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
2
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
3
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
4
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
6
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 of
what 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?
• Conference:
• Journal
• Workshop
• TR
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Where to send?
• Conference:
– 3 kinds
• accept “everything?”
• IEEE (less than 50%
accept rate)
• Less than 20% accept
– Quick
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Where to send?
• Journal
–
–
–
–
archival
respectable
experience
magazine
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Where to send?
• Workshop
– PASTE
– IWPC
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Where to send?
• TR
– Not refereed
– Large as you like
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Where to send?
• Conference:
– 3 kinds
• Accept “everything?”
• IEEE (accept less than
50%)
• Accept less than 20%
• Journal
–
–
–
–
Archival
Respectable
Experience
Magazine
– Quick
•
Workshop
– PASTE
– IWPC
– ICSE Workshops
• TR
– Not refereed
– Large 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
• Background is a review of information the
reader will need to understand your paper
• Related work is what other researchers have
done
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Overview of “my solution”
• A high 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 automatable or automated?!
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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 Figure 3 is better than the other figures.
• 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 tag and a caption
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Tag & caption
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More powerful writing
Use active voice & present tense!
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You & your reader
• Must remember that you’re familiar with
the work & the reader is not!
• 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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You & your reader (cont)
•
•
•
•
RULE: Speak directly to the reader
If single author: I or we
Coauthors: we
The reader: you
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You & your 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 will
reveal who or what is removing.
To what does “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”
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 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 proxy
data structure vs structure
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Use symmetry when structuring
sentences, paragraphs & sections
We describe both a stack and a queue: a queue is a FIFO
structure and a stack is a LIFO structure.
In this section, we review background information about
program representations and computation of data flow
information using the program representations.
To compute data flow information …
48
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 fuzzy 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’s
head 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, however
many times they reread the directions for assembling the
stepper 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.
Lyn could tell that Red had been out hunting again: There
were three mice neatly laid out on the upstairs rug.
• Frequently a period or an em dash will also work
• Use at the end of a sentence, followed by a list
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!
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