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How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

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Re: How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

#21

Post by seanmcdirmid »

c0achmcguirk wrote: post #17

This part was most interesting to me: "Incidentally, when you write a paper, you can expect most reviewers (and readers) to make only one pass over it." I understand reviewers are busy, but we depend on peer review to filter out bad or poorly-researched material. I don't think one pass is enough. Obviously, so does the author.

Depending on the conference or journal, most papers can be rejected in one pass. Heck, the reviewer might abort after the intro if the paper is particularly bad.

The papers that make it past one pass get more scrutiny.

Re: How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

#22

Post by [deleted] »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #10
AndrewOMartin wrote: post #7

I was all ready to mock this by saying how most papers get only 1) Read the abstract, 2) Read the conclusion, 3) Look at the graphics, from me. Turns out that it's basically what the paper says, but then goes into more detail about going into more detail. Worth at least a second pass :)

It's how I got through over 10,000 papers on IT and INFOSEC. When they're well-written, I could look at the abstract, a select bit of details, related work, and conclusion. Would take me about a minute or so a paper once I got good at it. Sometimes less. Some papers were more complex or just not well written where it took significantly more time to evaluate them. All in all, though, the speed reading methods save a t…

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Re: How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

#24

Post by Cyph0n »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #20
Cyph0n wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It typically takes much longer to actually understand the contribution of a paper in engineering fields (EE, for example). Of course, it depends on how much background you have prior to reading the paper.

The background accumulates as you thoroughly read them. You can understand a lot without knowing all the specifics. The good papers will usually explain the challenges, approaches so far, their weaknesses, their solution, and future work that's essentially the solution's weaknesses. One can get pretty far with that. Even formal verification papers were easy to follow on general idea of their methods or results withou…

True, but reading the intro and background/prior work sections takes approx. 5-10 minutes. And depending on the length of the paper, these sections may be pretty succinct and therefore not very helpful to a reader unfamiliar with the state of the art.

I agree. You can usually understand the general contributions and how they work at a high level pretty easily. But intuitively and deeply understanding a paper takes much more time from my experience. Again, YMMV.

I also have almost zero experience with analog haha! I'm going to be taking an intermediate course on analog circuits next semester. I'm interested in jumping into the field of analog hardeare security, so it's a necessary first step.

Re: How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

#25

Post by DonbunEf7 »

rectang wrote: post #14

I'd like to present a fourth option, the "0-pass": Don't read most papers. Don't feel bad about not reading them, because in general they are terribly written. Instead, read follow-on work which resynthesizes the ideas in these papers for a popular audience.

You have chosen the path of the laity.

Re: How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

#26

Post by Kepler-239b »

rectang wrote: post #14

I'd like to present a fourth option, the "0-pass": Don't read most papers. Don't feel bad about not reading them, because in general they are terribly written. Instead, read follow-on work which resynthesizes the ideas in these papers for a popular audience.

Agreed. Most research papers are a headache to read, even in a field you are familiar with. The full list of reasons is here:

http://www.wikipaper.org/p/Why_So_Difficult

The site above ^^ has not launched yet, but should help alleviate the problem.

Re: How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

#29

Post by spookyuser »

Obviously a different set of circumstances, but I would be curious to hear what people think about Cal Newport's Question; Evidence; Conclusion - method of reading. From the grade A students guide. I recently switched to it and found myself understanding reading assignments much better. It seems like this method is more geared for Researchers though.

Re: How to Read a Paper (2016) [pdf]

#30

Post by tomsthumb »

AndrewOMartin wrote: post #7

I was all ready to mock this by saying how most papers get only 1) Read the abstract, 2) Read the conclusion, 3) Look at the graphics, from me. Turns out that it's basically what the paper says, but then goes into more detail about going into more detail. Worth at least a second pass :)

This is the first phase of syntopical reading discussed in "How to read a book", which is a great book about reading other (mostly nonfiction) books.
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