How to write papers, part 2 process of writing

How to Write Research Papers Part 2 – The Process of Writing Xiao Qin Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering Auburn University http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~xqin [email_address] These slides are adapted from notes by Simon Peyton Jones (Microsoft Research, Cambridge)

The process
Start early. Very early.
Hastily-written papers get rejected.
Papers are like wine: they need time to mature
Collaborate
Use CVS to support collaboration

Getting help
Experts are good
Non-experts are also very good
Each reader can only read your paper for the first time once! So use them carefully
Explain carefully what you want (“I got lost here” is much more important than “Jarva is mis-spelt”.)
Get your paper read by as many friendly guinea pigs as possible

Getting expert help
A good plan: when you think you are done, send the draft to the competition saying “could you help me ensure that I describe your work fairly?”.
Often they will respond with helpful critique (they are interested in the area)
They are likely to be your referees anyway, so getting their comments or criticism up front is Jolly Good.

Listening to your reviewers
This is really, really, really hard
But it’s really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really important
Treat every review like gold dust Be (truly) grateful for criticism as well as praise

Listening to your reviewers
Read every criticism as a positive suggestion for something you could explain more clearly
DO NOT respond “you stupid person, I meant X”. Fix the paper so that X is apparent even to the stupidest reader.
Thank them warmly. They have given up their time for you.

Language and style These slides are adapted from notes by Simon Peyton Jones (Microsoft Research, Cambridge) Xiao Qin Auburn University http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~xqin [email_address]

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

Visual structure
Give strong visual structure to your paper using
sections and sub-sections
bullets
italics
laid-out code
Find out how to draw pictures, and use them

Visual structure

Use the active voice The passive voice is “respectable” but it DEADENS your paper. Avoid it at all costs. “ We” = you and the reader “ We” = the authors “ You” = the reader NO YES It can be seen that... We can see that... 34 tests were run We ran 34 tests These properties were thought desirable We wanted to retain these properties It might be thought that this would be a type error You might think this would be a type error

Use simple, direct language NO YES The object under study was displaced horizontally The ball moved sideways On an annual basis Yearly Endeavour to ascertain Find out It could be considered that the speed of storage reclamation left something to be desired The garbage collector was really slow

Summary
If you remember nothing else:
Identify your key idea
Make your contributions explicit
Use examples
A good starting point:
“ Advice on Research and Writing”
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/ mleone/web/how-to.html

How to Write Papers Dr. Xiao Qin Auburn University http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~xqin [email_address] These slides are adapted from notes by Dr. Nitin Vaidya (UIUC)

How to write a paper
When you have truly exceptional results.
Probably doesn’t matter how you write, people will read it anyway
Most papers are not that exceptional
Good writing makes significant difference
Better to say little clearly, than saying too much unclearly

Readability
If the paper is not readable, author has not given writing sufficient thought
Two kinds of referees
If I cannot understand the paper, it is the writer’s fault
If I cannot understand the paper, I cannot reject it
Don’t take chances. Write the paper well.
Badly written papers typically do not get read

Do not irritate the reader
No one is impressed anymore by Greek symbols
Define notation before use
If you use much notation, make it easy to find
summarize most notation in one place

Do not irritate the reader
Avoid Using Too Many Acronyms
AUTMA ?!
To save space?
Guarantee Ratio or GR
You may know the acronyms well. Do not assume that the reader does (or cares to)

How to write a theory paper
Unreadability is not the same as formalism
Reader should be able to understand contributions without reading all details
If some proofs are not too important, relegate them to an appendix
Proofs are not as worthy as new proof techniques

How to write a theory paper
If some proofs are not too important, relegate them to an appendix
[Ref] Response time analysis of parallel computer and storage systems-IEEE TPDS2001 Before references

How to write a systems paper
Provide sufficient information to allow people to reproduce your results
people may want to reproduce exciting results
do not assume this won’t happen to your paper
besides, referees expect the information
Do not provide wrong information
Sometimes hard to provide all details in available space
may be forced to omit some information
judge what is most essential to the experiments
cite a tech report for more information
Provide source code

Discuss related work
Explain how your work relates to state of the art
Summarize pros and cons of existing approaches
Discuss relevant past work by other people too
Remember, they may be reviewing your paper.
Avoid: The scheme presented by Qin performs terribly
Prefer: The scheme by Qin does not perform as well in scenario X as it does in scenario Y
Avoid offending people, unless you must

Tell them your shortcomings
If your ideas do not work well in some interesting scenarios,
Tell readers
Explain why the ideas do not work well
May point out how to improve
People appreciate a balanced presentation

How to write weak results
If results are not that great, come up with better ones
Do not hide weak results behind bad writing
Be sure to explain why results are weaker than you expected
If you must publish: write well, but may have to go to second-best conference
Only a few conferences in any area are worth publishing in
Too many papers in poor conferences bad for your reputation
Just because a conference is “IEEE” or “ACM” or “International” does not mean it is any good
If results not good enough for a decent conference, rethink your problem/solution

Miscellaneous
Read some well-written papers
award-winning papers from conferences
organization
Avoid long sentences
If you have nothing to say, say nothing
don’t feel obliged to fill up space with useless text
if you must fill all available space, use more line spacing, greater margins, bigger font, bigger figures

Technical reports
Useful to get early feedback from other researchers
Puts a timestamp on your work
Can include more information / results than might fit in a paper

Download the slides from
A good starting point:
“ Advice on Research and Writing”
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/ mleone/web/how-to.html http://www.slideshare.net/xqin74/how-to-write-papers-part-1-principles

http://www.slideshare.net/xqin74 Google: slideshare Xiao Qin

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