The first pass is a quick scan to get a bird’s-eye view of
the paper. You can also decide whether you need to do any
more passes. This pass should take about five to ten minutes
and consists of the following steps:
1. Carefully read the title, abstract, and introduction
2. Read the section and sub-section headings, but ignore
everything else
3. Read the conclusions
4. Glance over the references, mentally ticking off the
ones you’ve already read
At the end of the first pass, you should be able to answer
the five Cs:
1. Category: What type of paper is this? A measure-
ment paper? An analysis of an existing system? A
description of a research prototype?
2. Context: Which other papers is it related to? Which
theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem?
3. Correctness: Do the assumptions appear to be valid?
4. Contributions: What are the paper’s main contribu-
tions?
5. Clarity: Is the paper well written?
Using this information, you may choose not to read fur-
ther. This could be because the paper doesn’t interest you,
or you don’t know enough about the area to understand the
paper, or that the authors make invalid assumptions. The
first pass is adequate for papers that aren’t in your research
area, but may someday prove relevant.
Incidentally, when you write a paper, you can expect most
reviewers (and readers) to make only one pass over it. Take
care to choose coherent section and sub-section titles and
to write concise and comprehensive abstracts. If a reviewer
cannot understand the gist after one pass, the paper will
likely be rejected; if a reader cannot understand the high-
lights of the paper after five minutes, the paper will likely
never be read.