4 Questions to ask yourself when reading an academic article for enhanced learning as a PhD student

This mini-essay will list the questions one can ask themselves to:

• enhance their reading experience and
• assess whether it is of relevance to their interest area.

Reading academic articles is time-consuming. If you are in the exploratory stage of research, i.e. trying to assess if you have a research idea worth pursuing, you want to optimize the time spent searching for the relevant literature.

Unfortunately, as a junior researcher, one tends to spend a tremendous amount of time reading unnecessary articles.

Spending less time identifying relevant research articles is a craft that one can learn with some guidance and practice.

These four questions help refine the skim-reading process while optimizing the search process:

#1. What is this paper about?

Reading the title, abstract, and first 1–2 paragraphs will give an idea of the research area and the specific research question.

#2. What is the main theoretical insight/theory underpinning the paper?

For a theory paper, the key result is a theoretical insight — identify it. For a well-written empirical article, economic theory usually guides the analysis. Identify the theoretical insight or the theory underpinning the paper (depending on the kind of paper — theory or empirical) with a quick read.

#3. What are the paper’s main empirical findings?

If a paper has empirical analysis included, then this question becomes relevant. Identify what the main empirical results are. Connecting how the empirical analysis results interlace with economic theory helps gain clarity of thought.

#4. Do I care enough about the topic to continue reading the paper?

This question is the most critical one to answer before studying the paper carefully. If an article is relevant to your interests, you want to spend time learning/studying it. Otherwise, bid farewell to this study and move on to the next article.

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