3_PhD_Read_Papers.md

Read Research Papers

• Reading is the process of getting ideas from the author, you must focus on the author's thoughts, not just read the words on the paper.
• In order to get the most from your reading, you should be properly prepared.
• Find a quiet place to work where you will not be disturbed or distracted have a pencil and notepad at hand, and bear in mind exactly what you expect to get from this paper.

The below is an advice to a teacher for their student. We are the student here, so kind of understand what we should know:

• Don't just teach your students to read.

  • Teach them to question what they read, what they study.
  • Teach them to doubt.
  • Teach them to think.
  • Teach them to make mistakes and learn from them.
  • Teach them how to understand something.
  • Teach them how to teach others.
  • Teach them to summarise what they have learnt.
  • Let them find applications in "the real world" (esp. everyday items) themselves.

  As a student (we), should question, doubt, think, make mistakes, understand, teach others, summarize and find real world examples. Keeping this in mind while reading.

Three pass approach

Read the paper in up to three passes, instead of starting at the beginning and plowing your way to the end.

• The first 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.

First Pass

The first pass is a quick scan to get a bird's-eye view of the paper.

Steps - First Pass

It consists of the following steps:

1. Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction.
2. Read the section and sub-section headings, but ignore everything else.
3. Read the conclusions.
4. Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the ones you've already read.

Output - First Pass

At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer the five Cs:

• Category
  • What type of paper is this?
    • A measurement paper?
    • An analysis of an existing system?
    • A description of a research prototype?
• Context
  • Which other papers is it related to?
  • Which theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem?
• Correctness
  • Do the assumptions appear to be valid?
• Contributions
  • What are the paper's main contributions?
• Clarity
  • Is the paper well written?

Time Required - First Pass

Should take about five to ten minutes.

The second pass

In the second pass, read the paper with greater care, but ignore details such as proofs.

Steps - Second Pass

• Look carefully at the figures, diagrams, graphs and other illustrations in the paper. Read the captions.

  • 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.

• Read the definitions and theorems.

• Skim the bibliography.

  • How extensive is it?
  • Are the authors aware of current work?
  • Does it reference classic papers in this field?
  • Have you read any of the papers that are referred to?
  • Do you know relevant research that isn't cited?
  • Remember to mark relevant unread references for further reading (this is a good way to learn more about the background of the paper).

• Consider the credibility of the article

  • Who wrote it? Are they well-known?
  • Where do they work? What biases might they have as a result of their employer?
  • Where was the article published? What is the reputation of the journal? Was the journal refereed?
  • When was it written? Might it be outdated or superceded?

Output - Second Pass

Should be able to grasp the content of the paper. You should be able to summarize the main thrust of the paper, with supporting evidence, to someone else.

Time Required - Second Pass

Should take up to an hour.

Third Pass

• To fully understand a paper, particularly if you are reviewer, requires a third pass.
• This pass requires great attention to detail.
• When you read a paper in detail, approach it with scientific skepticism. You can do this by trying to tear the arguments apart.
• By challenging what you read,
  • you will understand better what the author is saying and why they say it.
  • You will also be able to decide whether the evidence supports their conclusions, and to draw your own conclusions from their data.
  • Once you understand the paper, ask yourself how you can apply their approach to your own work.

Steps - Third Pass

The key to the third pass is to

• During this pass, you should also jot down ideas for future work.

• Examine the assumptions

  • Do their results rely on any assumptions about trends or environments?
  • Are these assumptions reasonable?

• Examine the methods

  • Did they measure what they claim?
  • Can they explain what they observed?
  • Did they have adequate controls?
  • Were tests carried out in a standard way?

• Examine the statistics

  • Were appropriate statistical tests applied properly?
  • Did they do proper error analysis?
  • Are the results statistically significant?

• Examine the conclusions

  • Do the conclusions follow logically from the observations
  • What other explanations are there for the observed effects?
  • What other conclusions or correlations are there in the data that they did not point out?

• Identify and challenge every assumption in every statement.

  • Moreover, you should think about how you yourself would present a particular idea.
  • This comparison of the actual with the virtual lends a sharp insight into the proof and presentation techniques in the paper and you can very likely add this to your repertoire of tools.

• Attempt to virtually re-implement the paper: that is, making the same assumptions as the authors, re-create the work.

  • By comparing this re-creation with the actual paper, you can easily identify not only a paper's innovations, but also its hidden failings and assumptions.

Output - Third Pass

• Should be able to reconstruct the entire structure of the paper from memory, as well as be able to identify its strong and weak points.
• Should be able to pinpoint implicit assumptions, missing citations to relevant work, and potential issues with experimental or analytical techniques.

Time Required - Third Pass

Should take four or five hours for beginners and about an hour for an experienced reader.

Critical Reading

Read papers by asking critical questions of them, such as:

• Is there a contribution? Is it significant?
• Is the contribution of interest?
• Are the results correct?
• Is the appropriate literature discussed?
• Does the methodology actually answer the initial question?
• Are the proposals and results critically analyzed?
• Are appropriate conclusions drawn from the results, or are there other possible interpretations?
• Are all the technical details correct? Are they sensible?
• Could the results be verified?
• Are there any serious ambiguities or inconsistencies?

The above questions also provide a hint on how a research paper should be written and should contain.