The document provides information about research writing. It discusses that everyone can be considered a researcher through everyday activities like using social media or traveling. Research is defined as a careful, diligent search to establish new facts or reach conclusions. The constituents of research are outlined as defining problems, formulating hypotheses, collecting and analyzing data, and validating conclusions. The document emphasizes that research writing is important and discusses choosing the right research topic and venue for publication. It provides tips for writing different sections of a research paper and following the common three-phase model of initial workshop or conference papers leading to a journal publication.

1. Research Writing
FARIZ DARARI

2. Was presented at:

3. About Fariz
• Graduated (PhD and Master's) from
University of Bolzano, Italy and
TU Dresden, Germany
• Graduated (BSc) from
Universitas Indonesia

4. Outline
- Everyone is a researcher
- Your research is important!
- Research writing is fun yet challenging :-)

5. everyone is a researcher

6. Research: You do it everyday!
Though small-scale, for example:
- When you use social media, you do cross-check
- When you travel, you look for the best route
- When you cook, you experiment with different spices

7. Research: What you say
Say out loud, what you think of research

8. Research: What dictionaries say
- Careful or diligent search (Merriam-Webster)
- Systematic investigation into and study of materials and
sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions
(Oxford Dictionary)

9. Research: What dictionaries say

10. Research: Constituents
- Defining, redefining, and formalizing problems
- Formulating hypotheses
- Suggesting solution approaches
- Collecting and analyzing data
- Experimenting
- Validating the hypotheses and deducing new conclusions

11. Research: (Simplified) Example
- Problem: Data quality (especially data completeness) for large-scale databases
is not well-managed
- Formulating hypotheses: Data completeness for large-scale databases can be
managed efficiently
- Suggesting solution approaches: Proposing index structures and optimizations
for data completeness management
- Collecting and analyzing data: Generated using realistic settings based on
the characteristics of real-world databases
- Experimenting: Various index structures are comparatively evaluated, finding
which index structure is best for what conditions
- Validating the hypotheses and deducing new conclusions: Index structure of
X is best for general cases, but index structure of Y is best for extreme cases

14. Q1-journal article example
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3196248

15. your research is important!

16. You know your research is important
when:
(1) Your research problem is essential to human lives
the research subjects you are working on!

17. You know your research is important
when:
(1) Your research problem is essential to human lives
the research subjects you are working on!
(2) You have done literature study and your proposed idea
has not been done before and sounds promising!

18. You know your research is important
when:
(1) Your research problem is essential to human lives
the research subjects you are working on!
(2) You have done literature study and your proposed idea
has not been done before and sounds promising!
(3) Your research result is positive,
that your proposed approach is better than existing approaches

19. You know your research is important
when:
(1) Your research problem is essential to human lives
the research subjects you are working on!
(2) You have done literature study and your proposed idea
has not been done before and sounds promising!
(3) Your research result is positive,
that your proposed approach is better than existing approaches

20. Why literature study (or scientific reading)?
(1) To get foundational knowledge required for doing research
(2) To learn about recent advances
(3) To avoid reinventing the wheel
(4) To position your work in the right way

21. Three-pass approach for reading papers
Quick scan (5-10 mins)
• To decide whether the paper is worth reading at all.
• Reduces significantly the number of papers to process further.
Reading with greater care (1 hour)
• Helps in grasping the content.
• Helps to better understand the contributions of the paper.
Detailed reading (4-5 hours, but may take much longer)
• To fully understand the paper.
• Helps in identifying open issues and ideas for future work.

22. Quick scan
• Carefully read title, abstract, and introduction.
• Read section and subsection headings, but ignore everything else.
• Read the conclusions.
• Glance over the references.
• At the end, you should be able to answer the following:
◦ category: What type of paper is it (experimental, system description, …)?
◦ context: To which papers is it related? What bases and assumptions were used?
◦ general correctness
◦ general contributions
◦ clarity

23. Reading with greater care, but ignore details
• Identify areas of your interest.
• Identify results relevant to the scope of your topic.
• Scribble in the margin important points, thoughts, questions.
• Mark relevant references for further reading.
After this pass, you should be able to:
• Grasp the content of the paper.
• Summarize main contributions, with supporting evidence.
• BUT, you might not understand the paper, and the reason might be that it is badly written.

