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Some
of the papers that you will read for this class will be difficult to
plow through. The tradeoff for having few written assignments
(and no tests!) in this course is that I expect you to do a lot of
reading.
Most
of you will not have read many technical papers in the past --
especially papers outside of your specific research field.
Many of you will not have read as many papers at one time as this
course will require. You will likely find that you don’t know
everything you need to know in order to address a particular issue or
question that your reading brings up. You'll need to learn
how to move forward into the unknown, to read critically, and
to ask questions to get yourself unstuck.
To be successful in this course (and in your future research endeavors), you will need to read
each paper very carefully and you should expect to have to work at understanding
it. Below are some suggestions for reading the
papers. I hope they will help you come to class prepared for
our discussions.
1.
You
should always be able to articulate the main objective(s) and conclusions
of each paper. One way to approach this is to first skim the
paper for organization and the 'big picture,' then skim the discussion
section or last few paragraphs of the paper to see what is emphasized.
2.
Read
the paper closely a second time starting at the beginning of the paper
and work your way through the paper to see how the author(s) arrived at
their conclusions. Make
sure you understand the major scientific questions that motivate the
research.
3.
Also,
always be able to articulate the main data type(s) and source(s),
as well as the main assumptions that went into the interpretations
presented in the paper. The data sources are typically well
described, but the author(s) assumptions may be more difficult to
detect. Read carefully. Use your own scientific
training, as well as the information gained from your background
readings (from text books and elsewhere) to determine what
assumptions are implicit in the author(s) work and whether or not those
assumptions are valid.
4.
Look
at every graph and figure and be sure you understand it.
Generally, the authors are deriving their conclusions from the data
presented in the figures/graphs. Critically look at each
figure and try to understand what it portrays and whether or not you
think the data presented justify the conclusions derived from
those data. If you don’t understand the data or their
interpretation, formulate a specific (and clear) question about what
you don’t understand.
5.
Learn
how to ask questions. If you are confused about what was
done, how it was done, or why something was done, formulate a specific
question. Try to answer your own questions – even if you can
only get to partial answers. When you can not develop your
own answers (or when you can only get partially there), bring your
questions to class for our discussions.
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