2. What is Research Paper?
“Research Paper” refers to a particular genre of
academic writing, in which the writer’s own
interpretation, evaluation, or argument on a specific
issue is given prominence
A research paper involves surveying a field of
knowledge in order to find the best possible
information in that field
Such information is then utilized to present a
competent argument on a topic
Hence a research paper requires a presentation of your
own thinking backed up by others’ ideas and
information
3. What is Research Paper?
In short, a research paper is:
focused on a specific issue/problem
a presentation of facts that are based upon
extensive reading and extraction of information
from several sources
original in selection of literature, evaluation,
expression and conclusion
4. What is in a Research Paper?
When writing a research paper, you are
expected to
identify and briefly describe the works you have
consulted
analyze and interpret relevant literature
frame the literature as evidence to support your
argument
make conclusions
5. Types of Research Papers
Journal papers
Often many pages (20 - 30)
Surveys or deeper paper
Conference and workshop papers
Full papers (around 10 pages)
Short papers (around 5 pages)
Poster sessions
Technical reports
Published at a university/company, not reviewed
Magazines
e.g. IEEE Computer
6. A Skeleton Paper
Title, author(s) and
affiliations
[Contents, list of tables, list
of figures]
Abstract
[Index terms/Topic
keywords]
Introduction
o Background information
o Problem definition
o Summary of
contributions
Related work
Method
Results
Summary and conclusions
[Acknowledgements]
References
Appendix
[Index]
7. The Title
Must be informative, clear, and meaningful
Don’t use symbols in titles
All nouns are capitalized in the title
The title is centered on the page
Your names and date appear below the title
-Phrases to avoid: Investigation, Study, Novel,
Facile etc.
- Avoid Acronyms that are known only to specialized
community
8. The Abstract
Summarizes problem, result, and uses
Between 100–250 words
Avoid references and acronyms
First couple of sentences should focus on what the
study is about
Include major findings in a style that a general
readership can read and understand (i.e., avoid
detailed experimental procedures and data.)
Keep it short and effective
9. Index Terms
Used to classify the paper
ACM have a special thesaurus for topic keywords
Examples from the multimedia field
Communications/Networking/VOD – Servers – Interactive TV
– WWW/Hypermedia – Operating Systems – End Workstation
Hardware – Compression/Decompression/Analysis –
Applications – Information Retrieval – Databases –
Programming Paradigms – Media Integration/Synchronization
– Collaboration Environments – Logical/Conceptual
Manipulation of Video
10. Introduction
Explains the background/significance of the paper
The opening paragraph should be the best paragraph
The opening sentence should be the best sentence
Bad: An important method for internal sorting is quicksort
Good: Quicksort is an important method for internal sorting,
because . . .
Start the section with a general background of the topic
Add 2-3 paragraphs that discuss previous work
Point out issues that are being addressed in the present
work
Ended by a summary of the organization of the paper
11. Background Information
A short introduction to the area
Example: “A Brief Review of LR-Parsing”
Cite references for more details
12. Problem Definition
A concise statement of the problem you are solving
Why it is useful to solve the problem?
If your problem is “develop an X algorithm capable
of handling very large Y problems in reasonable
time”
Explain “large problems” and “reasonable time”
Then show that other algorithms fail
Justify when a solution to this problem is useful
13. Summary of Contributions
What was investigated/built and what you found out
Don’t make forward references to technical section
You’re writing a scientific paper, so
Opinions must be backed up by arguments or references,
otherwise they should be removed
Facts must be verifiable by the reader
Be humble—don’t use superlatives
Bad: This is a great algorithm
Good: We believe this algorithm is useful for the following
reasons
14. Related Work
Identify all relevant related work (with references)
even if it’s old or doesn’t solve exactly the same
problem
References must be locatable so don’t use “personal
communication”
Compare your work with previous work. You must
convince the reader that your work is original
Examples and measurements are great for this
Clearly separate your results from their results
Don’t be condescending about other people’s work
15. Method
Divide this section into Materials & Methods,
Characterization,
How you did it
Tests, procedures, methods, experiments,
processes, equipment, data structures,
algorithms, etc.
