When I was first deeply diving into literature as a PhD student, I was focused on the titles and dates of publication. I searched and searched and read and read and searched the papers that that article cited, and read.
It was only much later that I learned a complimentary framework: follow the work of a PERSON.
Often, a given niche area of science has only a few people that are actively working. And if you pay attention to author names, you will find the same names popping up a few times. This is because scholars generally work in a given niche, and tackle new works that logically follow from previous works – pursuing trajectories of knowledge.
Paying attention to the people, and their trajectory of work, has benefits:
- It adds a human dimension, reminding us that science is done by humans.
- It lays a foundation for meeting the person (such as at a conference) or even collaborating with the person.
- It helps to orient to the passing of time, and how knowledge unfolds over time.
- It creates more of a story of knowledge, helping to put things into context.
- It informs us about the progress of science, helping us become more familiar with the train of idea-funding-execution-publication-repeat.
So, how to do this?
Start by noticing authors. Remember that first and last authors are typically those most responsible for the work. Notice authors that are appearing repeatedly in your literature searches. Even if you read one paper that is impactful to you, look into that person more. Find a professional website about them (e.g. faculty webpage) to understand their basic research interests. Scroll abstracts of their other publications. When you attend conferences, look for whether they are presenting, and attend. Circle around, where if you find a person whose work inspires you at a conference, look up their publications. To find out their future work, search databases of grant funding, such as NIH reporter. Or start with a search of a funding database in your area of interest, find a person, and look up their publications.
To put a person’s work into a trajectory across time, remember that:
Grants databases point to future work
Conference presentations are current
Publications represent past work