Reading Research Papers

In order to read many research papers quickly, one uses a hierarchy:

  1. Read the title
  2. If it's interesting, read the abstract
  3. If it's interesting, read the introduction
  4. If it's interesting, read the topic sentences of the body (but skip the experimental section and related work on a first reading)
  5. If it's interesting, use the topic sentences to decide which section to concentrate on, and which sections might provide background reading.
  6. Finally, read the experimental section and related work, as needed.
As for reading the topic sentences, as described above, please note the Python script, topic-sentences.py, which automatically summarizes the topic sentences. This tool is not perfect, but you are welcome to try it out, and see if it helps.