The second pass should take up to an hour. After this
pass, you should be able to grasp the content of the paper.
You should be able to summarize the main thrust of the pa-
per, with supporting evidence, to someone else. This level of
detail is appropriate for a paper in which you are interested,
but does not lie in your research speciality.
Sometimes you won’t understand a paper even at the end
of the second pass. This may be because the subject matter
is new to you, with unfamiliar terminology and acronyms.
Or the authors may use a proof or experimental technique
that you don’t understand, so that the bulk of the pa-
per is incomprehensible. The paper may be poorly written
with unsubstantiated assertions and numerous forward ref-
erences. Or it could just be that it’s late at night and you’re
tired. You can now choose to: (a) set the paper aside, hoping
you don’t need to understand the material to be successful
in your career, (b) return to the paper later, perhaps after
reading background material or (c) persevere and go on to
the third pass.