lsparrish comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong

55 Post author: D_Malik 15 May 2013 10:27PM

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Comment author: lsparrish 11 May 2013 12:49:53AM 20 points [-]

If you are new to a scientific topic, note that the first half of a paper often tends to summarize common knowledge within the field that is necessary to understand the conclusion. Often this is more readable/interesting than the rest of the paper, suggesting that you can spend more time reading scientific papers by skipping the denser and more original parts.

Comment author: TobyBartels 30 May 2013 02:04:12AM *  2 points [-]

By the same principle, read the first chapter (approximately) of next term's textbook to get a good summary of what you need to learn now. You can continue this method all the way to research monographs, as long as you can tell what books are at the next level (and if there is a next level, but that's where the papers come in). Of course, you only get an overview, but sometimes that's all that you need.

Comment author: alex_zag_al 13 May 2013 08:00:24PM 2 points [-]

I do this all the time. When I can't find reviews, I just read the introductions of related research papers.