Survival guide to reading and writing

critically at Part II

George Cronin (they/them)

Library Manager (Biological Sciences) & PDN Librarian

Session overview
• Identifying your needs when reading
• Skimming, scanning and scrutinising
• Critically evaluating what you read
• Writing up your literature review
• Opportunities to ask questions throughout
• Q&As at the end too!
Why are you reading it?

Reading
productively
Reading for
lectures
• Broadening your understanding
• Synthesising through essays and exams
• Look for any signposting in reading lists
• Listen for verbal cues in lectures
• Use these clues to guide the prioritisation
of your reading
Reading for
literature reviews
and projects
Skim, scan,
scrutinise
Skimming
• Read the abstract first
• Look at the aims
• Don’t read the whole literature review!
• What kind of paper is this?
• Skip to the conclusion
• Look at the methods (if needed)
• Try summarising: “A identified a gap of B
and used the method of C to determine if
D. A concludes that E”
Scanning
• Look for specific phrases
• Glance over the page
• Use search function for online resources
• Useful for longer items like book chapters
• Summarise what you read
• Note down anything that would be useful
 Reading critically

• Presentation: does it look right?

• Relevance: is it about the right topic?
• Objectivity: is the author pushing an agenda?
• Method: is the methodology good?
• Provenance: where did this even come from?
• Timeliness: is it up-to-date?
General Principles
of Scientific Writing
• Be clear
• Be succinct
• Be precise
• Be logical
Writing up the
literature review
• Set the scene
• Offer solutions and limitations
• Introduce what you intend to do (if
applicable)
• Use one paragraph for each general
idea
• Ensure your writing flows between
sentences in a logical order
• Combine paragraphs to lead towards
intended conclusion
Selecting items for
inclusion
• Resources should be good quality
• Recent is ideal, unless seminal work
• If there is conflict, be balanced in presenting
your view
• Consider including papers for methods and
others for findings
• Favour primary papers over review articles
• But use review articles if they’re really good!
• Look at articles that cite what you’re reading
to look forward
• Reference everything you include in your
literature review
Get Zotero to do
the
heavy lifting
Summing up
• Decide why you are reading and use
that to guide your work
• Scan, skim and scrutinise to get what
you need
• Use PROMPT to guide your in-depth
critical analysis
• Follow the principles of scientific writing
when doing your review
• Be disciplined in your resource selection
• Don’t forget to reference
• Use tools like Zotero to help you get
things done
Want more detail?
• Come to one of our longer sessions
• Similar material but more activities
• Test out some of what we’ve
discussed with support
• Work with others to build your skills
• More info on the Biological
Sciences Libraries website!
 Help and support
Contact me: pdn@lib.cam.ac.uk

Biological Sciences Libraries website:

bio.lib.cam.ac.uk