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The Craft of Writing a Research Paper

Brian A. Malloy

Computer Science Department

Clemson University

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What is it?

• Craft• Art• Learned skill

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Papers as patterns

• Learn the pattern• Stay within the pattern• Stray outside the pattern:

– Prospectus

– Documentation

• In this talk, I describe a pattern for a research paper

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Outline

• What is research

• Where to send

• How to organize a paper

• Sections of a paper

• Figures & tables

• Ingredients of powerful writing

• Ingredients of lucid writing

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Sources

• Reviewers

• Colleagues

• “Bugs in Writing” by Lyn Dupre

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What is research?

• Identify a problem

• Find out what others have done

• Develop a solution

• Show your solution: – Works– Better– Sound & complete

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Suggested organization of a research paper

• Intro/motivation

• Background

• Overview of my solution

• My solution

• Results

• Related work

• Concluding remarks

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Comparison ofwhat is research? & organization

• identify a problem• find out what others

have done• develop a solution• show your solution

works/better/sound

• intro/motivation• background• overview of my

solution• my solution• results• related work• concluding remarks

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Where to send?

• ConferenceConference:

• Workshop

• JournalJournal

• TRTR

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Where to send?

• ConferenceConference: – 3 kinds

• accept “everything?”

• IEEE (less than 50% accept rate)

• Less than 20% accept

– Quick

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Where to send?

• JournalJournal– archival

– respectable

– experience

– magazine

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Where to send?

• Workshop– PASTE

– IWPC

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Where to send?

• TRTR– Not refereedNot refereed

– Large as you likeLarge as you like

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Where to send?

• ConferenceConference:– 3 kinds

• Accept “everything?”

• IEEE (accept less than 50%)

• Accept less than 20%

– Quick

• Workshop– PASTE

– IWPC

– ICSE Workshops

• JournalJournal– Archival

– Respectable

– Experience

– Magazine

• TR TR – Not refereedNot refereed

– Large as you likeLarge as you like

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The sections of a research paper

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Introduction: 4 parts

• Set the scene & motivate

• High level view of what others have done and why it’s inadequate

• In this paper…

• In the next section …

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Background vs related work

• BackgroundBackground is a review of information the reader will need to understand your paper

• Related workRelated work is what other researchers have done

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Overview of “my solution”

• A high level viewhigh level view of the system – works best w/ a figure!

• Show how the “bits & pieces” fit together

• Can highlight the advantages of your approach

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System overview for ISSRE’03

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System overview for ASE’02

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Describing my approach

• Most important thing to remember: You know it, they don’t!

• Write as if you’re writing to your grandmother!

• Every new word s/b italicized and followed by a definition

• Picture is worth 1000 words

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Results

• Experiment

• Results

• Case study

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Results

• Describe the platform, processor, OS, language, compiler, compiler optimizations

• Describe the test suite, which s/b legit! You can’t just make up the test programs!!

• Use tables: describe each row & column

• Sometimes a graph is better than a table

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“A picture is worth…”

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Impact of Results

• How many times did you perform each experiment?

• Validity of results– Any weaknesses of the test suite– Anything “hokey” about the approach

• Threats to generalize– Can you really generalize: why/why not– Is it automatableautomatable or automatedautomated?!

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Most important!

• Do not claim more than you did

• Do not generalize from one study or result

• Do not claim that because it worked well on a few test cases that it will work well on all test cases, all platforms and for all inputs!

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Figures

• Cannot simply “drop” them into paper (see Figure 3) • Writers are immersed in the subject -- readers are not!!• When referring to a specific Figure/Section/Table, use upper

case, otherwise use lower case: – The overview in The overview in FFigure 3 is better than the other igure 3 is better than the other ffiguresigures.

• Should describe each item in a figure: “The icon in the upper left corner of the figure represents…”

• Should motivate the figure: “This figure provides an overview of our system, including input …”

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Figures (cont)

• If they contain code, number each line• Refer to specific lines, or sets of lines, in

the text• s/b either pseudo-code, or language specific

(tell them what the language is!)• All elements of figure/graph s/b marked

(key or legend)• Each figure should have a tagtag and a captioncaption

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Tag & caption

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More powerful writingMore powerful writing

Use active voice & present tense!

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YouYou & your readerreader

• Must remember that you’re familiar with the work & the reader is notnot!

• Every term must be defined at its first use: highlight the definition with italics

UGLY: The careful reader may consult the dragon book for an explanation of control flow graphs (see [1]). We use CFG’s to compute…

GOOD: A control flow graph, CFG, is a graph whose nodes represent basic blocks and whose edges represent the flow of information into and out of the basic blocks.

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Engage the reader

• Writing has changed in the last 10 or 20 years:

UGLY: The careful reader will learn the figure without any explanation on the part of this author!

