Scan

During the last two trips, I surprisingly finished reading all journal articles at hand before I returned to Hong Kong. You may also be surprised if you have a look at my reading list (see http://vwswong.blogspot.com/2010/01/thursday.html). I usually keep around two dozens of articles in my cell phone and read them with Adobe during my free time. I have considered using iPad instead but realized that my reading time was unpredictable and I didn’t want to carry a bigger device all day long.

On close scrutiny, I found that the number of articles in my cell phone had been decreasing gradually. The reasons were actually pretty obvious.

First, my interest has become narrower and narrower.

Second, technological advance has facilitated my screening process. In the past, I scanned article titles and downloaded the ones of potential interest. Now, scanning is often performed in the matter of a few seconds. When the cursor goes near the title of an article, the abstract is shown on the same page. Some journals just provide a few lines summarizing the main results of the study instead. In essence, I can quickly grasp the main messages and decide not to read further if the topic is not related to my practice.

Neither sounds right.