A Software Engineer’s Guide to Reading Research Papers
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Highlights
When reading a paper for the first time, focus on some key sections such as the Abstract, Introduction, Results, and Conclusion. ⤴️
second pass is to focus on the remaining inner sections of the paper, which is where the real details are present. ⤴️
should not try to understand everything. Read through it, try to make sense of the things, make notes, and highlight important parts.
Most importantly, list down the terms that you are not deeply familiar with. ⤴️
list down the cited references that you need to check out. Research work is done by building on top of prior research and that prior work is referred to in the form of citations in the papers. ⤴️
Next, pass is to look up the terms and references that you found challenging to understand in the 2nd pass. ⤴️
The goal of looking up the references varies. Sometimes the current paper might have extended the approach taken by a prior research paper and in that case you need to understand what exactly was the design or solution that the cited paper came up with. ⤴️
cite prior work to discuss the approaches taken by others, and it may not be that crucial to understand that line of enquiry for understanding the current paper. ⤴️
After having finished your background research, you can come back to do a third pass through the paper. With a more informed mental model you can revisit the difficult parts of the paper and try to connect the dots. The objective is to interpret the meaning of the parts where you were missing the context previously. ⤴️
if you want to achieve an even deeper mastery of the material, there’s an optional but powerful final step: teaching it to others. ⤴️
approach of using AI when reading papers is to use it as a colleague with whom I am trying to figure things out. I prompt the AI assistant to have a piercing eye on my reasoning and point out any flaws that it might have. ⤴️
The key is to be patient with the process and systematic in your approach. Whether you’re reading papers to implement systems, to stay current with technology, or to build upon existing research, having a structured approach makes the task less daunting and more productive. ⤴️
The most important thing is to keep reading - each paper you tackle makes the next one easier to understand. ⤴️