A summary of How to Read a Paper

S. Keshav; https://doi.org/10.1145/1273445.1273458

For the summary of the paper, go to the Summary section of this article.

Table of Contents

• A summary of How to Read a Paper
  • Table of Contents
  • First Pass
    • Category
    • Context
      • Correctness
    • Contributions
    • Clarity
  • Second Pass
    • Figures, Diagrams, Illustrations, and Graphs
    • Relevant Work
    • Author Assumptions
    • Discussion of the Proofs
    • How Would I Present the Idea(s)
    • Future Directions
  • Summary
  • Summarization Technique
  • Citations

First Pass

Discussion about the title, abstract, introduction, section and sub-section headings, and conclusion

The paper, How to Read a Paper by S. Keshav is a tutorial for graduate students on how to read an academic paper. They propose a “three-pass” approach that aims to reduce the frustration that graduate students face when reading papers. Additionally, they discuss how to perform a literature survey of a new field, their experience with this methodology, and write that this document is meant to exist as a living work, with adjustments to be made as seen fit by the author.

Category

What type of paper is this work?

This paper is definitely a more causal piece of academic work that aims at easing students into the reading papers. I would classify this paper as “meta”, educational, or as a formal letter to students. The later classification is due to the lack of surveys or qualitative/ quantitative data from others that have applied this or similar methods to reading papers.

Context

What other types of papers is the work related to?

This paper is most closely related to papers that discuss the writing of academic works and the review process of academic works.

Correctness

Do the assumptions seem valid?

The assumptions in the abstract and introduction seem reasonable. However, assuming that only graduate students are the only ones that struggle with reading academic works is unrepresentative of my particular experience. Undergraduate students as well as professionals in industry also struggle with reading these works as well.

Contributions

What are the author’s main contributions?

S. Keshav’s contributions is a three-stage process for reading papers and a framework for performing literature reviews of a new field.

Clarity

Is the paper well written?

This paper is well written and is easy to comprehend. I would strongly recommend this paper to be read by everyone regardless of academic status.

Second Pass

Figures, Diagrams, Illustrations, and Graphs

Are the axes properly labeled? Are results shown with error bars, so that conclusions are statistically significant?

There are no illustrations to discuss in this paper.

Relevant Work

Mark relevant work for review

The following relevant work can be found in the Citations section of this article.

• [1], [2], [3], and [4]

Author Assumptions

What assumptions does the author(s) make? Are they justified assumptions?

I’m nit-picking here, but the S. Keshav focuses solely on graduate students as the demographic that has trouble reading academic papers. Now while graduate students do typically read more papers than undergraduates, it is not unheard of for academic readings to be given to undergraduate students as homework assignments or for them to read them on their own. Additionally, professionals in industry also struggle with this task as well. A more inclusive audience would have been appreciated, but would not have improved the content or quality of this paper.

Discussion of the Proofs

The only proof of the “three-pass” method that was discussed was the experience of the author. An awfully biased proof, however, I do appreciate at least some quantifiable data for this method.

How Would I Present the Idea(s)

I think the author presented these ideas exceptionally well and clearly, and cannot think of any additional presentation method aside from the critiques of the assumptions mentioned in Author Assumptions.

Future Directions

My own proposed future directions for the work

• A survey of graduate students on their methodology for reading papers
• A survey of industry professionals on their methodology for reading papers
• An artifact that allows for a user to step through a set series of steps to properly understand a document.

Summary

A summary of the paper

The paper How to Read a Paper by S. Keshav is a “meta” or educational paper about how to read an academic work. Their main contributions are a three step process on how to read a paper, as well as a framework for performing a literature review in a new field. This three step process involves a:

1. Bird’s Eye View of the paper where only the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Conclusion, and section and sub-section headings are read first,
2. A deeper analysis of figures and content of the paper which involves finding new, unread references to the reader and evaluating the quality of illustrations to determine the quality of the paper,
3. A virtual reimplementation of the paper where every claim of the paper is analyzed and critiqued; typically this done by reviewers or those that are doing a deeper analysis of the work.

I can see this process being useful for researchers as implementers of other’s research must accomplish all three steps to properly appreciate and understand what they need to do to perform their task. As for the literature review framework, it involves utilizing academic search engines (e.g., Google Scholar) to find work within a particular field, finding shared citations or authors within that field, then evaluating top conferences within that field to see who the top researchers and research topics are within that field. For exploratory research, this is both an extremely simple and effective framework to follow and adapt to different domains.

However, S. Keshav does limit the reach of this paper by making it focus solely on the woes of graduate students. This is inaccurate of the wider academic readership, as more and more frequently undergraduate and industry professionals are reading academic papers both for pleasure and for utilization in assignments. This paper can easily become more inclusive of wider audiences without changing the content in an updated version of this document. This would make sense as the author has requested that this paper be treated as a living document that can be subject to change as the author adapts his process and framework for academic review.

I would personally like to see this work be quantified in surveys and implemented as artifacts that ensure that readers are properly following the review method that the author has laid out.

Summarization Technique

This paper was summarized using a modified technique proposed by S. Keshav in his work How to Read a Paper [0].

Citations