24. Detailed reading
This is required to fully understand the paper, especially
if you have to review it.
• Try to virtually re-implement the paper:
> Make the same assumptions as the authors.
> Re-create the work, re-do experiments, re-prove the results, …
> Compare the re-creation with the actual paper.
• Note down open problems and ideas for future work.

25. Hands-on: Do a quick scan over this (short) paper
Link to paper: http://aclweb.org/anthology/P17-2055

26. Hands-on: Then identify the following ...
Link to short paper: http://aclweb.org/anthology/P17-2055
At the end, you should be able to answer the following:
category: What type of paper is it (experimental,
system description, …)?
context: To which papers is it related? What bases
and assumptions were used?
general correctness
general contributions
clarity

27. Know what you read
Be careful, pseudoscience is everywhere!
Know who and where to get legitimate scientific sources

28. Who
- Google Scholar is your friend!
- Specific topics may require more extended expert search:
> Editors/PC members of high-quality conference or journal
> Authors in high-quality conference or journal
> Authors in predatory conference/journal
- Last but not least, by reading someone's papers,
you just know whether she's good or not :)

29. Where
- Conference and journal ranking systems
> http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks/
> https://www.scimagojr.com/
- Metrics: Number of citations, impact factor,
H-index (also for researchers)

30. research writing is fun yet challenging :-)

31. Writing is the most essential part of research
Do not believe me?

33. Writing is the most essential part of research
Good research results, written badly
-> Chance of acceptance: low
So-so research results, written nicely
-> Chance of acceptance: medium
Good research results, written nicely
-> Chance of acceptance: high

34. Writing is the most essential part of research
Good research results, written badly
-> Chance of acceptance: low
So-so research results, written nicely
-> Chance of acceptance: medium
Good research results, written nicely
-> Chance of acceptance: high

35. Writing is the most essential part of research
Good research results, written badly
-> Chance of acceptance: low
So-so research results, written nicely
-> Chance of acceptance: medium
Good research results, written nicely
-> Chance of acceptance: high

36. Why writing?
• It forces to formulate and clarify thoughts.
• Makes vague concepts concrete.
• The act of writing suggests new concepts to consider.
• Written material is easier to discuss with colleagues.
• Writing up allows one to develop complex arguments of
reasoning, and evaluate whether they are sound.

37. Know your audience
Poster/demo papers
Workshop papers
Conference papers
Journal papers
Magazine articles

38. 3-phase model
In computer science, when we publish our original research,
we often follow the 3-phase model:
1. one or more poster/demo/workshop papers with initial ideas and
preliminary contributions
2. one or more conference papers, each providing original,
substantial results
3. a journal paper, that consolidates, and expands the original
research contributions (usually with 30% new material)

39. What to write (and not write)?
Typical questions to ask:
• Which results are the most surprising, original, technically challenging?
• Are the other outcomes independent/interesting enough
to be published separately?
• What is the key background work that I need to discuss to explain
my novel contribution?
• Which experimentation is necessary to support the claims?
• Which related work do I need to discuss?

40. Choosing the right venue (1/2)
Typical questions to ask:
• How relevant is the topic for the venue?
• How does my work measure against the standard for that
venue?
• Are there page limits to consider? (There always are!!!)
• What is the background of the typical reader?

41. Choosing the right venue (2/2)
• Are proofs of theorems required/expected/desired?
• Is an experimental evaluation required?
• Which are alternative venues?
• Is the deadline compatible with the workplan?
• When is the next deadline for an appropriate venue, if the
upcoming deadline is missed?

42. Common (scientific) story
> problem statement
> previous solutions are bad
> new solution
> we are better

43. Conceptual structure of paper
Structure your paper to support this behavior:
1. Describe the work in the context of accepted scientific knowledge.
2. State the idea that is being investigated,
often as a theory or hypothesis.
3. Explain what is new about the idea, what is being evaluated,
or what contribution the paper is making.
4. Justify the theory, by proofs or experiments.

