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How to Read a Paper ​

用《How to Read a Paper》的方式阅读《How to Read a Paper》。

First Glance ​

  • Category: What type of paper is this? A measurement paper? An analysis of an existing system? A description of a research prototype?

    This essay discusses how to read a thesis. The authors describe an efficient three-pass approach for understanding a paper, as well as some advanced advice to investigate relevant literature resources for further research.

  • Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem?

    Some publications and websites about writing and reviewing are cited in the references section.

  • Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid?

    The assumptions are that researchers spend a lot of time reading research papers and that they must do so for a variety of reasons. I believe the assumptions are sound.

  • Contributions: What are the paper’s main contributions?

    The paper's main contributions are the reading strategies it provides.

  • Clarity: Is the paper well written?

    Yes! It's helpful for an undergraduate student.

Detailed Review ​

  1. What are the three-pass reading approach?

    1. First, take a quick scan to get a bird's-eye view of the paper. Pay close attention to the title, abstract, introduction, section headings, and conclusions. Ignore the rest.

    2. Second, spend roughly an hour reading the paper with greater care, but ignore details such as proofs. It helps to jot down the key points or to make comments in the margins as you read.

    3. Third, for about four or five hours for beginners and one hour for experts, attempt to virtuallly re-implement the paper: making the same assumptions as the authors, re-create the work.

  2. What are the goals of the three-pass approach?

    1. The first pass's goal is to comprehend the subject this article covers and determine whether we should do further reading.

    2. After the second pass, we ought be able to grasp the content of the paper and summarize the main thrust of the paper, with supporting evidence, for someone else.

    3. The goal of the final pass is to fully understand the paper. Not only must we identify the paper's innovations, but also its hidden failings and assumptions.

  3. Why could we encounter a failure to understand a thesis at the second pass and how to recover?

    Several possible reasons:

    1. the subject matter is new to us;
    2. the authors may use a proof or experimental technique that we don’t understand;
    3. the paper may be poorly written with unsubstantiated assertions and numerous forward references;
    4. it is late at night, and we are stressed out.

    To overcome:

    We can now choose to: (a) set the paper aside, hoping you don’t need to understand the material to be successful in your career, (b) return to the paper later, perhaps after reading background material or (c) persevere and go on to the third pass.

  4. What are the three-pass approach to do a literature survey?

    1. First, use an academic search engine to find out three to five recent papers in the area. Do one pass on each paper to get a sense of the work, then read their related work sections.

    2. Second, find shared citations and repeated author names in the bibliography.

    3. Third, go to the website for these top conferences and look through their recent proceedings.

Re-implement ​

Maybe this is weird, but I just remembered this:

Seems all of the refered websites are broken...