Keeping a reading journal

http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/fa12/cse260-b/Summaries.html

In addition to summarizing the basic facts, your writeup should

• discuss the contributions of the paper, reflecting, analyzing or criticizing the ideas presented
• offer insight into the authors' motivation
• explore open issues or ideas that you are wondering about after reading the paper

How to read a research paper:

with contributions of Bill Griswold, Gail Murphy, Cristina Conati, Erica Melis

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~cs227b/papers/introduction/howToRead.txt 

What are motivations for this work?

The paper should describe why the problem
      is important and why it does not have a trivial solution; that is, why a
      new solution may be required.

What is the proposed solution?

There should also be an argument about why the solution solves the
      problem better than previous solutions. There should also be a discussion
      about how the solution is achieved (designed and implemented) or is at
      least achievable. Are all concepts and notations introduced before their
      first usage? 

What is the evaluation of the proposed solution?

What argument and/or
      experiment is made to make a case for the value of the ideas? What
      benefits or problems are identified? Are they convincing?

What alternative solutions exist? Read a paper critically.

What are the contributions? The contributions in a paper may be many and
      varied. Ideas, software, experimental techniques, and area survey are a
      few key possibilities.

What are future directions for this research? Not only what future
      directions do the authors identify, but what ideas did you come up with
      while reading the paper? 

You may find it productive to try to answer each question in turn, writing your answer
down. In practice, you are not done reading a paper until you can answer all the
questions.