Proofs for algorithms
Termination
Correctness (soundness, completeness)
16. Results
Describe the results in detail and include a healthy, detailed
discussion
The order of figures should follow the discussion themes and
not the sequence they were conducted
Discuss how your data compare or contrast with previous
results
Include schemes, photographs to enhance the scope of
discussion
Avoid Excessive presentation of data/results without any
discussion
Avoid Citing every argument with a published work
17. Summary and Conclusion
Interpretation of your work: pros & cons
Limitations of your solution
Suggestions for “Future Work”
Rejected alternatives
Experiences
Don’t just re-word the abstract
Statements with “Investigated” or “Studied”
are not conclusions!
18. Acknowledgements
Remember to thank the funding agency and
Colleagues/scientists/technicians who might
have provided assistance
Typically mention grants
19. References
Make sure all references are referenced
Some common reference formats are
Turing stated the following theorem [12] . . .
. . . as shown by Ullman [Ull87].
What goes in the reference depends on the type of publication
Books: author, title, publisher, ISBN, year
Journal: author, title, journal, volume, month, pages
Report: author, title, source, year
On the next page you see the reference list of an article by Debray
[DW88], a technical report and a proceeding paper by Warren [War83,
War86], and a book by Lloyd [Llo84].
20. References
[DW88] Saumya K. Debray and David S. Warren.
Automatic Mode Inference for Logic Programs. The
Journal of Logic Programming, 5:207–229, 1988.
[Llo84] J.W. Lloyd. Foundations of Logic Programming.
Springer-Verlag, 1984.
[War83] D.H.D. Warren. An Abstract Prolog Instruction
Set. Technical Report Tech. Note 309, SRI
International, Menlo Park, CA, 1983.
[War86] D.H.D. Warren. Optimizing Tail Recursion in
Prolog. In Logic Programming and its Applications,
pages 77–90. Ablex Publishing, N.J., 1986.
21. HOW TO WRITE AN EFFECTIVE
RESEARCH PAPER
Getting ready with data
First draft
Submission
Revision and galley proof
22. Getting ready with data
Gather all important data, analyses, plots and tables
Organize results so that they follow a logical sequence (this
may or may not be in the order of experiments conducted)
Consolidate data plots and create figures for the manuscript
(Limit the number of total figures (6-8 is usually a good
number).
Include additional data, multimedia in the Supporting
Information.)
Discuss the data with your advisor and note down important
points
23. First draft
Identify two or three important findings
emerging from the experiments. Make them
the central theme of the article
Note good and bad writing styles in the
literature. Some are simple and easy to follow,
some are just too complex
Note the readership of the journal that you are
considering to publish your work. Prepare
figures, schemes and tables in a professional
manner
24. Selecting a journal
Each journal specializes in a specific area of research. Hence
its readership varies. A proper choice of journal can make a
larger impact of your research.
Get to know the focus and readership of the journal that you
are considering. - general vs. specialized area journal
Select 2 or 3 journals in the chosen area with relatively high
impact factors. Discuss with your advisor and decide on the
journal
Find out the journal’s submission criteria and format
Tip: Does your references cite journals in the appropriate
area?
25. What to do if a paper gets
rejected……
Do not get discouraged. Read editorial comments and discuss with
advisor/students/collaborators. Find out how you can make this study
stronger and acceptable for publication
Do not just turn around and submit the paper to another journal
Read carefully the comments and find ways to improve the scientific
quality of the papers
Carry out additional experiments and improve the quality of
scientific discussions. (Journals often look for papers with
quantitative and mechanistic information that represent new physical
insights )
Rejected papers can be resubmitted if and only the concerns of the
reviewers are adequately addressed and new results are included
If you have questions, please feel free to contact the editorial office.
26. Ten characteristics of an
incredibly dull paper
1. Avoid Focus
2. Avoid originality and personality
3. Make the article really really long
4. Do not indicate any potential implications
5. Leave out illustrations (…too much effort to draw a sensible
drawing)
6. Omit necessary steps of reasoning
7. Use abbreviations and technical terms that only specialists in
the field can understand
8. Make it sound too serious with no significant discussion
9. Focus only on statistics
10.Support every statement with a reference