A Masterpost On Being Productive

Published on #FITSO Motivation

http://goo.gl/Z3Y9ls

Nice sky always on the opposite side of your prime scene (by CoolbieRe)

8 Earth years are roughly equal to 13 Venus years, meaning the two planets approximately trace out this pattern with amazing symmetry as they orbit the Sun.

Model: https://www.instagram.com/dametualma

How to read a scientific paper

Step 1: begin at the beginning

read the title

get excited for cool science

note the authors 

get mad at them for having more papers than you

spend ten minutes wondering if you’d have been better off going to whatever institution they’re at

die a little inside

Step 2: the abstract and introduction

read the abstract

skip right to the introduction because you’re not completely sure what they’re talking about and maybe that will clear it up

alright now we’re talking

understand the entire first paragraph of the introduction

mostly get the second and third paragraphs

skip over the technical bit at the end because boring

Step 3: the results (aka the good stuff)

read the first paragraph

really not get what’s being said

skip right to figure 1

read the figure caption

call it good, you got the jist

repeat for the remaining figures

Step 4: give up

this paper really isn’t answering the question you had in the first place

you’ll just cite it later it’s fine

Step 5: keep doing science!

fail because of some unexpected and puzzling problem

spend 2-6 weeks troubleshooting and getting nowhere

decide to do another literature search to see if anyone else has had this issue

find the same paper you read before cited a bunch

Step 6: reread

actually like read it this time

get to the end 

find the answer to your question

die a little inside

wonder why you didn’t just read it fully to begin with and save yourself weeks of work

Step 7: follow citations to another paper that looks relevant

repeat entire cycle

wonder why science is so hard