Why do people read textbooks to learn a field?

[Anonymous No.10232055]

Reading papers from journals written by leaders in a scientific field will give you orders of magnitude more understanding of whatever you're studying. Reading/working through textbooks really doesn't teach you much other than how to solve homework problems.

[Anonymous No.10232067]

>>10232055
They're good for understanding the basics. If I started reading papers (that vary in assumed knowledge by they way) I wouldn't have a fucking clue.

[Anonymous No.10232091]

during undergrad learn from textbooks, in gradschool read papers and if you stumble upon things you don't understand, find it in a textboook or an earlier paper. fully going through textbooks now just feels like a waste of time now when I used to really enjoy it

[Anonymous No.10232129]

>>10232091
>fully going through textbooks now just feels like a waste of time now when I used to really enjoy it
Yeah this is exactly how I feel. I opened Griffiths EM up the other day and I was kinda sad about how boring the material seemed compared to when I was learning it.

[Anonymous No.10232146]

>>10232055
>Reading papers from journals written by leaders in a scientific field will give you orders of magnitude more understanding of whatever you're studying. Reading/working through textbooks really doesn't teach you much other than how to solve homework problems.
Reading dissertations will but papers in general are often too terse to teach you very much. Especially with more esoteric research most papers will just assume you've read the relevant textbooks and gloss over everything that's inessential.

[Anonymous No.10232200]

>>10232055
>Reading papers from journals written by leaders in a scientific field will give you orders of magnitude more understanding of whatever you're studying
wrong and stupid

[Anonymous No.10232210]

>>10232200
>t. college freshman

[Anonymous No.10232215]

Textbooks are for learning fundamentals. You are not going to learn the fundamentals of (lets say mathematics from research papers unless you have a > 170 IQ and can create connections in your brain out of nothing.

[Anonymous No.10232221]

Textbooks are for learning fundamentals. You are not going to learn the fundamentals of (lets say Calculus) or the fundamentals of (lets say C++ programming) from research papers unless you have a > 170 IQ and can create connections in your brain out of nothing. Research papers are for researchers.

[Anonymous No.10232460]

As everyone else already said; the basics and fundamentals. As someone who knows absolutely nothing about biology beyond a freshman college course, there'd be no point in me reading a paper on micro organisms living in 100C temperature underwater environments if I can't even figure out the difference between a eukaryote and a prokaryote.

[Anonymous No.10232497]

>>10232055
idk, i've read psychology papers on my own since i was 15 or something. i think it comes down to interest, and how much you an stomach it. what's required is some level of maturity in the field you are reading stuff in. you should be able to look at a bunch of unfamiliar symbols and jargon and not get deterred from it

idk about math. could be possible

[Anonymous No.10233456]

>>10232497
That's just because psychology is a fucking joke, bucko.

[Anonymous No.10233457]

>>10232055
why does morty's mouth looks like a penis

[Anonymous No.10233458]

>>10232200

>that picture

I haven't laughed so good in a while

[Anonymous No.10233468]

>>10232055
A paper won't provide the background you need to understand it.
You need a certain level of background knowledge to have a chance at a reasonable understanding.

[Anonymous No.10233800]

>>10232497
>psychology
>not science
psychology papers are accessible to middle schoolers

[Anonymous No.10234429]

>>10233468
This. In my last year of high school they tried to modernize the scientific outlook by replacing the experiment-based science project with more current research based projects. I tried to do mine on quantum computing. It was needlessly difficult because I couldn't go more than a few sentences without having to spend another hour looking up every new concept. Even then, the papers that seemed relevant were poorly written and seemed incoherent even within themselves. It was interesting, but I'm sure it will have the opposite effect of making science seem like a good idea. Nobody wants to spend their life reading and memorizing.

[Anonymous No.10234447]

>>10232146
This, dissertations are written so that any fag with an IQ of 100+ can understand them. They not only provide good overviews and background, but also elaborate way more than journal/conference papers that have to squeeze 20+ pages worth of work into around 10 pages

[Anonymous No.10234462]

>>10234429
the worst part of that shit is that after you read the paper, you realize the whole thing boils down to 1 or 2 key insights that can be summarized in a paragraph

[Anonymous No.10234588]

>>10234462
no the worst part is reading a paper and realizing halfway in, it's shit and you wasted your time.

[Anonymous No.10234982]

because knowledge is like an anus
cant put big things into yourself without stretching it with small ones

[Anonymous No.10235017]

>>10232055
I think this post is a joke, because of course a paper will say, in its proof: since p<d, and d<q... with no proof of those and then ten other things that are stated with no reference because everyone in that field knows it from foundations which are in the textbook. So you can go to wikipedia a hundred times to look up each individual thing ...ah "the data processing inequality is a theorem in information theory"... which means you stumble backwards and forwards and later think you're doing ok but are actually missing fundamental trivial pieces that didn't happen to come up, or you can just spend a few hours with a text at the appropriate level "PDEs for engineers", "graduate blahblah" and get familiar, drilling down where desired. If it's not a joke: fuck you little pretentious worm, you're in for some crashing realisations

[Anonymous No.10235029]

>>10234982
What would be the lube if one was to follow through with the metaphor?

[Anonymous No.10235056]

>>10235017
I learn more about modern technology in a single paper than I could learn from a dozen textbooks.

> fuck you little pretentious worm, you're in for some crashing realisations
I'm more educated and more intelligent than you.

[Anonymous No.10235066]

>>10235029
good sleep, discipline and clerkly mentors

[Anonymous No.10235072]

>>10235056
You're an undegrad, buddy.

[Anonymous No.10235082]

>>10235056
What you're really telling me is that you're a brainlet who can't learn anything.

[Anonymous No.10235098]

>>10235072
Wrong. You're the only one in this conversation who's highest completed degree is a high school diploma

[Anonymous No.10235105]

>>10234429
>quantum computing
>high school
Wow gee I wonder why you had trouble. Not really a field for brainlets and children.

[Anonymous No.10235216]

>>10235056
This is actually true if you read every citation recursively.

[Anonymous No.10235251]

>>10235216
Finally, another big brain

[Anonymous No.10235253]

>>10233456
>>10233800
you are not wrong. still it would be a fun thing to try with math. theres tons of research papers out there dating back centuries