1. How to Read a Research Paper
Tamer Elsayed
Faculty of Engineering Computer Science and Engineering Dept.
May 16th 2013

2. A Typical Researcher …
Will likely spend hundreds of hours every year reading papers 
A “good” graduate student /researcher should read (in average) a paper a day!

3. References
S. Keshav, How to Read a Paper, ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, 2007
Philip W. L. Fong, Reading a Computer Science Research Paper, SIGCSE 2009
Amanda Stent, How to Read a Computer Science Research Paper, Technical Report.
Mihai Pop, How to Read a Scientific Paper, a Presentation at University of Maryland, College Park.

4. Why reading research papers?

5. Why?
You were asked to 
For a literature survey of a new field/problem
Be up-to-date on current research in the field
Allows you to replicate/extend the results
Provides you with useful data
Gives you “pre-digested” thoughts
To decide whether (and where) to publish
Teaches you how to write
Review for a conference or a class ….

6. Roadmap Types of (computing) research papers
√ Why reading research papers?
Types of (computing) research papers
Three-pass approach for reading a paper
Doing a literature review
How can I remember the papers I have read?

7. Types of (Computing) Research Papers
From venue, peer-review, and content perspectives …

8. Venue? Most recent, “hot off the presses”, information
Conference Papers
Most recent, “hot off the presses”, information
Technical Reports
Expands on the information in a conference paper.
Journal Papers (or Articles)
Expand and combine results from several conference papers
Book Chapters
Expand a conference paper or journal article
PhD Dissertations
Frequently revised into either journal papers or book chapters
Posters
Extended abstracts, short, good for discussions
Workshop Papers
Very hot/new topics, work in-progress, ideas, preliminary results

9. Peer-Review? Conference papers and journal papers are “peer-reviewed”
have been examined by other computer scientists (3-5) prior to publication.
“Double-blind” review
Technical reports are typically not peer-reviewed, but are still excellent sources of detailed information .
Posters and workshop papers are peer-reviewed (less number of reviewers).
MSc thesis or PhD dissertation?

10. Content? Theoretical Engineering Empirical Survey
Describe/prove a theory
Describe new algorithms
Theoretical
Describe an implementation of an algorithm, or part or all of a computer system or application
Engineering
Describe an experiment designed to test some hypothesis
Empirical
Review current results in a field of research
Survey

11. A Three-pass approach for reading a research paper
Each pass accomplishes specific goals and builds upon the previous pass …

12. Three-Pass Approach First pass Second pass Third pass
Gives you a general idea about the paper.
First pass
Let you grasp the paper’s content, but not its details.
Second pass
Helps you understand the paper in depth.
Third pass
The key idea is that you should read the paper in up to
three passes, instead of starting at the beginning and plowing your way to the end.

13. 1 The First Pass A quick scan to get a bird’s-eye view of the paper.
Should take about 5-10 minutes.
Decide whether you need to do any more passes.
Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction
Read the section and sub-section headings, but ignore everything else
Read the conclusion
Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the ones you’ve already read 1

14. 1 At the End of this Pass … More passes?
You should be able to answer the five Cs:
Category: What type of paper is this? A measurement paper? An analysis of an existing system? A description of a research prototype?
Context: What is the problem (space)? Which other papers is it related to?
Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid?
Contributions: What are the main contributions?
Clarity: Is the paper well written?
More passes? 1

15. 1 2 The Second Pass Should take up to 1 hour.
Read with greater care, but ignore details such as proofs.
Identify key points, or make comments in the margins.
Look carefully at the figures, diagrams and other illustrations in the paper.
Remember to mark relevant unread references for further reading
this is a good way to learn more about the background of the paper. 1 2

16. After this Pass …
Sometimes, you won’t understand it even at the end of the second pass 
subject is new to you, with unfamiliar terminology and acronyms.
proof or experimental technique that you don’t understand.
poorly written: unsubstantiated assertions and numerous forward references.
it could just be that it’s late at night and you’re tired!
You can now choose to:
set the paper aside, hoping you don’t need to understand the material to be successful in your career,
return to the paper later, perhaps after reading background material or
persevere and go on to the third pass. 1 2

17. 1 2 3 The Third Pass To fully understand the paper (e.g., reviewing)
Can take about 4-5 hours for beginners and about 1 hour for an experienced reader.
Requires great attention to detail.
Attempt to virtually re-implement the paper: making the same assumptions as the authors, re-create the work.
You should identify and challenge every assumption in every statement.
During this pass, you should also jot down ideas for future work. 1 2 3

18. At the End of this Pass …
Should be able to reconstruct the entire structure of the paper from memory.
Should be able to identify its strong and weak points.
Should be able to pinpoint implicit assumptions, missing citations to relevant work, and potential issues with experimental or analytical techniques. 1 2 3

19. Doing a Literature Survey

20. Doing a Literature Survey
What is it?
Requires you to read tens of papers, perhaps in an unfamiliar field.
What papers should you read?
3-pass approach to help.

21. First Step
Use an academic search engine and some well-chosen keywords to find 3 to 5 recent papers in the area.
(e.g., Google Scholar, MS Academic Search, CiteSeer, or ACM digital library)
Do one pass on each paper to get a sense of the work, then read their related work sections.
You will find a summary of the recent work
and perhaps, if you are lucky, a recent survey paper.
If you can find such a survey, you are done.
Read the survey, congratulating yourself on your good luck. 1

22. Second Step
Find shared citations and repeated authors in the bibliography.
These are the key papers and researchers in that area.
Download the key papers and set them aside.
Then go to the websites of the key researchers and see where they’ve published recently.
That will help you identify the top conferences in that field 1 2

23. Third Step
Go to the website for these top conferences and look through their recent proceedings.
A quick scan will usually identify recent high-quality related work.
These papers, along with the ones you set aside earlier, constitute the first version of your survey.
Make two passes through these papers.
If they all cite a key paper that you did not find earlier, obtain and read it, iterating as necessary. 1 2 3

24. How Can I Remember the Papers I Have Read?

25. Remembering Read-Papers
Strongly recommend that you make an electronic file for your own bibliography.
A BibTeX file is a good idea.
After reading, if you think it’s worth remembering, write an entry for that paper in your bibliography file.
You should note: authors’ names, paper title, venue, date of publication, and page numbers (if possible).
Add a 2-3 sentence description of the paper in which you summarize for yourself the problem addressed by the paper, the solution proposed or results learned, and main contributions.

26. Other Resources
Reading scientific papers (at Purdue)
BibTeX
Mendeley
Zotero – firefox extension reference manager
Comparison of reference manager software tools available

27. This talk is one of a series …

28. Workshop next Semester … Stay Tuned 
How to Do Research
Research methodology
How to read a research paper
How to review a paper
How to write a research paper
How to write a lit review
How to write theses/dissertations
How to be a good graduate student
How to give a talk
How to present a poster
Workshop next Semester … Stay Tuned 

29. Acknowledgement To my colleagues : Maram Hasanain Latifa AlMarri
Rana Malhas