1.
Miguel Pardal
September 20th, 2018

2.
LEIC 2000
Unisys Portugal
Lecturer at Técnico since 2002
MEIC 2006
Visiting Student at MIT in 2009
DEIC 2014
Visiting Scholar at TUM in 2017
First publication in 2004
Since then, about 40 more
http://web.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/miguel.pardal

3.
Share experience
Provide tools
Learn from you
Best thing about being a teacher 

4.
What is research
Finding related work
Proposing solutions and evaluating them
Writing technical papers

5.
What is the problem being solved?
What are the solution requirements?
What is the related work?
Solutions that others have proposed
What will be done?
Technical challenges
How will the results be evaluated?

6.
“XPTO is better than XPTY!”
How do you know that?
From your own work
Experimental results
Statistically valid
From the work of others
Citations of good sources

7.
How to name the authors in text
One: Smith
Two: Smith and Williams
Three or more: Smith et al.
Presenting a new system/result
“Smith et al. [22] proposed a new system to…”
Supporting a statement
“System XPTO was evaluated as the fastest [22]”

8.
Our research is only possible because of
the work of others before us
Actual People, Labs, Universities
“If I have seen further than others, it is by
standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
– Isaac Newton

9.
From the start,
keep a reference repository
Save the PDF
Identify each paper
Author name, year

10.
http://www.jabref.org/

11.
Technical report
Workshop paper
Conference paper
Book chapter
Journal article
Book

12.
IEEExplore:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org
ACM:
http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm
AAAI:
http://www.aaai.org/Library/library.php
DBLP:
http://dblp.uni-trier.de/

13.
Google Scholar:
http://scholar.google.com/
ResearchGate
Academia.edu

14.
Title
Abstract
Introduction
Figures
Conclusion
References
Read related work

15.
Choose top sources
ACM
IEEE
Usenix
Start with most recent papers
They will cite other relevant works
Go to “where” the research community meets
Your advisor knows – ask her/him!

16.
Good conference ?
Check conference rankings
CORE
Accept rate < 20%
Only 1 in 5 submitted papers gets accepted
Good journal ?
Check journal rankings (Q1 are the best)
Scimago
Impact factor: average number of citations to
recent articles published in the journal

17.
http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks/

18.
http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php

19.
https://www.iannotate.com/

20.
Write a short summary of paper
Should fit in an index card
https://www.onenote.com/
https://evernote.com

21.
Tables are great for comparing things
Start with columns from existing table, or
think of your own
Add more columns if you need
Empty cells show what you don’t know yet
System Initial Release Latest Version …
Windows
[Gates83]
1983 10.0
Mac [Jobs84] 1984 10.11 (El Capitan)
Linux [Torvalds91] 1991

22.
Contribution
What are the major issues addressed?
What are the contributions as stated by authors?
Strengths & Weaknesses
Points of interest
System characteristics, assumptions
Scenarios or examples
Evaluation data sets
Comparison
Are these important and relevant for our work?
How do we distinguish from them?

23.
Move 1 – Establish the “territory”
Move 2 – Establish the niche
Move 3 – Occupy the niche
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Swalesian-Introduction

24.
A model is a simplification/abstraction of
a complex object
To show relevant characteristics
Easier to manipulate than the actual object
Represent:
Structure
Behavior

25.
Class Diagram

26.
Sequence Diagram

27.
Asking questions
Finding answers
Checking if answers are good enough

28.
Qualitative
Looks at requirements
Satisfied
Partially satisfied
Unsatisfied
Quantitative
Metrics
Key performance indicators

29.
How long, on average, does the system
take to respond to requests?
How many simultaneous users can the
system hold without degrading
performance levels?
…

30.
The work is almost complete
Is writing worth it?
YES
To write is to express thoughts into words
So that others may learn
Your own learning is not complete without the
“distillation process” that comes with writing

31.
Use the most common science language,
so that your work may reach the widest
audience
English
What about Portuguese and other languages?
Still important for scientific divulgation

