ABSTRACT
Researchers spend a great deal of time reading research papers. However, this skill is rarely taught, leading to much wasted effort. This article outlines a practical and efficient three-pass method for reading research papers. I also describe how to use this method to do a literature survey.
這篇文章主要列出瞭如何通過"三遍法"有效地閱讀論文，並且文章在後面一小節講解了如何做文獻調研。
INTRODUCTION
Researchers must read papers for several reasons: to review them for a conference or a class, to keep current in their field, or for a literature survey of a new field. A typical researcher will likely spend hundreds of hours every year reading papers.
Learning to efficiently read a paper is a critical but rarely taught skill. Beginning graduate students, therefore, must learn on their own using trial and error. Students waste much effort in the process and are frequently driven to frustration.
For many years I have used a simple approach to efficiently read papers. This paper describes the ‘three-pass’ approach and its use in doing a literature survey.
引言部分主要講解了"高效讀論文"這一技能的重要性，並且引出"三遍法"。
THE THREE-PASS APPROACH
The key idea is that you should read the paper in up to three passes, instead of starting at the beginning and plowing your way to the end. Each pass accomplishes specific goals and builds upon the previous pass: The first pass gives you a general idea about the paper. The second pass lets you grasp the paper’s content, but not its details. The third pass helps you understand the paper in depth.
- “三遍法"的要點是有目地閱讀文章三遍，而不是企圖從頭到尾讀一篇文章來理解文章。讀完一遍後需要完成一定的目標，而本次閱讀目標的完成是基於之前的理解；換句話說，我們讀文章要層層遞進的"啃”。
– 第一遍：掌握文章大意。
– 第二遍：抓住文章要點，並非細節。
– 第三遍：全面理解文章。
The first pass
The first pass is a quick scan to get a bird’s-eye view of the paper. You can also decide whether you need to do any more passes. This pass should take about five to ten minutes and consists of the following steps:
通過幾分鐘的迅速瀏覽，決定是否有必要再讀下去了。步驟如下:
- Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction
- Read the section and sub-section headings, but ignore
everything else - Read the conclusions
- Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the ones you’ve already read
- At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer the five Cs:
- Category: What type of paper is this? A measurement paper? An analysis of an existing system? A description of a research prototype?
- Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which
theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem? - Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid?
- Contributions: What are the paper’s main contributions?
- Clarity: Is the paper well written?
– 仔細閱讀論文標題、概括和引言部分。
– 閱讀論文部分及小節部分的標題，不要在意內容細節。
– 閱讀總結部分。
–留意一下引用文獻，目的是識別出已讀過的文獻。
- 在讀完第一遍後，要確定你能回答下列五個問題：
– 論文是什麼類型的?
– 論文的相關領域和理論基礎是什麼？
– 正確性：論文提出的觀點是有效的嗎?
– 貢獻：這篇論文的主要貢獻（得出的結論）是什麼？
– 清晰度：這篇論文是否陳述清晰？（你能看懂嗎?）
Using this information, you may choose not to read further. This could be because the paper doesn’t interest you, or you don’t know enough about the area to understand the paper, or that the authors make invalid assumptions. The first pass is adequate for papers that aren’t in your research area, but may someday prove relevant.
第一遍的閱讀很大程度地決定你是否需要繼續讀下去。第一遍下來，可能你覺得這篇論文的內容無法吸引你；又可能你對論文的相關領域不夠了解而無法理解；還有可能作者的結論不夠具有說服力。總而言之，第一遍的閱讀很大程度上能讓你決定你是否要繼續研讀這篇論文。
Incidentally, when you write a paper, you can expect most reviewers (and readers) to make only one pass over it. Take care to choose coherent section and sub-section titles and to write concise and comprehensive abstracts. If a reviewer cannot understand the gist after one pass, the paper will likely be rejected; if a reader cannot understand the highlights of the paper after five minutes, the paper will likely never be read.
順帶說一下，寫出一篇能讓讀者看懂的文章是很重要的。
The second pass
In the second pass, read the paper with greater care, but ignore details such as proofs. It helps to jot down the key points, or to make comments in the margins, as you read.
在讀第二遍的時候需要仔細些，但是忽略細節比如說論點辯證的過程。在這一過程中，可以略記下一些要點，有必要的話把評註寫在對應內容旁邊。
詳細步驟如下：
- Look carefully at the figures, diagrams and other illustrations in the paper. Pay special attention to graphs. Are the axes properly labeled? Are results shown with error bars, so that conclusions are statistically significant? Common mistakes like these will separate rushed, shoddy work from the truly excellent.
看清論文中的圖表，特別是數據相關的圖。因爲這些圖的質量（eg.數據被恰當地表示）直接反應了論文的水平。 - Remember to mark relevant unread references for further reading (this is a good way to learn more about the background of the paper).
標記好你未讀過的、領域相關的引用文獻，以便後續的查閱；這也是一種瞭解論文寫作背景的一種方式。
The second pass should take up to an hour. After this pass, you should be able to grasp the content of the paper. You should be able to summarize the main thrust of the paper, with supporting evidence, to someone else. This level of detail is appropriate for a paper in which you are interested, but does not lie in your research speciality.
