Writing a Technical Report Linghuan Hu The University of Texas at Dallas

How to write a technical document? Before We Start… A methodology of learning and doing research: Understand Learn Think Innovate How to write a technical document?

What is A Technical Document? What if you do not know… “Google” or “Wikipedia” it first But always be aware of the source of the information Compare multiple sources if it is necessary. (Especially for those things that can cause significant impact)

Technical Report on Wikipedia - 1 Where does it come from

Technical Report on Wikipedia - 2 International Organization for Standardization Standards, Books, Papers, etc.

Technical Report on Wikipedia - 2 “…describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem…” What does “describe” mean? Your are telling a story What does a story have? The background The things that happened The ending

The Technical Document – Telling A Story What is this document about? The general topic Why is this topic important? The general motivation What do the authors (e.g., you) propose? The solution or observation What are the results? Make something feasible, more efficient, etc… Discoveries… Something new Something is not right

A Sample Paper Abstract Abstract—Effective debugging is crucial to producing reliable software. Manual debugging is becoming prohibitively expensive, especially due to the growing size and complexity of programs. Given that fault localization is one of the most expensive activities in program debugging, there has been a great demand for fault localization techniques that can help guide programmers to the locations of faults. In this paper, a technique named DStar is proposed which can suggest suspicious locations for fault localization automatically without requiring any prior information on program structure or semantics. is evaluated across 24 programs, and is compared to 38 different fault localization techniques. Both single-fault and multi-fault programs are used. Results indicate that is more effective at locating faults than all the other techniques it is compared to. An empirical evaluation is also conducted to illustrate how the effectiveness of increases as the exponent * grows, and then levels off when the exponent * exceeds a critical value. Discussions are presented to support such observations. What is this document about? Why is this topic important? What do the authors propose? What are the results?

A Sample Paper Abstract Abstract—Effective debugging is crucial to producing reliable software. Manual debugging is becoming prohibitively expensive, especially due to the growing size and complexity of programs. Given that fault localization is one of the most expensive activities in program debugging, there has been a great demand for fault localization techniques that can help guide programmers to the locations of faults. In this paper, a technique named DStar is proposed which can suggest suspicious locations for fault localization automatically without requiring any prior information on program structure or semantics. is evaluated across 24 programs, and is compared to 38 different fault localization techniques. Both single-fault and multi-fault programs are used. Results indicate that is more effective at locating faults than all the other techniques it is compared to. An empirical evaluation is also conducted to illustrate how the effectiveness of increases as the exponent * grows, and then levels off when the exponent * exceeds a critical value. Discussions are presented to support such observations. Effective debugging is crucial to producing reliable What is this document about? software. Manual debugging is becoming prohibitively expensive, especially due to the growing size and complexity of programs. Given that fault localization is one of the most expensive activities in program debugging, there has been a great demand for fault localization techniques that can help Why is this topic important? guide programmers to the locations of faults. In this paper, a technique named DStar is proposed which can suggest suspicious locations for fault localization automatically without requiring any prior information on program structure or semantics. is evaluated across 24 programs, and is compared What do the authors propose? to 38 different fault localization techniques. Both single-fault and multi-fault programs are used. Results indicate that is more effective at locating faults than all the other techniques it is compared to. An empirical evaluation is also conducted to illustrate how the effectiveness of increases as the exponent * grows, and then levels off when the exponent * exceeds a critical value. Discussions are presented to support such What are the results? observations.

A Sample Paper Structure INTRODUCTION THE PROPOSED FAULT LOCALIZATION TECHNIQUE Similarity Coefficient-Based Fault Localization The Construction of D* An Illustrative Example CASE STUDIES Subject Programs Fault Localization Techniques Used in Comparisons Evaluation Metrics and Criteria Data Collection Results RELATED WORK CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

Technical Writing Be precise and break it down “A method is better than B” How do you define better? Efficiency? Effectiveness? Reliability? Let’s say we chose “efficiency”, but in terms of what? Velocity? Resource Consumption? (Miles per gallon?) Spell out the abbreviation at it’s first usage “… based on modified decision and condition coverage (MC/DC)”

Technical Writing Do not assume that your audiences are familiar with your fields Criticize your own work Research on the impact of temperature on the growth speed of a plant Plan A, B Temperature set at X and Y degrees Are they planted in the same soil? ………………………… latitude and longitude? ………………………… same kind of plant? ………………………… any health problem caused by bugs?

Tools for Report & Paper Writing WYSIWYG v.s. Others What you see is what you get - Word, PowerPoint, Pages, etc. Format are controlled by the “special code” Latex, Tex, etc… https://latexbase.com/

A Latex Sample

Tips for Microsoft Word Use “Template” Use “Numbering” Use “Paragraph” setting for consistent format Use “Caption” for figures and tables Use “Cross-reference” for references.

Demo

Questions?