Take the 2-minute tour ×  For studying advanced topics, what's
the better and nearer to complete approach? Can books cover
what's in research papers, journals or those ACM transactions,
or Springer's LNCS? Or reading research papers is indispensable
for getting advanced? If we can't depend on books for
information, how can a learner know of what he is missing in a
specific topic, since research papers cover a specific (very
specific) topic which cannot be found in a collected manner of
the whole topic as books do. Is there a place (may be wikipedia)
which could help finding the way through a topic? Rephrasing my
question, do research papers offer new information which may not
be found in books or are they clever applications of the
information found in books?  share|improve this question add
comment  5 Answers  Most research is going to be dependent on
other research, but should offer something more or at least help
in confirming an existing belief. I would expect to learn
something new that wouldn't be found