How to read technical papers in computer science?



From: http://www.cs.iit.edu/~winet/contact.html

How to read technical papers in computer science?
When you read articles or reports, keep the following in mind
  • What is the main contribution of the paper?
  • Is this important, why?
  • Is this a theoretical contribution to some fundamental problems in CS, or a protocol-like contribution, or both?
  • What was the main insight in getting the result?
  • What is not clear to you?
  • What did the authors not do, and you regard important?
  • What are the most important assumptions, are they limiting?
  • What are the possible applications suggested in the paper?
  • How does this relate to other things we have seen?
  • What extensions does this suggest?
  • Can you suggest some project idea based around the ideas in this paper