Research Seminar – CPIT 695 Writing for Computer Science 1

Authors need to Describe the position of the new idea in the body of scientific knowledge Formally state the idea, often as a theory or hypothesis Explain what is new about this idea, or what contribution the paper is making Justify the theory, by methods such as proof or experiment

Article Style vs Research Consists of arguments, evidence, experiments, proofs, and background required to support and explain a central hypothesis Research: Research can include dead ends, invalid hypotheses, misconceptions, and experimental mistakes. Not everything that is a part of the research is included in the article

Abstract Typically a single paragraph of 50 to 100 words Allow readers to judge whether or not the article is of relevance to them Summary of aims, scope and conclusion of the article No minor details or description of the structure of the paper or acronyms or abbreviations or mathematics Avoid sentences like “we review relevant literature” Should be self contained Rarely cite another paper in the abstract. If needed, give reference in full and not as citation to bibliography Space requirements can be significantly reduced  space requirements can be reduced by 60% We have a new inversion algorithm  we have a new inversion algorithm, based on move-to-front lists

Introduction Expanded version of the abstract Describe: article’s topic; the problem being studied; the approach to the solution; the scope and limitations of the solution; the conclusions Contains motivation: why the problem is interesting, relevant scientific issues, why solution is a good one Refer to relevant literature but keep complicated mathematics out of this section Reveal the results but need not explain how they were obtained here After reading introduction, author should be able to decide whether to read further or not.

Survey Can be part of the introduction or a separate part In many papers the survey material is not gathered into a discrete section, but is discussed where it is used – background material in the introduction, analysis of other researchers’ work as new results are introduced and so on.

Results Provide necessary background and terminology Explain the chain of reasoning that leads to the conclusions Provide the details of central proofs Summarize any experimental data State in detail the conclusions outlined in the introduction Contains careful definitions of the hypothesis and major concepts This part should be independent of other papers Summarize results in table or graph as all data cant be presented No need to include the details of proofs of lemmas or minor theorems.

Organisation Logical order: Logical order of results and background Problem statement, review of previous solutions and their drawbacks, then the new solution, and finally a demonstration that the solution improves on its predecessors Discussion of proofs or experimental results should be part of their presentation Begin with brief overview of whatever has been observed, and to use the rest of the discussion for amplification rather than further observations Divide the paper based on different results in different parts Start with an idea and explain; then provide formal proof Start with simple case, then complex cases to follow.

Summary, Bibliography, Appendices Summary: draw together the topics discussed in the paper; concise statement of the paper’s important results Appendices: Detail of proofs or experimental results or computer programs

Writing First draft: Write freely without following any style or layout Normal to have a sloppy first draft Make sure to keep the mathematical content, definitions and problem statement precise as early as possible. If the problem cannot be described clearly, then there is lack in understanding or the idea is not clear. Writing must be started before the research is completed. Manage the section titles first. Then write the text. If some text is not appropriate for any section, then the structure of the paper is considered faulty. With the section title, add 20 to 200 words in each section. After completing the body and conclusion, introduction needs some touch as some arguments do evolve as writing proceeds

Writing For novice writer: start with imitation of a paper that has similar results; analyse the organization of the referred paper. Don’t cite to support common knowledge; like citing a reference for binary tree.

Writing Style Can be verbose or cryptic, flowery or plain, poetic or literal Style is not correct use of grammar, but about how well the text communicates with likely readers Lively writing suggests a lively mind with interesting ideas to discuss Poor usage is distracting, suggests disorganized thinking, and prejudices readers against whatever is being presented

Writing Expectations If someone dislikes anything you have written, remember that it is readers you need to please, not yourself If a reviewer says there is something wrong, think: “What did I write that led the referee astray?” instead of “the referee is wrong” Secret of good writing is to identify what the reader needs to learn

