The trick is usually to look at the references section of a paper. If there's an old paper in there (say, >10 years old), then it's probably seminal. If you s

The trick is usually to look at the references section of a paper. If there's an old paper in there (say, >10 years old), then it's probably seminal. If you see the same paper in a lot of reference sections, then it's probably seminal. So: to know what's seminal so you can skip reading a bunch of papers, you need to read a bunch of papers. Right.