Project preparation and how to read a paper

Followers will know I think reading and writing are rather important.

Project students at all levels, postgrads and interns all need to work on this, not to mention post docs and academics.

Here are some pointers to materials which can be used as foundational tools for those wishing to update their skills, or just think and reflect.

Practically the FutureLearn MOOC on Developing Your Research Project is helpful. Although, I do take exception to the supporting material which talks about learning styles, but that is the theme for another post.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/research-project

A team of academics developed an online course on research methods which is well worth a skim read with some drilling down to explore issues (just like you might use a text book).

http://www.erm.ecs.soton.ac.uk

Moving on to the practicalities of reading academic papers, I can point to two useful resources,

1. A short practical piece by Michael Mitzenmacher of Harvard

http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~michaelm/postscripts/ReadPaper.pdf

 

2. A paper presented at a CS conference titled "How to read a paper" by Srinivasan Kerchav from Waterloo in Canada.

http://ccr.sigcomm.org/online/files/p83-keshavA.pdf

 

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 UK