Skip to content
Protolyst
  • Blog
  • Docs
  • Pricing
  • Login
  • GET STARTED

Quick Tips

  • Dark Mode
  • Splitscreen
  • Workspace Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Checklists
  • Renaming your Workspace
  • Download and Export
  • Equations
  • Searching your Workspace

Protolyst Portals

  • Portals
  • Portal Set Up
  • Adding Content to Portals

Protolyst for Research

  • How to Read a Research Paper
  • How to Build an Academic Reading System
  • Collecting and Organising Information from Research Papers
  • How to Write a Literature Review on Protolyst
  • Organising your Research Notes Efficiently on Protolyst
  • Academic Reading on Protolyst – Quick Start Guide

Protolyst for Organisation

  • Organising your To Dos on Protolyst
  • How to Manage Hiring & Recruitment on Protolyst
  • How to Write a Well Evidenced Essay, Fast
  • How to Write a Blog Post on Protolyst Using Your Atomic Knowledge Base

Protolyst for Notetaking

  • Technical Notetaking – Easily Add & Use Equations in your Notes
  • Note Taking on Protolyst
  • Cornell Notes for Notetaking on Protolyst
  • Simple First Zettelkasten on Protolyst
  • How to Research and Write an Article Fast on Protolyst

2. Connecting your Workspace

  • Viewing and Organising Atoms in Tables
  • Using Templates in Tables
  • How To Use Linked Tables
  • Create Pages From Atoms
  • Atom Inheritance in your Workspace
  • Moving your Files and using Folders on Protolyst
  • Using Tags on Protolyst
  • Connecting Atoms across your Workspace
  • Writing with your Atoms
  • How to Use Sub-Pages
  • How to Use Linked Pages

1. New to Protolyst

  • Simple Work Flow: Capturing and Using Atoms
  • 🚩Start Here
  • Download and Export
  • Capturing Atoms
  • Workspace Layout
  • Adding Information into your Workspace
  • Organising Pages in your Workspace
  • Create a Table
  • Table Views
  • Adding Citations & References to your Writing
  • Home
  • Docs
  • Protolyst for Research
  • How to Build an Academic Reading System
View Categories

How to Build an Academic Reading System

4 min read

Protolyst is designed to support you in collecting key details, important information and interesting concepts from your academic sources. These details are most useful where they can be applied in your work, rather than organising them alongside the source where you found them. The video and steps below describe how you can set up an academic reading system in a Protolyst workspace.

For tips and techniques on building a system to organise your Academic Reading, head to our blog post.

1 Set up your Academic Reading System #

Add a Reading List Table to your Workspace and add your Sources into the Table.

Protolyst workspace for Academic Reading, showing the New Page interface to choose a Page Type
Use the blue plus button at the top of the left hand sidebar to add a New Page into your workspace. Select Table from the available Page Types and update your Table with a Title.

You can drag and drop your files into the Table to upload them into the Table, as well as import web pages from URL links.

A Protolyst Table with some Academic papers uploaded and saved as rows in the Table.
Literature Table containing papers that were uploaded to Protolyst.

2 Organise your Reading List #

Add Properties to your Table to help categorise and organise your papers, such as Journal, Authors and Year. Once more properties are added you can organise all your Papers using Table Filters and Sorts.

Protolyst table with properties added to help with organising papers for academic reading
Table in Protolyst with Properties added to get an overview of each paper based on Senior Author, Year, Publication Type, Journal and where the Paper is within your Reading Workflow

You can also add a Property to organise by stage in a reading workflow such as To Read, Read, To Review, Recommendation.

3 Set your Reading Goals #

Decide what particular information you want to collect as you read through a paper. This could be Method, Key Result or particular topics relevant to your project e.g. neurotransmitters, acoustics or microscopy.

Add each of these as Tags into a Tags Table. You’ll use these to connect your knowledge later.

A Protolyst Table for Tags. Each Tag should correspond to a Topic or Theme around which you want to collect information.
Tags Table – add each of the Topics / Themes that you want to collect information about from your papers

You can add further Tags at any point

4 Read and Create Atomic Notes #

As you read through your papers and sources, highlight just like you would in any other tool, hit Capture Atom and this will save the highlighted text as an Atom in your workspace. You’ll be able to access and use this Atom outside of the Source

Screenshot of an academic paper, with some text highlighted.  As you highlight text in Protolyst you'll be presented with a Capture Atom button.  Use this to create an Atomic Note.

All the Atoms you capture from a Source can be viewed in that Page under the Properties Menu

Screenshot showing an academic paper open in Protolyst, with the Page Properties bar expanded to display the list of Atoms that have been captured from this paper.
Opening the Properties Menu (arrow button in the top right of the Page), can get you a list of the Atoms Captured in your current Page

As your Paper is within a Table, you can also use an Atoms Property to view the highlights you saved in the Table view

Protolyst Table showing a Table set up to show the highlights and Atoms captured from each of the papers during academic reading
If your Page is located in a Table, any of the Atoms captured in that Page will be visible in the Table by using an Atoms Property

5 Label your Atoms #

Add Tags to your Atoms from the list you prepared earlier to build your connected Knowledge-base. Add them when you Capture an Atom or come back to add them later. As you add Tags your knowledge will start to pool around different Topics, and you’ll be able to organise it all to get rich information overviews.

Capturing and Tagging Atoms in Protolsyt.  An academic paper is open, some text has been highlighted and Captured as an Atom.  The Atom box gives you further options to connect and edit your Atom.  Tags can be added in the box above the Atom.  Here the list of Tags is displaying.
After capturing an Atom the Atom box appears, and in the box above you can add your Tags. Click to browse through the Pages (and Tags you added earlier) and add your Labels to your Atom. Add as many Tags as you see fit.

Once a Tag is added, your Atom will display as an Atom of all the Pages it has been tagged to.

Visit Tag Pages to see a collated list of all the knowledge connected to that Topic. Atoms from all your sources that share a particular Tag will be accessible. Over time you’ll build up a knowledge-bank around that Topic.

You can also use Tags to filter Atoms in your Tables to get an overview of your knowledge base and find key information quickly:

Literature Table on Protolyst for academic reading.  This has been set up using Atoms properties and adding a Filter to display all the Atoms which have been tagged to Methods.
Adding further Atoms Properties and adding a Filter to only display Atoms that have been Tagged to a particular Page can give you overviews. Here all the Atoms captured in a Page can be seen and then a Filtered Atom Property by the Methods Page displays Atoms Tagged to Methods.
What are your Feelings
Share This Article :
  • Facebook
  • X
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
Still stuck? How can we help?

How can we help?

Updated on July 31, 2023

Powered by BetterDocs

Table of Contents
  • 1 Set up your Academic Reading System
  • 2 Organise your Reading List
  • 3 Set your Reading Goals
  • 4 Read and Create Atomic Notes
  • 5 Label your Atoms
About

You're wasting 1 day a week refinding the golden nuggets of info buried in your files and folders. Protolyst is a networked note taking web app where you can collect and categorise each individual highlight to find and use your most valuable info fast.

Site
  • Docs
  • Blog
  • Pricing
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy

Use For

  • Writing Referenced Articles Fast
  • Writing a Literature Review
  • Taking Notes on Research Papers
  • Building a Literature Database
  • Zettelkasten Notetaking System
  • Connecting Cornell Notes
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT