Whether you are a new or experienced researcher, it helps to review the basics of reading research papers and reviews, this page is designed to give you a brief intro or refresher to the world of scholarly sources. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected].

→ Will

DISCLAIMER!

I highly suggest against reading the entirety of the list word for word. Speaking from experience it rarely pays off. Instead, I’d recommend you pick a handful of papers from a variety of sections and sub-sections depending on how comfortable you feel with each subject. Then, throw them into ChatGPT and ask them to summarize the document and just read the summary.

I’d also recommend, going into the article to look through the diagrams as they will help visualize the processes or data discussed in the papers.

I’d only recommend taking notes on the papers you read if you have the time. At the least, try to jot down any concepts you may need more clarification on, and any questions you have.

What is the goal of a technical paper?

the goal varies depending on the type of technical paper. For our purposes, we’ll be using research, review, and patent papers\articles most of the time.

Research papers we’re concerned with is that they are for sharing findings with the world and providing enough info for almost anyone to replicate their experiments to validate their conclusions.

Review papers are essentially a summary of all the most up-to-date findings from new research papers in a specific field, they never go super into detail but they are a good jumping-off point for anyone looking to start learning about a certain topic. The mountain of references at the end of each review paper is a great spot for further research.

Patent papers are the broadest reaching without being required to give entire explanations instead they provide a bunch of citations that go into the gritty details for them. Open-access patents give us a starting point for conceiving ideas for how the first iterations of our prototype will look.

What does a technical paper contain?

In every research or review paper, 99.99% of the time they have the same formatting.

• Abstract/Summary
  • This is where the whole paper is summarized into its barest bones (usually a few paragraphs).
• Introduction
  • Serves as a section to tell you why the topic\field covered in the research paper is important to society and or its industry, as well as why the research conducted in this paper is important to its field.
  • Usually doesn’t carry tons of useful information.
• Discussion
  • Commonly split up into multiple sections.
  • The meat (or tofu) of the paper, contains all findings of note from the experiments completed for the paper.
  • The most important part of any paper.
• Conclusion
  • Where the major parts of the discussion sections are summarized.
  • Ties in the impacts on the wider world that the findings can or will have
  • Usually includes how/if the paper is important or not.
• References
  • Usually a list of all the bases of assumptions made from earlier work on the subject or papers that support the findings of their paper.
• Supplemental/Supporting Information (SI for short)
  • A secondary document that is usually linked at the very top or bottom of the article.
  • Includes all equations, tables, and plots that didn’t make the cut for the main article.
  • May have a BOM table, or a parts list with where they were sourced from, and instructions for how certain items were made if they were made specifically for the paper.