Research Notes

How to find, read, record, write up and share research, with the tools that make each step easier. Writing: LaTex. Citations: BibTeX.

The research workflow

flowchart LR
    Q[1. Question] --> F[2. Find papers]
    F --> R[3. Read]
    R --> N[4. Take notes]
    N --> W[5. Write]
    W --> C[6. Cite]
    C --> S[7. Share]
    N -. new questions .-> Q

1. Ask a sharp question

• Write the question in one sentence, then the claim you expect to defend.
• Note what would change your mind. It tells you what evidence to look for.
• Decide the scope: one system, one dataset, one comparison.

2. Find papers

Tips: start from a good survey; follow references backwards (what it builds on) and citations forwards (who built on it); note the venue and year so you can judge quality.

3. Read efficiently: the three passes

1. Pass one (5 to 10 min): title, abstract, introduction, headings, conclusion. Decide whether it is worth more time.
2. Pass two (about 1 hour): read the figures, tables and main argument. Skip the proofs. Mark references to follow.
3. Pass three (hours): reconstruct the work in your head: challenge every assumption, find the weak spots.

Questions to answer for every paper: What problem? What is new? How was it tested? What are the limits? Would I trust it?

4. Take useful notes

One note per paper, plus a table that compares them.

# Author, Year: Short title
**Link / DOI:**  **Venue:**
**Problem:** one sentence
**Method:** how it works, in my words
**Results:** numbers that matter (dataset, metric, baseline)
**Limits:** what it does not show
**Ideas for me:** what to try or cite it for
**Rating:** 1 to 5  **Status:** to read / read / cited

Literature matrix (the table that makes the writing easy)

• Link paper notes and concept notes with wikilinks (double square brackets); the links become your map of the field.
• Keep a research log: date, what you tried, what happened, what next. Future you will need it.
• Put quotes in quote marks with the page number, so you never plagiarise by accident.

5. Manage references

Save the PDF and metadata at the moment you find a paper. Use stable citation keys (smith2023graphs). Details in BibTeX.

6. Write

• Outline first: problem, gap, contribution, method, evidence, limits.
• State your contribution in the introduction, plainly.
• One idea per paragraph; figures and tables should be understandable with their captions alone.
• Draft in LaTex (Overleaf for teams, local for control).
• Write for a reader who is smart but busy: define terms, avoid padding.

7. Share and make it reproducible

• Preprint on arXiv or an institutional repository so others can read it free.
• Code and data in a public repository; fix versions of dependencies (requirements.txt, lock files) and record random seeds.
• Archive a release on Zenodo to get a DOI; link it from the paper. (Zenodo can archive GitHub releases automatically.)
• Add a CITATION.cff file so GitHub shows a "Cite this repository" box. See Versioning and Releases.
• Get an ORCID to identify yourself across papers.
• Choose licences deliberately: code (Open Source licences), text and data (Creative Commons).

Common mistakes

• Reading without recording: you will re-read it again in six months.
• Collecting PDFs and never writing notes.
• Citing a paper you only read the abstract of.
• Trusting a result with no baseline, no error bars or no code.
• Leaving the literature search to the end.
• Forgetting to back up the .bib file and notes.

Notes in this section

• LaTex: typesetting papers, reports and slides.
• BibTeX: references and citations.