About%20Reading%20Scientific%20Papers

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About Reading Scientific Papers
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Teaching Material on Paper Reading

• http//www.biochem.arizona.edu/classes/bioc568/pap
  ers.htm
• http//www.lib.purdue.edu/phys/inst/scipaper.html
• Rice University Suggestions on how to read a
  paper
• More general, although related issues
• http//www.cs.cmu.edu/jrs/sins.html (3 sins
  COSC/MATH)
• Faking a paper
• http//www.cs.indiana.edu/HTMLit/how.2b/how.2b.htm
  l (How to be a good gradate student)
• http//www.cs.indiana.edu/how.2b/how.2b.community.
  html (Becoming a part of the research community)

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Questions to ask!!

1. What is the research paradigm that the author is
   using? If the paper is part of a well established
   field, you should describe the field and its
   current state.
2. What is the problem area with which the paper is
   concerned?
3. What is the author's thesis? That is, what is
   he/she trying to convince you of?
4. Summarize the author's argument. That is, how
   does the author go about trying to convince you
   of the thesis?
5. Does the author describe other work in the field?
   If so, how does the research described in the
   paper differ from the other work?
6. Does the paper succeed? Are you convinced of
   the thesis by the time that you have finished
   reading the paper?
7. Does the author indicate how the work should be
   followed up on? Does the paper generate new
   ideas?
8. Some papers implicitly or explicitly provide a
   new way of doing things or of thinking about
   problems. If your paper does so, describe the
   approach.
9. Can the paper be trusted? Are there any
   indications that the authors are flagrantly
   lying? Does the paper contain unusual
   inconsistencies?
10. What other things did you learn when reading the
    paper?
11. What is the educational value of the paper?

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Teaching Plan Next 5 Weeks

• Janurary 16 Course Overview how to read a
  scientific paper.
• January 18 Read Feigenbaum paper!! How to read a
  scientific paper
• January 23 Prepare Slow PaperWalkThrough
  Page/Brin Paper
• January 25 TBDL Jan. 18 topics continued
• January 30 Reading Papers finish Page/Brin
  Paper
• Feb. 1 PaperWalk Through ICDM06 Best Research
  Paper
• Feb. 6 Raj Reddy Turing Award Lecture Paper
• Feb. 8 Student Guided Discussion DBSCAN paper
• Feb. 13 Student Guided Discussion Silhouette
  Paper
• Feb. 15 TBDL and on Writing Introductions/Conclus
  ions/Abstracts
• Feb. 20 Student Presentation Langville/Mayer
  Paper (optional)
• Feb. 22 Student Guided Discussion Bregman
  Divergences Paper