第二遍的閱讀應該花到一個小時左右。之後，你應該對文章的主旨大意及相關論點依據有了一定的瞭解。
Sometimes you won’t understand a paper even at the end of the second pass. This may be because the subject matter is new to you, with unfamiliar terminology and acronyms. Or the authors may use a proof or experimental technique that you don’t understand, so that the bulk of the paper is incomprehensible. The paper may be poorly written with unsubstantiated assertions and numerous forward references. Or it could just be that it’s late at night and you’re tired. You can now choose to: (a) set the paper aside, hoping you don’t need to understand the material to be successful in your career, (b) return to the paper later, perhaps after reading background material or © persevere and go on to the third pass.
有時，在第二遍閱讀之後，你還不能理解這篇論文寫的是什麼。這可能因爲你對這個領域或事物不夠了解；還可能是陌生的專業詞彙使你費解；也有可能這篇文章寫得很差。如果出現這種情況，你可以把這篇論文放一放，稍做休息。接下來你可以決定放棄這篇論文的閱讀，或者是閱讀相關引用文章去理解這篇論文，又再者閱讀第三遍。
The third pass
To fully understand a paper, particularly if you are reviewer, requires a third pass. The key to the third pass is to attempt to virtually re-implement the paper: that is, making the same assumptions as the authors, re-create the work. By comparing this re-creation with the actual paper, you can easily identify not only a paper’s innovations, but also its hidden failings and assumptions.
在第三遍的閱讀中，你應該全面理解這篇文章。如果你做的是評論領域相關的工作的話，這更是重中之重。第三遍閱讀的要點是嘗試去重塑這篇文章：與作者做出相同的假設論點，再去論證它。比較你和作者的論證結果，你能輕而易舉的辨別出文章的好壞 - 是否是嚴密論證的、有依據的創新。
This pass requires great attention to detail. You should identify and challenge every assumption in every statement. Moreover, you should think about how you yourself would present a particular idea. This comparison of the actual with the virtual lends a sharp insight into the proof and presentation techniques in the paper and you can very likely add this to your repertoire of tools. During this pass, you should also jot down ideas for future work.
這遍的閱讀需要大量的耐心去理解文章的內容細節；你應該逐句話地理解文章內容；甚至你能用自己的理解清晰的表達出論文中的某個觀點。這一方法和過程能很大程度上提升你的論證和展示能力。閱讀過後，你應該寫下一些對這篇論文的想法和體會，以便後續的工作。
DOING A LITERATURE SURVEY
Paper reading skills are put to the test in doing a literature survey. This will require you to read tens of papers, perhaps in an unfamiliar field. What papers should you read? Here is how you can use the three-pass approach to help.
做文獻調研非常考驗你的閱讀論文的技巧，這種能力是建立在大量的論文閱讀之上的，包括一些不熟悉的領域的文章。你應該讀什麼樣的的論文去提升你的這種能力呢？在這裏三遍法同樣可以幫助你。
First, use an academic search engine such as Google Scholar or CiteSeer and some well-chosen keywords to find three to five recent papers in the area. Do one pass on each paper to get a sense of the work, then read their related work sections. You will find a thumbnail summary of the recent work, and perhaps, if you are lucky, a pointer to a recent survey paper. If you can find such a survey, you are done. Read the survey, congratulating yourself on your good luck.
首先，使用例如 Google Scholar或CiteSeer之類的學術搜索引擎通過合適的關鍵字去查找相關領域的、最近發佈的三到五篇論文。利用三遍法中的"讀第一遍的方法"把每篇論文過一遍，再利用獲得的信息去識別和決定這些論文是不是你所需要的。(這裏意思比較模糊。建議閱讀標題鏈接的這篇文章，理解什麼是文獻調研。)
Otherwise, in the second step, find shared citations and repeated author names in the bibliography. These are the key papers and researchers in that area. Download the key papers and set them aside. Then go to the websites of the key researchers and see where they’ve published recently. That will help you identify the top conferences in that field because the best researchers usually publish in the top conferences.
除此之外，在文獻目錄部分找到引用和對應的作者的名字，他們就是在這個領域的論文和學者。之後把這些論文下載保存起來，併到這些學者的網站去看他們最近發表的成果。這些工作將你確定該領域的頂級學術會議，因爲頂尖的研究人員通常在這些會議上發表論文。
The third step is to go to the website for these top conferences and look through their recent proceedings. A quick scan will usually identify recent high-quality related work. These papers, along with the ones you set aside earlier, constitute the first version of your survey. Make two passes through these papers. If they all cite a key paper that you did not find earlier, obtain and read it, iterating as necessary.
最後是去頂級學術會議的網站上瀏覽它們最近的研究課題的進展。快速的瀏覽能幫助你識別你想研究領域的、最新的高質量成果。在原先存檔的相關論文就組成了你的第一版文獻調研。之後，利用三遍法去閱讀這些論文；如果發現這些論文都引用了相同的文獻，有必要的話，再去找到這些文獻進行閱讀。
總結：
本人第一次比較正式地翻譯論文，水平有限請見諒。首先，個人認爲三遍法翻譯地比較通俗易懂。其次，可能本人水平有限亦或者是該論文的主要目的不是介紹文獻調研，在後半部分的文獻調研翻譯的不是很清楚。建議閱讀科學網的這篇文章-"怎樣進行文獻調研?"輔助理解。後期有時間會進行更新。希望大家批評指導。
References
How to Read a Paper