How to read a paper

How to Read a Paper
S. Keshav
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON, Canada

keshav@uwaterloo.ca

ABSTRACT
Researchers spend a great deal of time reading research papers. However, this skill is rarely taught, leading to much wasted effort. This article outlines a practical and efficient three-pass method for reading research papers. I also describehow to use this method to do a literature survey. Categories and Subject Descriptors: A.1 [Introductory and Survey] General Terms: Documentation. Keywords: Paper, Reading, Hints.

4. Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the ones you’ve already read At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer the five Cs: 1. Category: What type of paper is this? A measurement paper? Ananalysis of an existing system? A description of a research prototype? 2. Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem? 3. Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid? 4. Contributions: What are the paper’s main contributions? 5. Clarity: Is the paper well written? Using this information, you may choose not to read further. This couldbe because the paper doesn’t interest you, or you don’t know enough about the area to understand the paper, or that the authors make invalid assumptions. The first pass is adequate for papers that aren’t in your research area, but may someday prove relevant. Incidentally, when you write a paper, you can expect most reviewers (and readers) to make only one pass over it. Take care to choose coherentsection and sub-section titles and to write concise and comprehensive abstracts. If a reviewer cannot understand the gist after one pass, the paper will likely be rejected; if a reader cannot understand the highlights of the paper after five minutes, the paper will likely never be read.

1.

INTRODUCTION

Researchers must read papers for several reasons: to review them for a conference or aclass, to keep current in their field, or for a literature survey of a new field. A typical researcher will likely spend hundreds of hours every year reading papers. Learning to efficiently read a paper is a critical but rarely taught skill. Beginning graduate students, therefore, must learn on their own using trial and error. Students waste much effort in the process and are frequently driven tofrustration. For many years I have used a simple approach to efficiently read papers. This paper describes the ‘three-pass’ approach and its use in doing a literature survey.

2.

THE THREE-PASS APPROACH

The key idea is that you should read the paper in up to three passes, instead of starting at the beginning and plowing your way to the end. Each pass accomplishes specific goals and builds upon theprevious pass: The f irst pass gives you a general idea about the paper. The second pass lets you grasp the paper’s content, but not its details. The third pass helps you understand the paper in depth.

2.2 The second pass
In the second pass, read 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.1. Look carefully at the figures, diagrams and other illustrations in the paper. Pay special attention to graphs. Are the axes properly labeled? Are results shown with error bars, so that conclusions are statistically significant? Common mistakes like these will separate rushed, shoddy work from the truly excellent. 2. Remember to mark relevant unread references for further reading (this is a goodway to learn more about the background of the paper).

2.1 The first pass
The first pass is a quick scan to get a bird’s-eye view of the paper. You can also decide whether you need to do any more passes. This pass should take about five to ten minutes and consists of the following steps: 1. Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction 2. Read the section and sub-section headings, but...