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I'm a first-year statistics PhD student. I have a general problem that I'm trying to solve and as part of that I read a lot of papers on various ideas/approaches. I often find a very nice approach that I like the look of, so I try to understand it and read the paper thoroughly, and also implement it if I can.

However, in reading the paper, I will often then click on the sources and find another idea, which I find just as interesting. I then often end up with a long list of papers I think I need to read and find myself stuck on which approach I should pursue further. In an ideal world I would read as many papers as possible and then pick the 'best' approach for my problem, but my time is limited. As only a first-year, I'm worried that if I don't read enough of these papers, I will miss a key part of the problem and not be able to solve it using the best approach, because my understanding of my research field is still far from comprehensive.

How can I remain focus on my research problem? How do I know which papers I should actually read and which I should discard? I would appreciate some general framework or tips from those who have gone through this.

Sparsity
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    You mention a "research problem" that you would like to focus on. How specific is this problem? Do you have defined hypotheses already or are you in the process of finding them? – Snijderfrey Mar 29 '22 at 17:47

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I made it through the same thing as you. Now I am a third-year Ph.D., close to my defense. So the best tip I can give you is to look at which authors are mentioned the most in the introduction. While you are looking for papers online you use specific keywords. Stay close to "up2date" papers, which are not older than 2 years. Look who is the corresponding author, and who is cited the most. So if you read the 5-7 popular papers in your field you will get a good feeling for who is important and in front of the novel project in your field. Also, there are small tools for help to use, i.e. VOSviewer. This is a program you can use with a web of science and visualize the main authors and journals of the field you are interested in. After that, you should make a small PowerPoint presentation for yourself with the information on what is already done and where you see a chance to fill some missing papers in this field. While working on your presentation you will see, if you need more papers or not. I hope this helps you to begin! And then write a short abstract about what your project should be and talk with your supervisor about it. And try to start to work on it as soon as possible and don't read too much :)

Andrea
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    Two years? Your field is moving fast. – henning Mar 30 '22 at 11:08
  • @henning for sure you can look for older papers, but sounds like he has already a lot of papers. so don't stick to too much at the beginning. you can always rearrange the time – Andrea Mar 31 '22 at 12:45
  • @Andrea I'd go by how often survey studies are typically getting published, and start with those as well. Find the most recent and decent one and go through the newer studies after. Two years between major survey studies is a fast moving field. – Lodinn Apr 01 '22 at 03:01