How to Read a Paper

Three Pass Approach

1. First pass Scan the paper, get a bird's eye view. Should take 5-10 minutes. Pay attention to the following:

• Title, Abstact, Intro
• Section headings
• Conclusion
• References

At the end of the first pass you should know:

• Category: type of paper
• Context: related papers, what was used to analyze the problem
• Correctness: are the assumptions valid?
• Clarity: how well written is the paper?

2. Second pass Should take upto an hour. Ignore details (like proofs). Pay attention to -

• Graphs, figures, diagrams, results
• Mark unread references for further reading

After the second pass -

• You should be able to summarize the main thrust of the paper to someone else.
• Have an understanding of what the paper contributes.

3. Third pass Virtually re-implement the paper. Make the same assumptions as the authors and re-create the work. Compare this re-creation with the actual paper.

Think about how the author has presented certain ideas, and how you would present them differently.

Take notes during the re-creation process, they'll be helpful for future work.

After the third pass -

• You should be able to reconstruct the structure of the paper from memory
• Identify it's strong/weak points

Literature Surveys and The Three Pass Approach

1. Use Google Scholar/similar to find 3-5 recent papers in the area.
2. Do one pass on each paper to get a cursory understanding of the gist and find related work.
3. If you're lucky, you'll find a recent survey.
4. If you don't find a survey, find works cited in multiple papers from step 1. Make two passes through them and other works from their authors. Find out where the authors publish and make two passes through works from those journals/conferences.