如何阅读学术论文（Keshav 三遍阅读法）

阅读：

• 标题、摘要与引言
• 只看节与小节标题
• 若有数学内容，只看到能给理论命名
• 结论
• 你已认识的参考文献，在心里做标记

回答五个 C（five Cs）：

• Category（类别）——测量、分析、原型、综述、评论？
• Context（语境）——它与哪些论文和理论并列？
• Correctness（正确性）——前提看起来站得住吗？
• Contributions（贡献）——新在何处？
• Clarity（清晰）——写得是否好到值得继续？

然后选择：

停下、先补背景，或进入第二遍。以 "not now" 结束的第一遍也是成功的一遍。2016 年短文还补充：已经决定放弃的论文，可以不打印。

Establishing why you are reading something will help you decide how to read it, which saves time and improves comprehension.

What you want to get out of an article should influence your approach to reading it.

When you read a research paper, your goal is to understand the scientific contributions the authors are making.

After the first read-through, try to summarize the paper in one or two sentences.

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.

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.

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.

At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer the five Cs:

Glance at the mathematical content (if any) to determine the underlying theoretical foundations

Begin with the abstract (or first page) and the conclusion (or final page) for an overview of topics.

Feel free to read sections out of order or to focus only on a few sections.

Keshav, S. (2007). How to read a paper. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, 37(3), 83–84. https://doi.org/10.1145/1273445.1273458

Category:

一篇短方法短文 / 入门综述（ACM 主题 A.1），不是经验性 IMRaD 研究。

Context:

Keshav 把读者指向 Roscoe 谈如何写系统综述、Schulzrinne 与 Whitesides 谈如何写技术论文、Peyton Jones 谈研究技能。2016 年相关工作列表加上 Iain H. McLean 为实验心理学准备的可下载评审矩阵。短文假定的是计算机系统会议论文文化。

Correctness:

前提是教学性的（研究者线性阅读浪费时间；多数读者只做一遍）。它们不是统计主张。这些前提走得远，但人文学论文不会有他让你检查的那些图。

Contributions:

一套三遍阅读程序，外加三步文献调查配方（近期 highly-cited 论文 → 共享引文与作者站点 → 顶级会议论文集）。2016 年这一遍加上数学扫视、图形摘要提醒，以及更长的第三遍预算。

Clarity:

两页、编号步骤、五个有名字的问题。若你需要调查方法或第三遍的“虚拟再实现”检验，值得做第二遍。

In the second pass, read the paper with greater care, but ignore details such as proofs.

The second pass should take up to an hour for an experienced reader.

You should be able to summarize the main thrust of the paper, with supporting evidence, to someone else.

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.

This pass can take many hours for beginners and more than an hour or two even for an experienced reader.

The text of articles reporting original research is usually divided into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. This so-called “IMRAD” structure is not an arbitrary publication format but a reflection of the process of scientific discovery.

The Methods section should aim to be sufficiently detailed such that others with access to the data would be able to reproduce the results.

Authors who used AI technology to conduct the study should describe its use in the methods section in sufficient detail to enable replication of the approach. including the tool used, version, and prompts where applicable.

Because abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read, authors need to ensure that they accurately reflect the content of the article. Unfortunately, information in abstracts often differs from that in the text.

When reading, ask yourself: (1) What do the author(s) want to know (motivation)? (2) What did they do (approach/methods)? (3) Why was it done that way (context within the field)? (4) What do the results show (figures and data tables)? (5) How did the author(s) interpret the results (interpretation/discussion)? (6) What should be done next?

