对付完收件箱、Google Reader,谁是一下个?

ResearchBlogging.org

我是Web 2.0时代进入研究生学习阶段的。我需要各路信息聚集到我的本地,而不是我主动去跑路去找信息。看文献是研究生学习给我生活增加的众多必要事务之一,我很自然希望文献信息自动送过来。在那时,许多期刊都提供邮件提醒功能,我订了一堆高分子期刊的邮件提醒。几乎每周的inbox都有一堆TOC需要消灭掉。对付inbox成了一个新奇的心理负担。

不久,越来越多的期刊支持RSS Feed了,Google Reader慢慢占去了我原本花在Gmail上的一半时间。同时,随着我的知识面和兴趣面越来越广,我关注的期刊也越来越五花八门。每天GReader上的条目动辄几百,极力提高脑筋转速,减少眨眼频率,提高大拇指敲空格的速度,争取在最短的时间内把几百个论文题目过掉!

时间久了,是有提高的。不知不觉我眼睛只扫一次,就只会看到几个术语,近乎下意识地判断感不感兴趣,条件反射地决定按v还是按空格。有两种情况值得我多花几秒钟时间重看一个条目。一是看到熟悉的keyword了,二是虽然keyword不熟悉,但突然警醒这个词最近出现频率狂高,说明是研究热点,需要了解一下。有的期刊的RSS feed附了Graphical Abstract,这种情况下我可能连标题都不看,只看图。尽管扫视速度已经到了极限,但还是经常无法看完所有的条目,只能忍痛点一下mark all as read……

不光是扫Google Reader必须一目千行,看一个PDF文件也非常考验鼠标滚轮。很多文章的abstract只说做了啥,不说啥结果,往往需要你“刷刷”马上滚到Conclusion部分。有的文章Conclusion只是报实验数据,看了白看,有的文章是Communication没有Conclusion,于是又要“刷刷”翻到Introduction的末尾后看往前找“In the present/this paper/study, we…”的类似字眼。这样的遭遇多了,就深感差劲的撰文基本功有多么令人生恶。令人头痛的还有古老的论文,那时候的论文没有现在这么结构化,有时还必须看。另一种快速了解文章工作的就是把文章的所有图看一遍,看了图就知道同时知道你做了什么实验,有什么结果。所有结果了解了之后往往不用看我也知道能有什么结论了。总之,被逼从Introduction的第一个字读起是最令人泄气的情况,需要极力避免。我追求的是以最快的速度斃掉尽可能多的PDF。

看了Science的这篇Review我才知道,以上描述种种种行为特征有一个很好听的名词——战略式阅读(Strategic Reading)。这篇文章还有两个绝妙的比喻。一是把快速看文献的行为比喻成打CS:

Now, as scientists search and browse, they are making queries and selecting information in much tighter iterations and with many different kinds of objectives in mind, almost as if they were playing a fast-paced video game. They sweep through resources, changing search strings, chaining references backward and citations forward, dodging integrator and publisher sites to find open-access copies, continually working to reduce the number of clicks required for access.

其实还真是,眼睛笨一点,鼠标烂一点还真的不行,少点鼠标,争取爆头秒杀,还真跟打CS差不多了!

第二个比喻还解释了为什么我现在回家看电视不是看是折腾——基本上是在持恒速换台:

Nicolas et al. describe a “slightly irritated” father watching his young daughter flick from channel to channel while watching television

[the] father asks … why she cannot make up her mind and she answers that she is not attempting to make up her mind but is watching all the channels. … gathering information horizontally, not vertically

And they conclude

Now we see what the migration from traditional to electronic sources has meant in information seeking terms. We are all bouncers and flickers, and the success of Google is a testament to that, with its marvelous ability to enhance and amplify this flicking and bouncing (like a really good remote)…. In the past, information seeking was seen to be the first step to creating knowledge. Now … it is a continuous process

原来我也习惯了gathering information horizontally,所以连看电视也是以空间而不是时间为横坐标看的——中毒已深啊。

我看电视的时候别人基本上没办法一起看。

Renear, A., & Palmer, C. (2009). Strategic Reading, Ontologies, and the Future of Scientific Publishing Science, 325 (5942), 828-832 DOI: 10.1126/science.1157784

4 thoughts on “对付完收件箱、Google Reader,谁是一下个?

  1. 阿平

    呵呵,我倒也是GG组合,用的还行。一目十行我看也不行,不是人干的活,看到1000+的,我基本只是进去一下shift A一下了事。
    料想google reader过不多久就会有智能筛选功能

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