Seminar “How to Read a Research paper”
Date: October27,2015Venue: HS-O4
27-10-2015 1Email: [email protected]
Agenda
Introduction Purpose of reading Research Paper Three -Pass Approach Resources for improving Reading
Research paper Book recommendation Conclusion
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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.
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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
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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
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Continue
3. Read the conclusions 4. Glance over the references, mentally
ticking off the ones you’ve already read
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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?
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Context
Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which theoretical bases were used to
analyze the problem?
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Cont:
The first pass is adequate for papers that aren’t in your research area, but may someday prove relevant.
Because “Reading is learning”
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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
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Cont:
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.
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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
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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.
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cont
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
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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
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Cont:
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.
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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
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cont:
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
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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..”
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Cont:
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
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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,”
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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.
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Acknowledged
S. Keshav David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON, Canada [email protected]
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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!
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Conclusion:
Reading is learning: secure your future and Earnings
[ssahmed,2014]
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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
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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!
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