robot-sex-guy:

man I rly worry þat impressionable undergrads/early masters students are gonna see One Particular Post on here and end up w a bunch of bad and unhelpful ideas on þis topic so I’m just gonna say:

• you aren’t supposed to be able to understand a paper in one reading. þats not how þey work.
• reading difficult technical material is a skill, and u don’t get any practice at it before university most of þe time. work on it.
• some papers are badly written. most published papers aren’t. if your prof is asking you to read it, it probably isn’t.
• it’s ok to get frustrated over not understanding a paper. give yourself time, go þrough it slowly, take a break when you need to, refer to a textbook when you’re missing some knowledge. it gets easier þe more you do it.