For the graduate research class I am taking right now, we have been reading From Topic to Thesis by Michael Kibbe.1 Although I consider myself pretty good at doing academic research already, this book elucidated several useful distinctions and nuances in the process for me. One such distinction is between how you read sources when researching for a project and researching for fun: directed versus ambiently.
My default mode is more ambient. I have particular interests, and I find books and articles and other sources and read them because I am interested in them. They may be related to some project, but even if they are there is no hard definition or time limit. This is good for exploring and gaining a general understanding. It might put you on to research paths you had not considered before, or change the direction of current projects you have. Often I will read entire books and entire articles once, maybe twice through. The point for me is to understand the source on its own terms.
By contrast, directed research is aimed specifically at a particular project, probably with a deadline. In this situation, you do not have the time to read every source fully, so you must economize. This is because for this kind of research, you are not reading the sources for their own sake, but for the sake of your paper/article/what-have-you.2 Instead of reading entire books, read chapters; before mapping out the argument of a 50-page journal article, read the abstract and skim the main points to see where it is relevant and where it is not.
This presents its own issues. It’s easy to find what you are looking for, anywhere, even if it is not there. So, you do have to make sure you understand what the author is really saying. Paraphrasing is helpful for this. You also can’t ignore sources that detract from your pet theory. The point of directed research is not confirmation bias, though that is a constant plague, but rather to focus your efforts on what parts of the sources are relevant to your project. You have a deadline after all. To that end, it is useful to ask questions of the text constantly. How is this relevant to my question or hypothesis? What can I take away from this? Is this really important or merely interesting?
As someone whose chief academic vice is giving too much attention too soon (and rabbit-trailing), this is something I will put into practice.
