In 2012, US scientists and social scientists estimated that they read, on average, 22 scholarly articles per month (or 264 per year). That is, statistically, not different from what they reported in an identical survey last conducted in 2005. It is the first time since the reading-habit questionnaire began in 1977 that manuscript consumption has not increased.And further on:
Aside from the levelling out of article readings, the latest survey of 800 scholars, which is due to appear in the journal Learned Publishing, also finds that the time taken per article seems to have bottomed out at just over half an hour.Anecdotally, I'd have to say this study hits the trend bang-on. 22 articles per month at half an hour each is actually a pretty low commitment, if you consider how articles are being read by many people.
I doubt many of the people 'reading' over 22 articles actually have the time to fully absorb every little bit of information within - Most people don't really have that luxury of time (or perhaps terrific reading comprehension. Some of the other thoughts mentioned at Nature capture this very well:
When articles were only available in print, it was implicitly assumed by communication analysts that researchers always read manuscripts in their entirety, as if a ‘scholarly article’ was an object to be consumed as a whole. That may never have been true, he says: most of the time, scholars were likely scanning for particular snippets of information.Below are a few approaches and reasons why someone would want to read a scientific article. This list isn't exhaustive by any means:
- To understand a new idea. This is the real learning, and learning takes effort. This is also where you really have to study the article in depth to avoid missing details that don't seem relevant at first glance. If you're out of your usual area of expertise, you need to understand the context of why the final product is scientifically important, what the assumptions or facts in the report are, how and why the experiments are done (at a technical level). You might also have to re-read the article a second time to really 'get it'. Time alloted: Up to several hours.
- To stay up to date in your field. Here, you're really just skimming the results and references while still reading the paper. You don't have to study technical aspects of the report because you're familiar with them. Were the experiments actually risky enough to show something daring? Is the result worth citing in the future, or does the paper refer you to other new papers? Time alloted: About 30 minutes.
- To replicate or adapt some published experiment. You're only interested in one figure in the paper that shows the data you'd like, or think you'd like, to show in your work. The end result of the paper doesn't matter to you, but the methods, software, and reagents actually used matter to you. Just look up the information you need and file the paper away for a rainy day. Time alloted: 10 minutes.
