# Study Note 2: How to Read a Paper

###### tags: `Multimedia Wireless Network`

**Student ID : M10902804**
**Name : Ian Joseph Chandra (章利安)**

---

## General Purpose

In this assignment, we are taught how to extract the information of a paper efficiently. To achieve that goal, we are gonna learn the "Three-Pass Approach" method to study a paper in a time efficient maner.

---
## THE THREE-PASS APPROACH

The Three-Pass Approach taught us to divide our read into three passes. Here is what we gonna do in each pass:
* **The First Pass**: "Find the general Idea of the paper"
* **The Second Pass**: "Grasp the paper content outline"
* **The Third Pass**: "Reach every detail of the paper from the second Pass"

---
### The First Pass

**Purposes**:
1. Quick scan the paper to get the big picture of its content.
2. Determine to continue reading this paper or not.
3. Adequate the papers that aren't in our research area.

⏳ **Estimation time spent**: 5-10 minutes.

**First Pass steps**:
1. Read the title, abstract, and the introduction.
2. Read the section and sub-section headings (Skip the content).
3. Read the concolusions.
4. Glance over the references.

**Targets**:
1. **Category**: Get the type of the paper (measurement paper, analysis, or description of a research prototype).
2. **Context**: Find the related papers and the theoretical bases that used to analyze the problem.
3. **Correctness**: Check the validity of the assumptions.
4. **Contribustions**: Determine the paper's main contribution.
5. **Clarity**: Check the writing quality of the paper.

---
### The Second Pass

**Purpose**: Grasp the content of the paper.

⏳ **Estimation time spent**: up to 1 hour.

**Second Pass steps**:
1. Pay attentions to figures, diagrams, and other illustrations of the paper.
Pay Attention to the graphs:
a. The correctness of the axes label.
b. The error bars in the result is attached or not.
2. Mark relevant unread references for further reading.

**Targets**
1. Summarize the main thrust of the paper, with supporting evidence, to someone else.
2. Have a determination to:
a. Set the paper aside (This paper is not relevant with our research).
b. Return to the paper later (This paper might be relevant with our research).
c. Persever and go on to the third pass (This paper is relevant with our research).

---
### The Thrid Pass
**Purpose**: Fully understand a paper

⏳ **Estimation time spent**:
* up to 1 hour for experienced reader.
* up to 4-5 hours for beginners.

**Third Pass steps**:
1. Virtually re-implement the paper:
a. Making the same assumptions as the authors
b. Re-create the work
c. Comparing the re-creation with the actual paper.

**Targets**:
1. Identify the paper's innovations.
2. Identify the hidden failings and assumptions.
3. Jot down the ideas for future work.
4. reconstruct the entire structure of the paper from memory
5. Identify the paper's strong and weak points.
6. Pinpoint implicit assumptions, missing citations to relevant work, and potential issues with experimental or analytical techniques.

---
## DOING A LITERATURE SURVEY

* **First Step**:
1. Use academic search engines (Google Scholar, CiteSeer) and some well-chosen keywords to find three to five recent papers with our research area.
2. Do the First pass for each paper (Find a survey)

* **Second Step**:
1. Do the Second pass for the chosen papers:
2. Find the key papers and researchers in that area
3. Download the key papers and set them aside
4. Go to the websites of the key researchers and see where they've published recently.

* **Third Step**:
1. Go to the website for those top conferecnes and look through their recent proceedings
2. Quick scan the papers.
3. Do First and Second Pass of these papers