What Is the Best Device?

What is the best device / software combo to read academic papers?

First read the abstract, the introduction and the conclusion and look through the references. If the paper is well written, you should now know what problem the authors are addressing, why the problem is important, what the authors solution is, what their solution contributes to the area, and how the authors demonstrate/prove that their solutions works and that it improves on other solutions in some way(s). Next read through the entire paper starting with the abstract again. Don't skip over figures, re-read parts that you don't understand. Write down questions you have as you go along. Finally, re-read the paper critically. Did the authors do what t said t were going to do? What are the important ideas? (just because an author says something is important doesn't mean it really is) Do their results make sense? Are their methods sound? What assumptions are t making? How does their work fit in with other similar work? What improvements/extensions do t contribute? Make an outline of the paper The idea is to create some organized information about the paper that will help you sort out the details Highlight the major points of the paper This can be as detailed as you need it to be Create a list of questions about parts that you don't understand about parts where you question their solution/proof/methods/results List comparisons of this paper to other related work with which you are familiar.