[edit] I'm supposing that, by read most effectively, you mean read better, understanding more deeply the paper content and make this more accessible for future utilization. In the following I'll describe the whole process that I do when I read a paper. This works for me and, I think, this might be helpful for you.Use some software to organize your bibliography.u00a0 I use Mendeley Desktop (Free reference manager and PDF organizer) to synchronize the whole material between my computers and categorize them by author. Mendeley also permit that you highlight and annotate the text. Reading the paper for the first time, I use highlight to mark what I suppose that is important.If I found some useful bibliography, I follow the reference and make a dynamical reading (quick, just to pickup the general idea that complete the first paper).In a second reading, I take notes with using Mendeley's feature. In these, I summarize what I highlighted in the first reading. Also, I try make questions about the text.One day after reading the paper, I create a notebook on Evernote (The workspace for your lifeu2019s work),u00a0 just writing what's in my mind, without go back to the text. Go back to the paper and answer the questions that you asked to yourself. If I can't find an answer, I ask here, on Quora, I send a mail to the author or I ask to some professor here at UFRGS.