I think the above approach is good, First define what you are looking for,information, methodology,approach.... so on.Start skimming the sources for some good reviews on that topic. The article search usually depends on what can of material we are searching for. If there is good review article present , read that , that will make you privy of some of good original articles worth reading. Acquire the article that are groundbreaking or the ones who first introduced the idea.These are the ones that will provide the best argument favoring their method. I usually start with Abstact, methods and statistical calculation involved , once convinced one can read the result and how they come to any conclusion.Do the same for the next set of modification of the original theme, and soon you will be privy of the history and thought process behind whatever you are looking for..

Susan - yes, to read a full article and make notes etc does take that long. There are other questions to ask yourself as to whether that is a good use of your time. For instance, is it a literature review/critique for research, is it for an academic assignment, is it for a thesis etc? The degree and the amount of detailed reading will vary between formats. Therefore, there is no 'average time'. I would personally argue that a good critical literature search strategy is to initially 'skim and scan' article abstracts. From this, you should be able to decide which is the important 'corpus' of studies that you need to study in more detail. Even then, some articles may only need a 'skim and scan' as well to exclude them. When you have your mosts 'seminal' articles at hand, through your prioritisation process', then these are the ones that you spend a long time or more time on.

I think the above approach is good, First define what you are looking for,information, methodology,approach.... so on.Start skimming the sources for some good reviews on that topic. The article search usually depends on what can of material we are searching for. If there is good review article present , read that , that will make you privy of some of good original articles worth reading. Acquire the article that are groundbreaking or the ones who first introduced the idea.These are the ones that will provide the best argument favoring their method. I usually start with Abstact, methods and statistical calculation involved , once convinced one can read the result and how they come to any conclusion.Do the same for the next set of modification of the original theme, and soon you will be privy of the history and thought process behind whatever you are looking for..

Thank you very much Dean and Alka. I will definitely give that a go, and hopefully 'practice makes perfect' so to speak. It's also very helpful you confirmed that 1-2hrs is not an outrageous time to be spending on an article. I honestly wasn't sure on everyone else's experiences. I've heard other students say "oh, I read 12 articles today!" , and that certainly made me question myself! Thanks again!

No problem Susan. Those students that say that they have read many articles in a day have probably conducted the 'skim and scan' method that i referred to earlier.