3 ms·

An aside: How do you read research papers and how long does it take you to read one paper? Are you able to recall a large portion of the paper's content?

kriro 9y ago
I use a customized version of this: http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/paper-reading.pdf http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/p... The most important thing for me is to not read it from the beginning to the end (which is hard for me). Abstract->Conclusions, scan headlines. Methods is the most curious section for me. Depending on the paper and what I am working on I read the methods section last or first (even before the abstract). If it's more of a "oh that seems neat" paper I skip the methods section and mostly extract the idea. The book "How to read a book" is also a good source of ideas. I don't think there's a one size fits all approach. I also find the various papers on writing literature reviews very helpful (for gathering an overview of a topic). Just checked my Zotero and these are the ones I have tagged: "Using grounded theory as a method for rigorously reviewing literature" "On being ‘systematic’in literature reviews in IS" "A hermeneutic approach for conducting literature reviews and literature searches" "Systematic literature reviews in software engineering–a systematic literature review" "Writing narrative literature reviews." Feel free to go as meta as you want ;)
sgt101 9y ago
read the abstract, read the conclusion, try to work out what the authors are trying to say.. hunt for the pay off in the paper, see if I can understand that, look for the results and check to see if I can understand that what they claim to show supports the pay off then start reading it. The actual reading can take up to six weeks for a big journal paper. True.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Skim, index, find context (e.g. Citations to the work if old enough). Some papers take a few years to really understand, which is why mental indexing is important: when you run into a problem solved by the paper, the paper becomes useful and understandable at the same time.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    Agree about the years to understand - the important thing is to read it enough so that when you come across something you remember the approach and can option your investment in it.
JustFinishedBSG 9y ago
> how long does it take you to read one paper? It really depends. A deep learning paper just presenting a new architecture can be read in a few hours, meanwhile for some heavy papers on the mathematical side can take days, weeks to fully digest. In the end it doesn't matter, you can be as slow as you want :)
amelius 9y ago
> how long does it take you to read one paper? It depends on to what extent the paper is self-contained.
- benrbray 9y ago
  By applying Lemma 4.9 of Lee 2014 to Corollary 6.2.11 of Simpson 1954, but substituting Tao 1977's simplified integral expression in the denominator, the result is obvious.
steev 9y ago
Proof-heavy papers can take days or weeks to understand. It takes multiple reads, working through the math on scrap paper, and frequently discussing proofs with colleagues. My process is generally to read through the paper a couple of times and then start tackling the proofs (if there are any). In general, I find it best to start with a very high level understanding and slowly descend into a greater detailed understanding.

kriro 9y ago

I use a customized version of this: http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/paper-reading.pdf http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/p... The most important thing for me is to not read it from the beginning to the end (which is hard for me). Abstract->Conclusions, scan headlines. Methods is the most curious section for me. Depending on the paper and what I am working on I read the methods section last or first (even before the abstract). If it's more of a "oh that seems neat" paper I skip the methods section and mostly extract the idea. The book "How to read a book" is also a good source of ideas. I don't think there's a one size fits all approach. I also find the various papers on writing literature reviews very helpful (for gathering an overview of a topic). Just checked my Zotero and these are the ones I have tagged: "Using grounded theory as a method for rigorously reviewing literature" "On being ‘systematic’in literature reviews in IS" "A hermeneutic approach for conducting literature reviews and literature searches" "Systematic literature reviews in software engineering–a systematic literature review" "Writing narrative literature reviews." Feel free to go as meta as you want ;)

sgt101 9y ago

read the abstract, read the conclusion, try to work out what the authors are trying to say.. hunt for the pay off in the paper, see if I can understand that, look for the results and check to see if I can understand that what they claim to show supports the pay off then start reading it. The actual reading can take up to six weeks for a big journal paper. True.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Skim, index, find context (e.g. Citations to the work if old enough). Some papers take a few years to really understand, which is why mental indexing is important: when you run into a problem solved by the paper, the paper becomes useful and understandable at the same time.
- sgt101 9y ago
  Agree about the years to understand - the important thing is to read it enough so that when you come across something you remember the approach and can option your investment in it.

JustFinishedBSG 9y ago

> how long does it take you to read one paper? It really depends. A deep learning paper just presenting a new architecture can be read in a few hours, meanwhile for some heavy papers on the mathematical side can take days, weeks to fully digest. In the end it doesn't matter, you can be as slow as you want :)

amelius 9y ago

> how long does it take you to read one paper? It depends on to what extent the paper is self-contained.

benrbray 9y ago
By applying Lemma 4.9 of Lee 2014 to Corollary 6.2.11 of Simpson 1954, but substituting Tao 1977's simplified integral expression in the denominator, the result is obvious.

steev 9y ago

Proof-heavy papers can take days or weeks to understand. It takes multiple reads, working through the math on scrap paper, and frequently discussing proofs with colleagues. My process is generally to read through the paper a couple of times and then start tackling the proofs (if there are any). In general, I find it best to start with a very high level understanding and slowly descend into a greater detailed understanding.