32.
Introduction
Problem and Contributions
Proposal
Evaluation
Results and Discussion
Related Work
Conclusion
Contributions and Future Work

33.
Move 1 – Establish the “territory”
Claiming centrality and/or
Making topic generalizations and/or
Reviewing items of previous research
Move 2 – Establish the niche
Counter-claiming or
Indicating a gap or
Question-raising or
Continuing a tradition
Move 3 – Occupy the niche
Outlining purposes or
Announcing present research
Announcing principle findings
Indicating research article structure
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Swalesian-Introduction

34.
3 tells
Say what you will say
Say
Say what you said
Provide guidance and context to the reader

35.
Each “middle” chapter in a dissertation
should have:
Introduction text
Main content sections
Summary section
Highlight most important points to carry forward
Transition to next chapter

36.
Most important ideas first
Should appear in the beginning of the
paragraph
Details and alternatives should appear later

37.
Be direct, to the point
“There are many important systems in computer
history, in particular, regarding remote graphical
systems, one of the first widely used contributions was
the X system [22]”
->
“The X system [22] was the first widely used remote
graphical system”

38.
Use more formal language
Avoid oral contractions
We’re -> we are
Don’t -> do not
Gonna -> going to
Ain’t -> am not
Avoid possessives
Joana’s work
-> The work by Joana
The system’s characteristics
-> The characteristics of the system

39.
Use correct tense
Proposal – future tense – will do
Dissertation – past tense – did
Use the third person
Sometimes first person plural is OK – we

40.
Avoid passive voice
It creates uncertainty about who is the
subject of the phrase
“The system was shown to have good performance”
vs
“We have shown that the system has good
performance”

41.
Avoid informal (colloquial) expressions
“At the end of the day, the best system is …”
“It is a matter of life and death that…”
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat, so a
different approach was attempted…”
“The performance has hit a wall…”

42.
Avoid exaggerations (hyperboles)
"infinite“
Infinity is not a large number
"innumerable“
It means uncountable
“impossible”
It means outside the realm of possibility

43.
Avoid non-rigorous terms
“Ultra”
“Super”
“Critical”
“Elastic”
“Agile”

44.
Avoid possibly rigorous terms used in a
non-rigorous way
“scalable”
It means that the system can sustain a
performance level when the number of users
increases by orders of magnitude (10, 100, 1000)
Not that it supports many users
“real-time“
It means subject to specific time constraints
Not that the system is fast

45.
Avoid quotes
Example: The “advanced” option is …
Conveys imprecision, lack of rigor
Avoid et cetera
Example: The system modules include the
graphical interface, the business logic, etc.
Conveys lack of rigor, again
If you are going to list, list everything
Use categories instead

46.
Process to increase the quality of the writing
Follow sound science practices
Blind review
You will not know who the reviewer is
Double blind review
The reviewer also does not know who you are

47.
Reviews are not always constructive…
Do not get offended by it, the comments are not
about you, they are about your work
You should be the first to know that there is always
something to improve…

48.
English quality
Structure
Literature review
Complete and to the point
Motivation for decisions
Rigor
Avoid misunderstandings
Identify the limitations of your own work
They will be found anyway (sooner or later)
They are future work opportunities

49.
First promising results
Workshop
Ongoing work with evaluation
Conference
Fully developed and
with final innovative findings
Top conference
Journal

50.
Technical report
Workshop paper
Conference paper
Book chapter
Journal article
Book
Increasing
public exposure and
scrutiny

51.
Science is personal and social
People are central
Reading related work
Learn from other authors
Cite them
Compare what they did
Writing about your work
Explain in a concise way
Learn from the reviewers
Share with others

52.
Miguel.Pardal@tecnico.ulisboa.pt
Obrigado
Thank you
“The traveler sees what he sees.
The tourist sees what he has come to see.”
― G.K. Chesterton

53.
IEEE Authorship Series and toolbox:
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/
authors/authors_journals.html
Guide by Miguel and Joana Pardal:
http://web.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/miguel.pardal/www/doc/
quick-guide-research.pdf
Thanks to Miguel P. Correia for the review