, they can scan the paper and novel items will just pop out. For a student there will always be new terminology or math that you have to go back and research to get to the essence of the article.

Take notes and get good at remembering things and taking notes afterwards.

 

[Astronuc]

So, here's my question: how do you keep up to date with the advances/publications/literature in your field? I am especially interested in learning about what kinds of habits you have formed over the years and how you execute them.

I am usually addressing a particular problem, a piece of physics, so I usually find a key paper or papers, and save them in a topical folder. Some folders could be very narrow, e.g., vanadium alloys, others can be more broad, e.g., stainless steels and nickel alloys, and still others are broader, e.g., Condensed Matter Physics, or Nuclear Fuel Performance.

Think of how one would organize hard/paper copies of journal articles in a filing cabinet, and do the same digitally. Some broad topic folders might have various topical folders, and so on.

Similarly, I have an extensive library including textbooks I used as a student, some of which contain relevant information even after 50 years, since many nuclear plants still operating was designed 50/60+ years ago.

I found an obscure book, Radiation Catalysis (1962), which contained some significant information that seems to have dropped from the literature shortly after publication. A particular term was reintroduced around 2007, almost 45 years later, without attribution to the original work. I worked with an experimentalist who had done some experiments back in the late 60s and early 1970s, and discussion then and subsequently never addressed 'radiation catalysis' or the theory involving the influence of the radiation field on solid/liquid/gas interfaces. Some corrosion problems, which became a concern in the 1980s and 1990s could have been anticipated (and avoided) if the right experimental/theoretical work had been performed early on in the 1970s. I'm curious how the body of 'experts' overlooked the work from the 1960s over a period of 40+ years.

 

[vassalloef]

Hello everyone, I wanted to say thank you for the wonderful advice you have all given me. This is a great community.

@jedishrfu I will certainly be trying out Obsidian, it sounds like something that I could find very useful. I have been using Zotero, but I've found that it has its limitations! I have also been implementing your advice of taking notes on papers, even if I don't necessarily want to go through them in great detail.

Thanks to @ohwilleke and @Choppy for your suggestions as well, lately I've been checking out arXiv and Google Scholar basically daily to keep myself up to date. I also took you up on that suggestion to enable notifications for certain authors on Google Scholar—I didn't know that was a thing, but it's very useful!

And great thanks to @Astronuc as well, I have been storing papers I read in a folder for a bit, but I'm starting to feel that a better system like the one you mentioned is necessary because they're too many now, so I look forward to implementing your suggestion! And wow, that's an interesting story—it's certainly interesting how people can use stuff in their papers without having a clue where it might've come from. I guess that sometimes people will just cite whatever paper's at hand without thinking about it too much!

Thank you again to everyone for your kind replies!