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My trick is to find the paper you want to read, but immediately skip to the references; recurse until you get to a paper that you more or less understand. It’s
by tombert 2y ago
My trick is to find the paper you want to read, but immediately skip to the references; recurse until you get to a paper that you more or less understand.
It’s a bit time consuming but it makes paper reading a lot more fun.
- JustinSkycak 2y agoReminds me of my colleague's recent post on his experience getting up to speed on his dissertation topic while doing a PhD in mathematics: https://x.com/ninja_maths/status/1820583797491925386 https://x.com/ninja_maths/status/1820583797491925386 I'll quote a snippet below: “My biggest mistake when starting my doctoral research was taking a top-down approach. I focused my efforts on a handful of research papers on the frontier of my chosen field, even writing code to solve problems in these papers from day one. However, I soon realized I lacked many foundational prerequisites, making the first year exceptionally tough. What I should have done was spend 3-6 months dissecting the hell out of all the key research papers and books written on the subject, starting from the very basics (from my knowledge frontier) and working my way up (the bottom-up approach).”
- findthewords 2y agoFinding a path starting backwards... also known as dynamic programming.
- cultofmetatron 2y agoI would legit PAY for an app that managed dependencies for understanding a paper so that I could see the path I need to take to understand what I'm reading. Could apply to books too.
- dataf3l 2y agosome time ago I was thinking about this issue, maybe the concept of "parametric books" will become popular in the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXktVbeWAeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXktVbeWAeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpb2rXtBos4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpb2rXtBos4 perhaps, with the advent of AI, one will be able to convert a current book into a more detailed book, and also a current book into a smaller book, so maybe this idea is even easier to implement than 4 years or so ago, before chatgpt (but after summarizers, which prompted the idea in my head). I would humbly appreciate any feedback on the concept of parametric books, for now, it's just an idea, but it's a free one, anyone is free to implement it. thanks in advance, for your comments on it.
- sn9 2y agoI mean if you're regularly trying to read papers in a particular field, just follow the curricula for undergraduate degrees in that field.