There is no getting around the fact that studying for a postgraduate course is fulfilling,
gripping and scholarly. But being a postgraduate student, you have to prepare yourself
mentally and in physical capacity to deal with abundant academic papers.
Where academic papers help students in increasing subject knowledge and developing new
skills to master the art of a subject; they also challenge students with their low readability
score. As a result, students are often seen going through strenuous struggle and putting
enormous efforts to understand their academic papers.
In the light of recent research and latest surveys, we have concluded 5 ways to minimise
difficulties in reading academic papers.
1.Change Your Reading Approach
Being a student, you must have read a different kind of texts in your life. From the flowery
language of The Brontë Sisters to Hemingway’s concise and objective writing, every text
demands a different reading approach.
Similarly, to read and grasp an academic paper, you have to proceed with an intensive
reading approach. While following this approach, you will not read the academic paper as
one reads a blog post. If you skip a few sections and jump on the conclusion, just as you do
while reading a blog post, you will not comprehend your academic papers. From an abstract
to a conclusion, an academic paper consists of different sections and you have to read all of
them very carefully.
2.Multiple Reading Rounds
To be very honest, you will not understand your academic paper if you read it only once. We
suggest you read it multiple times before you annotate it and look for other things. Record
your observation after every reading session in a journal or a notebook. You can also draw a
flow chart of your observations to understand things even better.
3.Seek Help
Being a graduate or a postgraduate student doesn’t mean you can’t seek help to read the texts
more efficiently. From write my papers services to access to different reading material, every
sort of help is available for the students. All you have to do is look for help, ask questions
and always be curious while reading academic papers. Don’t feel embarrassed to talk about
your difficulties in understanding a paper with your professor and classmates. The more you
ask; the more you learn.
4.References Material
Academic papers are always full of references. It would be a blunder to ignore the references
if you really want to understand the text.
But it is noted that such papers are lengthy. It is difficult to follow a huge reference list,
especially when students have a deadline to meet. So you shouldn’t read all the papers and
books given in the reference list. Rather ask your professor to help you in selecting the most
important ones.
5.Annotate Your Academic Papers
As a student, feel free to annotate your academic papers and other reading material.
Whenever you find it difficult to grasp the meaning of the text, make your marginal
annotations. These annotations will help you every single time whenever you will read the
paper.
