When I read most papers, it will be to do what you say. There are many papers which really aren&#x27;t worth spending more than 20 minutes perusing since they just rehash or tweak something which was done previously. Unfortunately with the publish-or-perish mentality predominant in most of academia, I&#x27;d say this is getting far worse and likely to increase. Sometimes I wish there were a &quot;goodreads&quot; or &quot;netflix&quot; for scientists.<p>Now, a good paper I will read and grok the main importance in a few hours to the point I can implement the basics. But, a classic paper will be like a well-thumbed classic and might take years to fully grasp.