4 ms·

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

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 :)

nickpsecurity 10y ago
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 ton of time.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- fizixer 10y ago
  I assume you're talking about a time frame of many years.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    At least six. Maybe more. Obsessively, too, as it was my grand challenge problem to solve all of it with a holistic solution. Got pretty close conceptually from a number of angles. End result was software or especially hardware options will need to be developed by specialists at significant cost. Now, I still collect the science while looking at marketing or development strategies a bit more.
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  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.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    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 without know the specialist stuff. Same with digital design. I only started getting slowed down, ineffective, or stomped when it was about analog or RF papers. It's why I keep saying one might not be able to cheat those. Not entirely, anyway: my abstract predictions of techniques like A2, the fab material mod, semi-automated synthesis with stochastic methods, or chaining gates together in tamper-resistance show my almost detail-less mental model is still better than nothing. I already had mitigations for two just guessing something might happen with that mental model. ;)
    - Cyph0n 10y ago
      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.
      - colmvp 10y ago
        I think you're correct in your intuition. I recall watching a recent talk by Andrew Ng who mentioned that reading research papers is a key method in improving as deep learning specialist / data scientist, but that one should temper their expectations of knowledge acquisition. One might spend a Sunday trying to go deep into a paper, but at the end of the weekend that person may barely get much out of it. He even admits that sometimes it takes him a couple reads over a course of several sessions to fully grasp a new concept. Which isn't all that surprising given the information asymmetry between the authors and the reader.
tomsthumb 10y ago
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.
- submeta 10y ago
  I was about to mention the same book and the same idea out of that book. It's written by Adler and van Doren.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

nickpsecurity 10y ago

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 ton of time.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
fizixer 10y ago
I assume you're talking about a time frame of many years.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  At least six. Maybe more. Obsessively, too, as it was my grand challenge problem to solve all of it with a holistic solution. Got pretty close conceptually from a number of angles. End result was software or especially hardware options will need to be developed by specialists at significant cost. Now, I still collect the science while looking at marketing or development strategies a bit more.
Cyph0n 10y ago
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.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  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 without know the specialist stuff. Same with digital design. I only started getting slowed down, ineffective, or stomped when it was about analog or RF papers. It's why I keep saying one might not be able to cheat those. Not entirely, anyway: my abstract predictions of techniques like A2, the fab material mod, semi-automated synthesis with stochastic methods, or chaining gates together in tamper-resistance show my almost detail-less mental model is still better than nothing. I already had mitigations for two just guessing something might happen with that mental model. ;)
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    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.
    - colmvp 10y ago
      I think you're correct in your intuition. I recall watching a recent talk by Andrew Ng who mentioned that reading research papers is a key method in improving as deep learning specialist / data scientist, but that one should temper their expectations of knowledge acquisition. One might spend a Sunday trying to go deep into a paper, but at the end of the weekend that person may barely get much out of it. He even admits that sometimes it takes him a couple reads over a course of several sessions to fully grasp a new concept. Which isn't all that surprising given the information asymmetry between the authors and the reader.

tomsthumb 10y ago

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.

submeta 10y ago
I was about to mention the same book and the same idea out of that book. It's written by Adler and van Doren.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]