Simple writing rules Avoid elements that give literature its strength – nuance, ambiguity, metaphor, sensuality, etc. Have one idea per sentence or paragraph and one topic per section Have a simple, logical organization Use short words Use short sentences with simple structure Keep paragraphs short Avoid buzzwords and cliches Avoid excess, in length or style Omit any unnecessary material Be specific, not vague or abstract Only break one of these rules if there is a good reason to do so

Writing Method - Motivation Organize the paper in a logical way and make this logic clearly communicated Introduction says which section shows what. Also, a brief summary at the start and end of each section is helpful. Connection between one paragraph and another should be clear Include the use of any definition or theorem provided Never assume things are self-explanatory Authors should explain everything that is not common knowledge to the article’s audience; what constitutes common knowledge depends on the article’s subject and on where it is published

Thinking for writing At each part of a paper you should consider what the reader has learnt so far, whether this knowledge is sufficient to allow understanding of what follows, and whether each part is a natural consequence of what has already been said. Don’t include difficult mathematics or offhand remarks such as “analysis of this method is of course a straightforward application of tensor calculus”.

Writing Examples

Writing Examples Don’t omit words that make the writing easier to understand

Writing Examples Never use idioms like “crop up”, “lose track”, “it turned out that”, “play up”, “right out”, etc Commercial software requirements document

Writing Examples Scientific paper on concurrent database systems

Writing Examples Imitating popular science writing and not science writing Don’t make things look like sale

Writing Examples Unclear statements: There may be exceptions in some circumstances Data was transmitted fast Improvements lead to better performance (Tautologous) Contrast between new and current, not the new and fictitious or ancient.

Writing Examples Obfuscation Analogies: Be careful with analogies. What seems perfectly alike or parallel to one person may seem entirely unalike to another

Writing Examples Referring to the original paper, if possible: For example, suppose that in 1981 Dawson wrote “Kelly (1959) shows that stable graphs are closed”, but Kelly (1959) is inaccessible and Dawson (1981) does not give the details. Don’t refer to the Kelly directly as you can’t check the details yourself, and Dawson may have made a mistake.

Writing Examples Any criticisms should be based on sound argument. Unsubstantial claims should be clearly noted as such, not dressed up as accepted facts.

Writing Examples - Citation

Writing Examples Short text, if quoted as it is, is double quoted. Long text, if quoted as it is, is set aside in an indented block. Minor syntactic change is permissible in quoted text, but the changes should be held to a minimum. Changes like insertions, replacements or remarks could be delimited by square brackets.

Writing Examples Replace “I wish to thank …” with “I am grateful to …” Keep original online versions of your paper even if changes are made to it Proofreading and programming does not entice authorship

Writing Examples Title: Not short, not long; use specific rather than general terms Section headings: Refer to the logical structure “B-trees” instead of “B-tree indexes” under “Index Organizations” Under “Lists and Trees”, use “Lists” and another section as “Trees” instead of “Other Data Structures”

Writing Examples Opening paragraph: direct and straightforward Don’t start the abstract or introduction using “This paper concerns …” or “In this paper …”

Writing Examples

Writing Examples Link paragraphs by reusing keywords Use numbers only when ordering is important Use simple structure in sentences

Writing Examples

Writing Examples

Writing Examples Parallelism: “on the one hand” with “on the other hand”; sentences beginning with “One” and “Another”; “First”, “Second”, “Next”, “Last”

Writing Examples Represent parallelism in lists Direct statements Use unclear verbs like “perform”, “utilize”, “achieved”, “carried out”, “occurred”, “effected”, “done”, etc.

Writing Examples Use “I” only to indicate author’s opinion Ambiguity

Writing Examples Emphasis: could be done using italics Definitions

Writing Examples Choice of words: “begin” instead of “initiate”, “first” rather than “firstly”, “part” rather than “component”, “use” rather than “utilize”, “cannot” rather than “can’t” Repeating of words is allowed in scientific writing. Excessive claims are unacceptable: “our method is an ideal solution” or “our results are startling” Qualifiers: use “might”, “may”, “perhaps”, “likely”, “likelihood”, “could” can be used once in a sentence, but not more. Avoid qualifiers like “very”, “quite”.

