Writing a High Quality Research Paper Jules White Bradley Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering Virginia Tech Jules.white@vt.edu

How to Critique a Research Paper You should ask yourself these questions about every paper: What is the story that the paper is telling Is the story substantiated by evidence Does the story clearly explain why existing work hasn’t solved the problem and why it isn’t a trivial problem You should ask yourself these questions about every paragraph: What is the 1 important point that the paragraph is making Is that point crucial to the solution described in the paper You should ask yourself these questions about every sentence: Is there a way to reword it or provide examples to make it more specific – could someone misinterpret it Does it contain any terms that have not been defined Does it make any claims that are not backed up by either a citation or references to data in the paper Is the sentence long enough that I could split it in two

Attributes of Top Research Papers (1) A really good research paper tells the reader: What the problem was that you solved Why that problem is worth solving What challenges you faced when solving it What proof you have that your solution is Better than existing approaches in one or more scenarios Works correctly Overcomes the challenges that you spelled out

Attributes of Top Research Papers (2) A high quality research paper is: Specific, vague and general language is always supplemented with examples Structured, there should be a logical ordering and breakdown – this also makes it easier for lazy reviewers to skim your paper Self-contained, if you use terminology that isn’t generally understood in the field, you define it