Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 3
Reading and Reviewing
You know, we have little bits of understanding, glimpses, a little
bit of light here and there, but there's a tremendous amount of
darkness.
Noam Chomsky
And diff 'ring judgements serve but to declare, That truth lies
somewhere, if we knew but where.
William Cowper
Hope
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more
that you learn, the more places you'll go.
Dr. Seuss
I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
A novice researcher can believe that the doing of research is primarily about
investigation—running experiments, developing theory, or doing analysis. With
experience, though, researchers discover the importance of
developing an under-
standing
. It has been argued that many experimental researchers do their best work
after they have been in a field for five years or more, because it takes time to acquire
a deep, thorough appreciation of the area, and of existing knowledge and its lim-
itations. To acquire this understanding, you need to become an effective reader of
research papers.
A successful reader can identify the contributions and value of a paper, while
recognizing its flaws; and uses critical scrunity to identify the extent to which the
flaws in a paper are serious. This reading then informs new work, directly as a
source of knowledge and indirectly as a guide to how to produce work that will be
appreciated. A particular application of reading, moreover, is to become a reliable
referee or thesis examiner.
1
This chapter, then, is about both reading and reviewing.
It is an introduction to the elements of effective reading, and is a guide to reviewing.
