[영어기록] How to Read a Paper

 

blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/paper-reading.pdf

 

[Summary]

The Three-pass Approach for reading research papers

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.

 

The First Pass

1. Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction

2. Read the section and sub-section headings, but ignore everything else

3. Glance at the mathematical content (if any) to determine the underlying theoretical foundations

4. Read the conclusions

5. Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the ones you’ve already read

Result: At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer the five Cs: category, context, correctness, contributions, clarity

 

The second Pass (1 hour)

1. Look carefully at the figures, diagrams and other illustrations in the paper. Pay special attention to graphs. 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.

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

Result: After this pass, you 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.

 

The Third Pass (2+ hours)

1. The key to the third pass is to attempt to virtually re-implement the paper: that is, making the same assumptions as the authors, re-create the work.

Result: 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. In particular, you should be able to pinpoint implicit assumptions, missing citations to relevant work, and potential issues with experimental or analytical techniques.

 

Related Work

1. If you are reading a paper to do a review, you should also read Timothy Roscoe’s paper on “Writing reviews for systems conferences”.

2. If you’re planning to write a technical paper, you should refer both to Henning Schulzrinne’s comprehensive web site and George Whitesides’s excellent overview of the process.

3. Simon Peyton Jones has a website that covers the entire spectrum of research skills. Iain H. McLean of Psychology, Inc. has put together a downloadable ‘review matrix’ that simplifies paper reviewing using the three-pass approach for papers in experimental psychology, which can probably be used, with minor modifications, for papers in other areas.

 

 

[Words & Phrases]

- tick off: to mark something with a written tick = check (✓)

• Tick the box next to your choice.

• Tick off your choice below.

• Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the ones you've already read.

- adequate: enough for some need or requirement (충분한)

- gist: the general or basic meaning of something said or written (요점)

- shoddy: poorly done or made

• shoddy work/workmanship/furniture/goods

• They gave a shoddy performance

- acronym: a word formed from the first letters of each one of the words in a phrase

- unsubstantiated: unproven = unsupported, unconfirmed, unverified 

• substantiate: to prove the truth of something

- persevere: to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult (인내하다)

- iterate: to repeat a process, especially as part of a computer program

- perceptive: having or showing an ability to understand or notice something easily or quickly (통찰력있는)

• a perceptive comment/analysis/observation

• He is a very perceptive young man.

• He is socially perceptive. (눈치 빠른)

- correspondent: someone who writes letters or e-mails to another person (보낸 사람)

• recipient (받는 사람)

 

 

[Engagement Point]

- a bird's-eye-view (조감도)

- read the paper in

• read in vs. read

- Paper reading skills are put to the test in doing a literature survey.

- Please take a moment to email me any comments or suggestions for improvement. Thanks to encouraging feedback from many correspondents over the years.