UGLY: The reader will observe a novel algorithm if she …

GOOD: We suggest here a novel algorithm for computing data flow information on a control flow graph, CFG.

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YouYou & your reader reader (cont)

• RULE: Speak directly to the reader

• If single author: I or weI or we

• Coauthors: wewe

• The reader: youyou

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YouYou & your reader reader (cont)

UGLY: In this discussion, it is assumed that it is possible to get a closed form for at least one of the equations.

GOOD: We assume that we can compute a closed form for at least one of the equations.

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Avoid passive voice!

• Can only say that an event took place: without admitting who or what did it!

UGLY: The data sets were lost. The data sets were lost by the first author.

UGLY: The first algorithm fails to compute the result in a timely manner because a solution to the traveling salesman problem is required.

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Use active voice

• Take responsibility for your work!

GOOD: We lost the data sets.

GOOD: Our first algorithm is too slow because the computation requires a solution to the traveling salesman problem.

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passive voice is vague

BAD: By removing an item from the list during each iteration, it is guaranteed that the loop will terminate.

The first part of the sentence suggests that you willreveal who or what is removing.

To what does “it”it” refer?

GOOD: We remove an item from the list during each iteration of the loop; thus, the loop is guaranteed to terminate.

GOOD: In the algorithm of Figure 3, we remove …

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Active voice is stronger & clearer

UGLY: In a queue, insertions are performed at the rear and deletions are performed at the front; therefore a pointer to the front and the rear must be maintained.

GOOD: We use a queue, a structure that permits insertions at the rear and deletions from the front. We maintain a pointer to the front and rear of the structure.

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Use present tense

• Present tense is stronger than future tense

WEAK: In this paper, we will show…

STRONG: In this paper, we show that …

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Use present tense

• Past tense degrades into “diary writing”“diary writing”

BAD: In this work we wanted to …

GOOD: The goals of our work are to …

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Don’t change tense

BAD: In this chapter, we have described what happens when we do the wrong thing. We examined the behavior and determine that they are correct.

BAD: The analysis reported in the preceding section will show that Nick can differentiate shod from shoddy.

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More lucid writingMore lucid writing

Consistency, Symmetry

& Correctness!

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You MUST read each of your sentences for:

• Content/meaning

• Structure

• Style

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Be consistent: call a spade a spade!

• Can’t change terminology, even for a good reason, w/out explanation

remote proxy vs proxydata structure vs structure

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Use symmetry when structuring sentences, paragraphs & sections

In this section, we review background information aboutprogram representations and computation of data flow information using the program representations.

To compute data flow information …

We describe both a stack and a queue: a queue is a FIFOstructure and a stack is a LIFO structure.

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Which vs that

• that identifies the object about which you are speaking

• which provides further info about the object

GOOD: The car that is speeding down the road is about to crash into a pole.

GOOD: The car, which is speeding down the road, is about to crash into a pole.

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Avoid fuzzyfuzzy words

• very, easily, actually, truly, in fact, some, thing

• etc.

BAD: In comparing our algorithm with the algorithm described in reference 17, we see that ours is very fast.

BAD: In this section, we define the terms node, tree, graph, etc.

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Semicolon

• Connects two sentences that are closely related to each other

• Use a semicolon when what follows constitutes a complete sentence

• When what follows is a fragment, you must use a comma or an em dash

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Semicolon

CAREFUL: Max’s head was throbbing; Lyn’s heart was sinking.

The semicolon implies that there is a connection between Max’shead throb and Lyn’s sinking heart!!

BAD: Holly wanted to live on a farm with plenty of chickens; and to have a stellar career as well.

GOOD: This machine is difficult to use; for example, it crashes whenever you turn it on.

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Commas

• Commas provide guidance to your reader about how to parse your sentence!

• Place them wherever a speaker should pause

UGLY: Greg was worried; however he remained calm.

GOOD: Brendan was hungry; however, he remained calm.

OKAY: Lyn and Richard were still puzzled, howevermany times they reread the directions for assembling thestepper climber; however, they remained calm.

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Colon• The colon signifies that what follows it expands on or

explains what precedes it: this sentence is an example.

• Frequently a period or an em dash will also work

• Use at the end of a sentence, followed by a list

Lyn could tell that Red had been out hunting again: Therewere three mice neatly laid out on the upstairs rug.

GOOD: This talk does not assume that you know the basics: how to form a sentence, how to use words and how to laugh at your mistakes.

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Summary

• Every claim must be explained and substantiated • Everything that you state is a claim• Any decent reviewer will assume that “if you

don’t state it, you didn’t do it and you can’t handle it!”

• Get a “reader” to read your paper• Writing a well-written paper is a lot of work!