44. Typical paper organization
1. Title and information about authors
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Body
5. Related work
6. Conclusions
7. Bibliography
8. Appendices

45. Title and author information
Papers begin with title and information about authors including name, affiliation, and
address:
• Use always the same spelling for your name.
• Use a durable email address, but prefer your institutional address.
• The convention in CS is to not give your position, title, or qualifications.
• Sometimes acknowledgements are added as a footnote to the title.
Always remember to acknowledge your funding source.
• Some conferences/journals require keywords, or classification terms
(e.g., ACM classification)

46. Choosing the right title
The title is very important:
• It is read by thousands of people.
• A paper with a bad title might not be found and read.
• Titles are indexed!
• Should contain of the fewest possible words
that adequately describe the content of the paper
• No waste words (study on …, results on …, observations on …).
• No abbreviations or jargon

47. Author ordering
Who to put: whoever gave a substantial contribution
- Ordering is by the amount of contribution
Equal contribution: Authors ordered alphabetically

48. Abstract
Is typically a single paragraph of 50-200 words.
• Allows readers to judge the relevance or the paper to them.
• Is a concise summary of the paper's aims, scope, and conclusions.
• Should be as short as possible while remaining clear and informative.
• Self-contained.
Not to put in an abstract: minor details, paper structure, abbreviations,
mathematics, citations.

49. Introduction
Can be regarded as an expanded version of the abstract.
• Should describe: paper’s topic, problem being studied, references to key papers,
approach to the solution, scope and limitations of the solution, and outcomes.
• There needs to be enough detail to allow readers to decide whether or not to read
further.
• Key aspect: provide motivation for the work:
◦ Why is the problem interesting?
◦ What are the relevant scientific issues?
◦ What are the solutions so far, and their limitations?
◦ Why is the solution a good one?

50. Body
Presents the results of the research:
1. Provides necessary (formal) background and terminology.
2. Defines the hypothesis and major concepts.
3. Explains the chain of reasoning that leads to the results.
• Provides the details of central approaches/proofs.
• Explains the experimental setup and summarizes the outcomes.
4. States in detail and analyses the results of the research.
• The structure should be evident in the section headings.
• The body should be reasonably independent of other papers.

51. Related Work
Most results are additions to existing knowledge.
A literature review is used to position your research,
linking your research to other research in the same area

52. Conclusions
Are used to draw together the topics discussed in the paper.
• Should include a concise statement of the paper's important results and
an explanation of their significance.
• Are an appropriate place to (re)state any limitations.
• Should look beyond the current context to:
> other problems that were not addressed;
> questions that were not answered;
> variations that could also be explored.

53. Bibliography
References (with discussion) serve three main purposes:
• Help demonstrate that work is new (supporting claims of originality).
• Demonstrate your knowledge of the research area (your reliability!).
• Are pointers to background reading.
Each reference should be:
• relevant;
• up-to-date: check when taking over references from other papers;
• reasonably accessible: pay attention to abbreviations of conference or workshop names,
check validity of pointers to online material;
• necessary.

54. Appendices
May hold:
• bulky material that would otherwise interfere with the
narrative flow of the paper (proofs, algorithms, etc.)
• material that even interested readers do not need to refer to;
• additional background material that not all readers may be
familiar with.
In general, the paper should be readable even if the appendix is
skipped.

55. everyone is a researcher, your research is important, writing is fun yet challenging
Ready to press the research button?
Slides material adopted from: https://www.inf.unibz.it/~calvanese/teaching/2018-02-PhD-RM/RM-2018-M1-calvanese.pdf

56. everyone is a researcher, your research is important, writing is fun yet challenging
Ready to press the research button? Or the button below it, shift? :-)
Slides material adopted from: https://www.inf.unibz.it/~calvanese/teaching/2018-02-PhD-RM/RM-2018-M1-calvanese.pdf