How to Read a Research Paper

transcript

Seminar “How to Read a Research paper”

Date: October27,2015Venue: HS-O4

27-10-2015 1Email: ssoahmed@ssuet.edu.pk

How to Read a Paper

By syed sohail Ahmed Assistant Professor

2email:ssoahmed@ssuet.edu.pk

Agenda

Introduction Purpose of reading Research Paper Three -Pass Approach Resources for improving Reading

Research paper Book recommendation Conclusion

Introduction

Researchers spend a great deal of time reading research papers

Selecting an appropriate research paper is an art

this skill is rarely taught, leading to much wasted effort.

Purpose of reading Research Paper

Researchers read papers for several reasons:

Writing a research paper Presenting in a conference national or

international level For publication Update from current trend or to share in

class lecture

Three -Pass Approach

The first Pass The Second pass The Third Pass

The First Pass The first pass gives you a general idea

about the paper This pass should take about five to ten

minutes and 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

Continue

3. Read the conclusions 4. Glance over the references, mentally

ticking off the ones you’ve already read

Continue:

Now we learnt 5 C’SCategory: What type of paper is this?

A measurement paper? An analysis of an existing system? A

description of a research prototype?

Context

Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which theoretical bases were used to

analyze the problem?

Correctness:

Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid?

Contributions:

What are the paper’s main contributions?

The first pass is adequate for papers that aren’t in your research area, but may someday prove relevant.

Because “Reading is learning”

The second pass

In the second pass, read the paper with greater care

Look carefully at figures, diagrams & illustrations Pay special attention to graphs. Are the

axes properly labeled? Are results shown with error bars? conclusions are statistically significant

Remember to mark relevant unread references for further reading (this is a good way to learn more about the background of the paper).

The second pass should take up to an hour. After this pass

you should be able to grasp the content of the paper.

Cont: Sometimes you won’t understand a

paper even at the end of the second pass.

This may be because the subject matter is new to you, with unfamiliar terminology and acronyms.

the authors may use a proof or experimental technique that you don’t understand, so that the bulk of the paper is incomprehensible

The paper may be poorly written with unsubstantiated assertions and numerous forward references.

Or it could just be that it’s late at night and you’re tired.

You can now choose to: (a) set the paper aside, hoping you don’t

need to understand the material to be successful in your career,

(b) return to the paper later, perhaps after reading background material or

(c) persevere and go on to third Pass

Third Pass

This pass requires great attention to detail.

You should identify and challenge every assumption in every statement.

you should think about how you yourself would present a particular idea

To fully understand a paper, particularly if you are reviewer, requires a third pass. The key to the third pass is to attempt to virtually re-implement the paper:

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.

This pass requires great attention to detail. You should identify and challenge every assumption in every statement. Moreover, you should think about how you yourself would present a particular idea

This pass can take about four or five hours for beginners, and about an hour for an experienced reader. At the end of this pass, you 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

Timing between Passes

Andrew Simpson from Queen Mary University of London writes: “the process works best when there is quite a large amount of time between each stage of review. For example, I find that I often collect large numbers of papers, read them (10 minute rapid first review) and then come back to them sometimes weeks later for a second pass..”

Finally, some further weeks or months later I return to them and find that I can extract the final useful insight that I had not done previously

REFERENCES

[1] I.H. McLean, “Literature Review Matrix,” http://psychologyinc.blogspot.com/ [2] S. Peyton Jones, “Research Skills,” http://research.microsoft.com/enus/um/people/simonpj/papers/giving-a-talk/giving-atalk.htm. [3] T. Roscoe, “Writing Reviews for Systems Conferences,”

http://people.inf.ethz.ch/troscoe/pubs/reviewwriting.pdf. [4] H. Schulzrinne, “Writing Technical Articles,” http://www.cs.columbia.edu/ hgs/etc/wri∼tingstyle.html. [5] G.M. Whitesides, “Whitesides’ Group: Writing a Paper,” http://www.che.iitm.ac.in/misc/dd/writepaper.pdf.

Acknowledged

S. Keshav David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON, Canada keshav@uwaterloo.ca

Do you have a schedule?Organizing Your Day:

“Work smarter, not harder.”- Alan Lakein Set realistic goals, there are only 24

hours in a day. Use spare time to review. Study at the same time each day: make it

a habit Divide study time into 50-minute blocks. Don’t forget to reward yourself when you

do something right!

Conclusion:

Reading is learning: secure your future and Earnings

[ssahmed,2014]

email:ssoahmed@ssuet.edu.pk 29

Resources for Research papers

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10982140

http://www.1millionpapers.com http://www.personal-writer.com/blog/7-

most-popular-types-of-research-papers

Review Time and energy management can make you more

productive and reduce your stress level. The Three Steps

Set goals Make a schedule Revisit and revise your plan

Be tough with your time. Actively avoid procrastination and time wasters. Learn to say “no” to distractions.

Employ a variety of time management strategies to maximize your time.

Relax and enjoy the extra time that you’ve discovered!

How to Read a Research Paper

Education