Overall
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Make reading easier for the reader o Shorter paragraphs o Last sentence of every section should be the “take-away” point
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Do yourself a favor and use a bibliography manager, Zotero (www.zotero.org) is really good
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As you read other papers in your field, keep track of “elegant” ways of saying something. Steal good general phrases or formats shamelessly
The Abstract
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Write this last
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Make sure that your contribution is clear from it
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Good format is this:
1.
There is a problem with/gap in understanding of A.
2.
We addressed this issue by doing B.
3.
Our take-away findings/contributions were C, D, and E.
The Intro
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Get the reader on your side to start with, don’t make controversial claims at the beginning
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After you write it, read it over again and see if you need the first sentence (often you don’t and it just makes some obvious point)
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Good format:
1.
Describe general area of interest and why it is important
2.
Introduce specific problem or gap in knowledge (main need a *brief* description of the work of others). Summarize the “open problem.”
3.
List research questions/hypotheses that you investigated that will address problem
4.
Explicitly state your contributions
5.
Provide a “map” of the paper: “We begin by discussing related work… Next we… Finally, we…”
Related Work
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It’s easy for this to become REALLY long. Keep it at a page or shorter, even if it means explicitly stating that a particular area is outside of the discussion scope.
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Divide into themes if addressing work from multiple communities (e.g. “Persuasive Systems”,
“Motivations in Energy Management”, and “Systems for Sustainability”)
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Try to synthesize and look for themes in the work. Are several systems looking at the same issue? Are many of them similar methodologically? Point out when your approach is different from others.

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Do not make absolute statements like “There are no investigations of…” The evil reviewers WILL find something. Instead say something like “There are opportunities/open questions in the area of …”
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It is important that you’re not aggressively critical of the work of others (they may be writing your review). Be complementary of the things they did well but point out any shortcomings a
“opportunities to build on” or “challenges highlighted”
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Start with less relevant work or general “inspirations.” Provide one sentence describing what each work did and another one (maybe two) describing why it is relevant here (single finding, method, future direction identified, etc.)
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Finish with one or two (preferably one) most relevant works. Address explicitly how your work makes a significant additional contribution or how it is different.
Optional: System Overview
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If you built a system, describe it here briefly
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Show a figure
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Focus on features that make it different from other systems
Methods
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I find that this is the easiest section to start writing the whole paper
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This is the section that’s easiest for reviewers to pick on, so it’s important to cover your bases
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You may have separate sections for these or describe things together if they are more straightforward:
1.
Overview: remind readers of your research questions/hypotheses and justify why your methodology is an appropriate way to investigate these questions (may need a citation of others that use this method)
2.
Participants: describe how you recruited and selected participants; give basic demographics (a table is common); describe possible biases in selection
3.
Instruments (optional): if you used externally-validated surveys or devices (e.g. eye tracking) describe and explain here
4.
Procedure: clearly describe what you did; describe the limitations of your method but also explain why it is nonetheless appropriate for your investigation
5.
Analysis (optional): most important for a qualitative paper; describe how you analyzed your results; inter-rater reliability if you have it; it’s good to have a citation for your analysis method of choice (e.g. grounded theory)
Results
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Provide an overview of what your results are going to say
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Organize into logical sections and provide smooth transitions between sections
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Use reference of choice for your method to understand how to properly report the results
Discussion

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Address each of your research questions or hypotheses. Point out future areas of investigation.
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May want to have implications for design. Make sure they are clearly supported by your results.
Specify who they are for (designers of persuasive systems, designers of sustainability systems, etc.). May want to describe “vectors” or design trade-off (e.g. “Blah supports managers, but a different blah supports workers”). Point out things that were surprising, unanticipated, or controversial. If you don’t have any of those things, then you shouldn’t have implications for design.
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Tie to existing research. Is your finding contrary to somebody else’s? Supporting somebody else’s (don’t spend too much time explaining these, just reference the work)?
Conclusion
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Keep this short
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Possible format:
1.
Say what you set out to contribute
2.
Say how and what you have contributed
3.
Provide take-away points