My reading strategy depends on the paper.
Perhaps there isn't a one-stop solution to reading papers. I don't think it's necessarily a good thing to limit oneself to a specific ritual or method, in this case for reading papers. Rather, it is better to be cognizant of the different strategies employed to really understand a paper to be used in the optimal way.
I pay attention to acknowledgement of limitations and proper inference of data.
An important thing to consider. Scientists are human, and sometimes they just want to be right. It's hard to remain objective at times and not conduct a biased experiment.
Then, I read the conclusion/summary. Only when I have done that will I go back into the technical details to clarify any questions I might have.
In my research endeavors, I have often found that the abstract, introductions, and conclusions are the most informative parts. I related to this very much.
And sometimes we're attempting to sound like good scientists by copying the tone of every article we've read. And sometimes we're just writing badly.
The precedent of an established genre. Sometimes, just because something is a genre, doesn't mean it is necessarily a good one. But with academic papers, sometimes its hard to tell when one is written badly.
Yup, yuppers, yup-a-roo, readin' words is what you do. Let's just point those pupils at the dried ink on the page, and …
Oh my goodness it's that Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George try to sit down and write an episode for their new sitcom
I knew I had read the paper. The instructor would ask a question; I'd have no idea what she was asking.
Similar to some of my physics textbooks and being called on in class...