You know a lot about research reading now.
I’m being serious.
Forget trying to get that Master of Research in Medicine, you don’t need it.
What you’ve learned so far are the essential parts of building up a research career.
I’m being serious.
Your ability to understand the insights from fellow researchers paves the path for your future discoveries.
After all, even though we are a long way from being toddlers, we still have to learn how to stand firmly on the shoulders of giants.
But the last part of research reading is to create.
What? Create?
I thought we were reading papers to consume content, not to create content.
But if you’re going to make this thing work then you need to understand that creation is just a part of the research reading equation.
This brings us back to the System of Research reading:
- Why are you reading?
- Where are you reading?
- What are you reading?
You should have this engraved in your memory already.
Let’s go back to the first part — your “Why” — and you’ll see why being a creator is the natural course of progression for a mere reader.
Looking for the latest evidence so that you can apply it to a clinical dilemma you’ve recently encountered in a patient with a particular disease under a specific risk-benefit balance?
Collating the field’s existing knowledge bank so that you can answer the final question at your subspecialty’s fellowship exit examination?
Writing up a systematic review for a PICO question to fulfill the dissertation requirement for your subspecialty board?
Surveying how other centers have used their disease registries to publish posters at medical conferences so that you can do the same?
One does not have to look hard to find the seamless transition between consuming and creating content when it comes down to research reading:
- Creating the optimal, evidence-based treatment plan for a patient with a specific set of circumstances
- Creating a knowledge base to tackle examination questions
- Creating a dissertation
- Creating a poster presentation or journal article
All of the above creations are built based on our consumption as we read research articles throughout our careers.
Consumption and creation are a continuum on the same spectrum.
If you have kept your “Why” of reading in mind then everything else we talk about as we move forward will make sense.
If you don’t want to think of research reading as a continuous flow between consumption and creation or think that you don’t need the System of Research Reading to follow then you don’t want to read any further.
I’m being honest.
This guide ain’t for you.
When I say “creation” I don’t mean running a dozen randomized controlled trials or publishing in the Lancet.
And we’re not talking about working in an academic setting where we are tortured by the ever-looming pressure to attain a certain quota of research output to preserve our lecturership.
I’m talking about daily, small creations as an integral element within the process of reading, learning, and growing as clinicians.
And so you need to channel the “What” you read toward an output that in turn fulfills your “Why”.
This is where research reading has changed and most people don’t want to accept that change.
Research reading is an active process whereby the reader extracts useful information purposefully to inform a future creation.
With that cleared up, we can begin to talk about the last step in our System of Research Reading — “What are you reading?”
Create as you consume.
This study is trying to discern whether endovascular therapy, including clot removal and stent insertion, is beneficial for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke involving a large territory.
This is what I am reading.
Done.
What else is there to this step?
A lot more.
“What” you are reading refers to much more than the words you see on the screen.
More crucially it is your interpretation of the words you are reading.
How does the text relate to what you already know? Or to another article that you’ve recently read?
How does the text confirm or contradict your understanding of the subject?
How does the text inform the treatment plan / poster / journal article that you are currently working on?
You see how far we can go from here.
That’s why we need a plan.
A note-taking plan.
This is where the double-entry notes come into play.
What are double-entry notes?
It is a written dialogue between the reader and the text.
First, the text displays an interesting point.
And the reader responds by asking questions, making connections, and noting memories and associations.
The idea and execution of a double-entry note are straightforward.
Grab a piece of paper and split the page down in half.
In the left column, write out the quotes / ideas / claims / data points from the text that confused you, surprised you, challenged you, made you think of other ideas, and tickled your questions.
Jot down the page numbers and subsection headings next to the text so that you can find them in the source article easily.
In the right column, write out your responses to the extracted text.
Put on your critical hat and question the findings, even if you agree.
Put on your optimist hat and find its virtues, even if you disagree.
Write down your emotions and feelings, new solutions and ideas, summaries and decisions made.
Once you’ve written down your own interpretation of the text in your own words, “What” you understand about the information is solidified into black and white on paper.
This isn’t a hard concept to grasp but it’s a hard concept to stick with.
Why?
It’s very easy to get lost in the trap of chasing the number of articles read.
Speed is all the craze in this information age where tweets, live streams, YouTube shorts overwhelm our attention.
Is it even worth the time spent on double-entry notes?
Would I just be wasting my time?
What we’re doing here with double-entry notes is to spread out the creative process across our daily reading.
The vision is to avoid the pain of building a systematic review on the subject from the ground up 1 week before the deadline.
After spending the effort in documenting our thoughts on every paper we read, our job is simply to consolidate these thoughts into the format of a systematic review 1 week before the deadline.
The output format can be anything, from a treatment plan to a poster to an original research article.
Because, remember, all of the heavy-lifting thinking has already been done while reading the individual papers months or even years ago.
Our content consumption has transformed into content creation in one sitting while we were reading the scientific paper.
That is the beauty of this System.
I really do hope that I have done a good job in portraying its beauty in your eyes too.
So go ahead, and give the double-entry notes a go.
Its beauty is better experienced than hearing me ramble on.
Click the link to get a copy of the double-entry note template to get started.
I just need an email address to send the template to.
With that, we just have one more housekeeping item to discuss.
The bibliography.
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