how to write a research paper (technical writing cs212)

7/30/2019 How to write a Research Paper (Technical Writing CS212)

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Writing papers: model 2

Idea Do research Write paper

Forces us to be clear, focused

Crystallises what we dont understand Opens the way to dialogue with others:

reality check, critique, and collaboration

Writing papers: model 1

Idea Write paper Do research

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Do not be intimidated

You need to have a fantastic ideabefore you can write a paper. Write a paper, and give a talk,about any idea, no matter howweedy and insignificant it may seemto you Writing the paper is how you

develop the idea in the first placeIt usually turns out to be moreinteresting and challenging that itseemed at first


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Papers communicate ideas

Your goal: to influence the mind of yourreader with your idea

The greatest ideas are (literally) worthlessif you keep them to yourself

Papers are far more durable thanprograms

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The Idea

Figure out what your idea is

Make certain that the reader is in no doubt whatthe idea is.

Be 100% explicit:

The main idea of this paper is....

In this section we present the main contributions of thepaper.

Many papers contain good ideas, but do not distilwhat they are.


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One ping

Your paper should have just one main idea: oneclear, sharp idea

Read your paper again: can you hear the mainidea?

You may not know exactly what the idea is whenyou start writing; but you must know when youfinish

If you have lots of ideas, write lots of papers

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Your narrative flow

Here is a problem

Its an interesting problem

Its an unsolved problem

Here is my idea

My idea works (details, data)

Heres how my idea compares to otherpeoples approaches


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Structure

Title

Abstract

Introduction

The problem

My idea

The details

Related work

Conclusions and further work

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The abstract

Write the abstract last

Four sentences

1. State the problem

2. Say why its an interesting problem

3. Say what your solution achieves

4. Say what follows from your solution


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Example

1. Many papers are badly written and hardto understand

2. This is a pity, because their good ideasmay go unappreciated

3. Following simple guidelines candramatically improve the quality of yourpapers

4. Your work will be used more, and thefeedback you get from others will in turnimprove your research

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The introduction

1. Describe the problem

2. State your contributions


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Describe the problem

Use anexample

tointroduc

e theproblem

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State your contributions

Write the list of contributions first

The list of contributions drives the entirepaper:

the paper substantiates the claims you havemade

Reader may feel your contribution havinga positive effect


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Contributions should be refutable

NO! YES!

We describe the WizWozsystem. It is really cool.

We give the syntax and semantics of alanguage that supports concurrent

processes (Section 3). Its innovativefeatures are...

We study its properties We prove that the type system is sound,and that type checking is decidable

(Section 4)

We have used WizWoz inpractice

We have built a GUI toolkit in WizWoz,and used it to implement a text editor

(Section 5). The result is half the lengthof the Java version.

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No rest of this paper is...

Not:

Instead, use forward references fromthe narrative in the introduction.The introduction (including the

contributions) should survey the wholepaper, and therefore forward referenceevery important part.

The rest of this paper is structured asfollows. Section 2 introduces theproblem. Section 3 ... Finally, Section 8concludes.


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No related work yet

Problem 1: the reader knows nothingabout the problem yet; so your(carefully trimmed) description ofvarious technical tradeoffs isabsolutely incomprehensible

Problem 2: describing alternativeapproaches gets between the readerand your idea

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Presenting the idea3. The idea

Consider a bifircuated semi-lattice D, overa hyper-modulated signature S. Supposepi is an element of D. Then we know forevery such pi there is an epi-modulus j,such that pj < pi.

Sounds impressive...but sends readers

to sleep In a paper you MUST provide the

details, but FIRST convey the idea


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Presenting the idea

Explain it as if you were speaking tosomeone using a whiteboard

Conveying the intuition is primary, notsecondary

Once your reader has the intuition, he/shecan follow the details (but not vice versa)

Even if he/she skips the details, she stilltakes away something valuable

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Putting the reader first

Do not recapitulate your personal journey ofdiscovery.

This route may be soaked with your blood, butthat is not interesting to the reader.

Instead, choose the most direct route to theidea.

Introduce the problem, and your idea, usingEXAMPLES and only then present the generalcase


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The details: evidence

Your introduction makes claims

The body of the paper provides evidence tosupport each claim

Check each claim in the introduction, identify theevidence, and forward-reference it from theclaim

Evidence can be: analysis and comparison,theorems, measurements, case studies

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The truth: credit is not like money

To make my work look good, DONT MAKEother peoples work look bad

Warmly acknowledge people who havehelped you

Be generous to the competition. In hisinspiring paper [Foo98] Foogle shows....

We develop his foundation in the followingways...


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Credit is not like money

Giving credit to others does not diminish thecredit you get from your paper

Failing to give credit to others can kill yourpaper

If you imply that an idea is yours, and thereferee knows it is not, then either

You dont know that its an old idea (bad)

You do know, but are pretending its yours(very bad)

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The process

Start early. Very early.

Hastily-written papers get rejected.

Papers need time to mature


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Getting help

Get your paper read by as many friendlyas possible

Experts are good

Non-experts are also very good

Each reader can only read your paper forthe first time once! So use them carefully

Explain carefully what you want (I got lost

here is much more important than Jarvais mis-spelt.)

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Getting expert help

A good plan: when you think you aredone, send the draft to the competitionsaying could you help me ensure that Idescribe your work fairly?.

Often they will respond with helpfulcritique (they are interested in the area)

They are likely to be your refereesanyway, so getting their comments orcriticism up front is good.


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Listening to your reviewers

Treat every review like gold dust

Be (truly) grateful for criticism as well as praise

Read every criticism as a positive suggestionfor something you could explain more clearly

DO NOT respond you stupid person, I meantX. Fix the paper so that X is apparent even tothe stupidest reader.

Thank them warmly. They have given up theirtime for you.

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Basic stuff

Submit by the deadline

Keep to the length restrictions

Do not narrow the margins

Do not use 6pt font

On occasion, supply supporting evidence(e.g. experimental data, or a written-out proof)

in an appendix

Always use a spell checker


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Use the active voice

NO YESIt can be seen that... We can see that...

34 tests were run We ran 34 tests

These properties were thoughtdesirable

We wanted to retain theseproperties

It might be thought that this wouldbe a type error You might think this would be a typeerror

The passive voice is respectable but it DEADENSyour paper. Avoid it at all costs.

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Use simple, direct language

NO YES

The object under study was

displaced horizontallyThe ball moved sideways

On an annual basis Yearly

Endeavour to ascertain Find out

It could be considered that the

speed of storage reclamation leftsomething to be desired

The garbage collector was reallyslow


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Reference

Simon Peyton Jones Microsoft Research,How to write a great research paper,Cambridge,pttp://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~silvia/research-tips/Writing%20a%20paper.pdf

Abdisalam Issa-Salwe, lecture notes,Taibah University.

how to write a research paper (technical writing cs212)

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