I am a student and I have been assigned to read a research papaer in the robotics field, understand it, elaborate it and write an essay about it. I have never done something similar, so I am a little bit lost.
How should I read a research paper in order to do this? Is there a particular way of reading a paper or I just start from the top and follow the order of the pages? And is there an effective way to elaborate it?
Thanks in advance.
Read it from top to bottom, try to understand everything in it (that is, do the math on your own and check that you arrive at the same results), and try to write the essay without looking much at the paper.
At my department, we offer a course like this and the most common reason for bad grades are students who just copy-paste selected paragraphs from the paper.
There really is no particular "how to" for this. Read it the way you read anything technical that's new to you - a textbook or a conference presentation or a homework assignment.
Read the abstract. Skim the paper. Get a sense of the authors goals and achievements. Read again quickly. Think about how it connects to things you know well, things you've just heard about.
At some point start reading more closely - paragraph by paragraph, maybe line by line. Puzzle out or look up ideas referred to that you don't understand. Ask people for help.
You could keep a journal or running list of ideas for your essay. Check with your instructor about what is expected in that essay. What does "elaborate" mean? Should you stick to explaining what the paper says, or can your essay include the process of what you did to reach that understanding?
