That is a very privileged position to be in, most of us have deliverables and meetings to attend to with all our our working hours, which bleed into our personal time.
There is a free tool I love when reading papers called research rabbit.
It lets you uppload the paper you're reading and links it to similar ones. It finds the references from your paper and papers that have cited your paper.
It also allows you to find work done by the same authors.
Sometimes a paper takes me weeks because I have to dig into the references to understand the paper.
βHow to read a bookβ by Adler may help here. There are a few reading levels, such as skimming, then analytical, then syntopic.
The idea is to just take your time, read more and more and also βhow to read better and fasterβ by Lewis can help to move through papers and books faster.
Can I ask if youβve tried to use Claude to summarise the white papers? I find if the white papers are only documents could be on a certain length using AI can be effective way to distilled key points? Have you tried anything like that?
Great advice, Jordan. I have to say, reading whitepapers is also a great way to learn more about writing. Thanks for the mention π
Agreed. It exposes me to a type of writing that is hard to see done well
Excellent points. Aptly put.
Thank you, Kalpak!
Do you do all this on your personal time or part of your workday?
My reading/writing that ends up on the blog is in my free personal time, but I do read papers as part of my job :)
That is a very privileged position to be in, most of us have deliverables and meetings to attend to with all our our working hours, which bleed into our personal time.
Can you expand on finding papers? Once you have a topic, do you just search for keywords in arxiv? Google search? Reddit?
Great question! Iβve written a little bit about my process here (https://www.micahlerner.com/2021/11/28/selecting-papers-to-read.html), but Iβm planning on a follow-up with more details soon. :)
Loved this idea. Just published my first whitepaper summary of "Attention Is All You Need" (though a hopefully simplified, accessible one). Thanks for the advice! Definitely found that it helped me understand it better and left me with lots of new leads for the next one. https://open.substack.com/pub/dannyfranklin/p/research-recap-ok-you-have-my-attention?r=1sjee9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Whoa, that's so cool, Danny!
I love that you took the time to do this and I got a lot of value from reading your summary. You should do more!
Iβm just starting out with system design concepts. Do you think Iβll be able to understand white papers like this?
Good question, Mayur.
For me, I read my first whitepaper as the Bitcoin whitepaper way before any system design concepts. It was challenging but rewarding.
I'd say give it a shot, and if you need to come back to some later, no worries! It gives you something to look forward to later
Thanks Jordan!
Will try reading the Kafka one π
Best of luck! I enjoyed that one
Super interesting read! Thanks, both Jordan and Micah.
I read some papers preparing for my System Design interview in late 2023 but then stopped completely.
I think having a clear process like you described in this post helps with consistency in reading them.
Just out of curiosity, does reading of Cryptocurrency white papers also take trading or investing to another level?
Probably! When I read the Bitcoin whitepaper, it helped me understand what was going on at a more fundamental level
There is a free tool I love when reading papers called research rabbit.
It lets you uppload the paper you're reading and links it to similar ones. It finds the references from your paper and papers that have cited your paper.
It also allows you to find work done by the same authors.
It is very complete.
https://researchrabbitapp.com/home
Can we read whitepapers in dark mode? Or are they necessarily white?
Should a beginner(someone learning to code) read white papers?
Attention is all you need my guy.
I want to read but it is so hard to understand some papers. I am in my first year at university. How can I find basics?
It takes time.
Sometimes a paper takes me weeks because I have to dig into the references to understand the paper.
βHow to read a bookβ by Adler may help here. There are a few reading levels, such as skimming, then analytical, then syntopic.
The idea is to just take your time, read more and more and also βhow to read better and fasterβ by Lewis can help to move through papers and books faster.
Thank you Sir
This is a great idea! Thank you!
Can I ask if youβve tried to use Claude to summarise the white papers? I find if the white papers are only documents could be on a certain length using AI can be effective way to distilled key points? Have you tried anything like that?