Carey, M. A., Steiner, K. L., & Petri, W. A., Jr. (2020). Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper. PLoS Computational Biology, 16(7), e1008032. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008032

Category:

PLOS "Ten simple rules" 社论 / 指导随笔。不是研究论文，也不是 IMRaD。

Context:

写自 University of Virginia 传染病实验室，面向本科生到早期教职。引用 Kirsch 谈期望、Karanicolas 谈设盲，以及 Fiorella and Mayer 谈以教促学。

Correctness:

建议，不是试验。六个问题与节意图表可与 ICMJE 对照。乐高墙的比喻是教学，不是发现。

Contributions:

十条规则、一张把阅读意图映射到应优先哪些节的表，以及一张说明研究论文各节用途的表。

Clarity:

六页、开放获取、CC BY。为 Rule 4（图）与 Rule 6（已发表论文不是石头）值得做第二遍。

Battaglia, V., Grugni, V., Perego, U. A., Angerhofer, N., Gomez-Palmieri, J. E., Woodward, S. R., Achilli, A., Myres, N., Torroni, A., & Semino, O. (2013). The first peopling of South America: New evidence from Y-chromosome haplogroup Q. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e71390. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0071390

Category:

原创群体遗传学研究论文。IMRaD 内容按 PLOS 的 Results-先于-Methods 顺序排列，外加很长的 "state of the art" 引言。

Context:

从墨西哥到南美洲的美洲原住民男性中的 Y 染色体 haplogroup Q，并与蒙古和堪察加比较。引言铺陈 Acosta（1590）、Hrdlička / Clovis、Greenberg 的三波模型，以及近期 mtDNA 沿海路径对无冰走廊的工作。

Correctness:

摘要写到，对 2000 多名父系美洲原住民血统男性的筛查得到 400 多条 haplogroup-Q Y 染色体，外加蒙古与堪察加的 27 条。Results 随后计数 463 条 Q 染色体，对 23 个 Q 特异 SNP 与 37 个 Y-STR 分型。利益冲突："SRW and NM are employed by a commercial company: Ancestry.com." 这项披露是第一遍事实，不是判决。

Contributions:

两条奠基谱系，Q1a3a1a-M3 与 Q1a3a1-L54(xM3)；南西伯利亚起源与白令分化；抵达中美洲，再沿太平洋岸迅速进入安第斯；后来的地方格局与农业及大帝国相关。

Clarity:

开放获取、CC BY，系统发育在 Figure 1。若你的问题关乎美洲原住民 Y 染色体史，或你在练习 Raff 的“画出方法”步骤，值得做第二遍。若你只需一个阅读程序示例，在此停下。

Figure 1:

haplogroup Q 的系统发育树。新标记为粗体。现刊图注是 "Phylogenetic tree of Y-chromosome haplogroup Q." 这里的问题不是坐标轴，而是支系标签，以及哪些分支是美洲原住民、哪些是亚洲。

样本：

Results 以 463 条 M242 阳性 Y 染色体开篇。摘要的 "more than 400" 是同一研究的约数。ICMJE 的摘要—正文警告正是你写下两个数字、而不是只引摘要的原因。

Competing interests:

SRW and NM are employed by a commercial company: Ancestry.com.

第二遍不是：

对 Ancestry.com 的判决、STR 分析的复现，或对每个 SNP 的第三遍重建。能向同学说出两条奠基谱系、样本从何而来、以及两位作者申报了商业隶属，就够了。

Scientists write original research papers primarily to present new data that may change or reinforce the collective knowledge of a field. Therefore, the most important parts of this type of scientific paper are the data.

Annotating puts you actively and immediately in a "dialogue" with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text.

Throw away your highlighter: Highlighting can seem like an active reading strategy, but it can actually distract from the business of learning and dilute your comprehension.

Limit your highlighting and underlining. Many students use this strategy, but it does not require much thinking or help you remember what you read.

These guides are great. They also contradict. (Keshav says to read the abstract first; Raff says to never read the abstract until the end.) There’s no one right way to read a paper.

Begin by reading the introduction, not the abstract.

As you read, write down every single word that you don’t understand.

When I’m choosing papers to read, I decide what’s relevant to my interests based on a combination of the title and abstract. But when I’ve got a collection of papers assembled for deep reading, I always read the abstract last. I do this because abstracts contain a succinct summary of the entire paper, and I’m concerned about inadvertently becoming biased by the authors’ interpretation of the results.

Now, go back to the beginning and read the abstract.

Published papers are not truths etched in stone. Published papers in high impact journals are not truths etched in stone. Published papers by bigwigs in the field are not truths etched in stone.