Writing Examples Over use of qualifiers:

Writing Examples Padding: Don’t use padding phrases like “the fact that”, “in general”, “of course”, “in any case”, Replace “a number of” with “several”; “a large number of” by “many” Which, that, the: Prefer “that” to “which”

Writing Examples May, might, can: Use “may” to indicate personal choice, and “can” to indicate capability. Less, fewer: Use “less” for continuous quantities and “fewer” for discrete quantities Affect, effect: Effect or consequence of an action is to affect or influence, outcomes Alternate, alternative, choice: “alternate” means other or switch between, “alternative” means something that can be chosen. Basic, fundamental, sophisticated: Basic means elementary or foundation; sophisticated does not mean new Conflate, merge: conflate means regard distinct things as similar; merge means join distinct things to form one new thing.

Writing Examples Continual, continuous: continual means ceaselessly; continuous means unbroken Conversely, similarly: conversely is used only if the following is the opposite of the preceding material; similarly or likewise is used whatever follows has a strong parallel to the preceding material Fast, quickly, presently: “fast” means runs quickly; “quickly” means fast but does not mean in near future; “timely” means opportune but has nothing to do with rapidity; “presently” means soon; “currently” means at present Optimism, minimize: “optimize” means to find optimum or best solution.

Writing Examples

Writing Examples Jargon Overuse of words: misuse “so”, “also”, “hence”, “note that”, “thus”

Writing Examples Present tense is used for eternal truths Write “the algorithm has complexity O(n)” and not “the algorithm had complexity O(n)” Present tense is used for statements about the text itself “related issues are discussed below” instead of “related issues will be discussed below” Past tense is used for describing work and outcomes. “the ideas were tested by experiment” instead of “the ideas are tested by experiment” Either past or present tense can be used for discussion of references. Present tense is preferable but past tense can be forced by context. Other than in conclusions, future tense is rarely used.

Writing Examples Plurals Acronyms Plurals of acronyms don’t require an apostrophe: CPUs and not CPU’s Don’t put stops in acronyms. Stops Stops are used in abbreviations, acronyms, and ellipses. When these occur at the end of sentence, the sentence’s stop is omitted. Don’t use stops at the end of the heading Commas: mark pause, indicate correct parsing, form lists, indicate a phrase is a parenthetical remark (that is, a comment) rather than a qualifier. Rewrite or break the sentence if too many commas become necessary.

Writing Examples Commas

Writing Examples Colons and semi-colons

Writing Examples Apostrophes Exclamations: Avoid them; Never use more than one. Hyphenation: hash based data structure  hash-based data structure Binary tree based data structure  data structure based on binary trees

Writing Examples Capitalization: Acronyms, capitalize names like Theorem 2, Figure 4, … Words following a colon is capitalized Punctuation and Parenthesis Citation: Cite as close as possible to the text. Removing citation should make sure the reading is smooth. Use “Wilson [2]” instead of “In [2]”.

Writing Examples Readability in mathematics: Don’t start a sentence within a formula. Use some terms to start with. Provide the type of each variable every time it is used. Numbers: Spell out when denoting approximate numbers, numbers up to twenty, unless they are literal values or part of an expression of measurement and starting a sentence. Percentages should always be in figures. Fractions are rarely used for values and never used as abbreviations. Never remove leading zeros in values less than 1.

Writing Examples Don’t use probabilities to describe small sets of observations. Use probabilities rather than odds to express probabilities. Use 3:30 minutes instead of 3.30 minutes Avoid vague claims

Writing Examples Checking for consistency

Writing Examples Process of evaluation The quality of a paper can be reflected in its bibliography.

References Writing for Computer Science - Zobel