CSCD 506 Research Methods for Computer Science Winter 2018 Lecture 5 Writing for Fun and Profit 1 1

Topics What Types of Papers are There? Writing Advice Overview of a Technical Paper 2

Types of Papers Scientific results can be presented in ways depending on the purpose of the authors/sponsors Conference or Workshop Proceedings Majority of Computer Science Research is presented in Conferences or Workshops at conferences or separate From most conferences there are published proceedings That is what you get from ACM/IEEE when you look in their digital libraries on conferences Conference papers are shorter, more preliminary results, sometimes lower quality Papers for these conferences are always or nearly always “peer reviewed” ... see next slide for

Peer Reviewed vs. Refereed Scholarly peer review Also known as refereeing … In other words, its the same thing !!! “Process of subjecting an author's Scholarly work, research, or ideas To scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field” This ensures a certain level of quality in a paper Peer reviewing is done for both conferences and journals

Types of Papers Journals Journal papers are often more complete, mature ideas and results Result of previous publications in conferences and have been revised and improved Not always ... in general! Longer in terms of pages

Types of Papers Thesis - Masters or PhD Books Deep exploration of a single problem Much longer ... great source of references If your interest is similar Can read to gain idea of what you need to produce Or, just to get ideas of research that is being done Books In our field, Books are constantly changing Can gain good background from books Especially, compendiums of research 2009

Writing Advice

Writing Papers How important is your ability to communicate through writing?

Writing Papers How important is your ability to communicate through writing? Ability to represent yourself well on paper will help you secure a job after you leave EWU How you write says a lot about you as a person Presentation and clarity suggests You can not only can think but You can present your ideas

Writing Papers Further, good writers are highly prized in working world Because so few people can write well !!! Writing well, opens door to advancement in almost any field Especially in academia or As a professional technical consultant

Introduction to Paper Creation Reference: Mary Shaw http://spoke.compose.cs.cmu.edu/write/r/resources.htm Think about papers like any other piece of software … unique way of looking at this Research Papers Are designed artifacts as much as other artifacts of computing Like other computing objects, they should be systematically developed A paper should be as carefully designed as a program and has similar design rules 11

Introduction to Paper Creation What are design rules for a paper? Satisfaction of requirements The call for papers known as the CFP Appropriate structure Paper architecture Good User Interface Explains ideas well Careful Development Checking results, Correctness checking 12

Implementing Writing See if you agree or disagree with these statements “Your writing will improve more by doing writing -- and reflecting on it Than by listening to someone talk about writing” 13

Implementing Writing See if you agree or disagree with these statements “Many design skills you already have can be useful for designing and implementing ... papers” 14

Implementing Writing See if you agree or disagree with these statements “You will be more focused and engaged with a writing assignment if it involves a paper you are writing or will be writing” 15

More Writing Advice Randy Pausch’s Views as a Graduate Student http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/oldRandyPage.html Randy Pausch’s Views as a Graduate Student “Becoming a good writer is perhaps the single greatest thing you can do to further your research career”, Would you agree? Your ideas and engineering, algorithmic, or theoretical solutions can be strong and original But if you communicate your ideas poorly you will diminish the impact of your ideas and solutions 16

Randy Pausch Quick Aside Randy Pausch taught at CMU as a CS professor and was involved in Alice, a graphical language for teaching programming His area of expertise was Human Computer Interaction He is best known for his “Last Lecture” which he delivered when he knew he had pancreatic cancer The lecture received worldwide attention http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/ Randy Pausch died in 2008

More Writing Advice It is sometimes helpful to think of your paper as the User Interface to your research If it is confusing and poorly presented nobody will take note of it While a clear and visually inviting presentation will entice your audience to Actually read the paper Remember it and Tell others about the work 18

Technical Writing Details – Marc Raibert https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/Randy/raibert.htm From Marc Raibert Basic concept of his advice is “Good Writing is Bad Writing That Was Rewritten” Following are tips to producing good writing … Two top-level tips for good writing: You must want to produce good writing You must believe you can produce good writing 19

Technical Writing Details – Marc Raibert You must want to produce good writing You can only produce good writing if you want to It takes lots of hard work, and it will likely always take lots of hard work Your writing will get better with experience and confidence, but it will probably not get much easier 20

Technical Writing Details – Marc Raibert You must believe you can produce good writing If you don't have confidence that you can hammer out a good result, you may rely too heavily on someone else's help Documents containing good writing go through initial and intermediate phases, when they are mostly bad ... Confidence in ultimate outcome of your efforts will be essential, if you are going to produce draft after draft You MUST have confidence that you can do it 21

Technical Writing Details – Marc Raibert You have good reason to be confident Almost anyone who makes it to graduate school can learn to communicate clearly through the written word In other words, if you got accepted to graduate school, proof that you are smart!!! No matter how bad your writing is today, you can make it substantially better 22

Technical Writing Details – Marc Raibert Did you know ... When you start a new paper or report, nothing wrong with using bad writing Your goal when you start is to get your ideas down on paper in any form you can Incomplete sentences, streams of consciousness, lists of ideas, and outlines, good ways of getting started These methods help you to figure out what you want to say ... main purpose of this phase of writing Not to worry yet about bad writing, because you will revise it later 23

Technical Writing Details – Marc Raibert Unlike murder mysteries where reader does not know whodunit until the very end, Research paper should reveal Whodunit and Whodunwhat as soon as possible Should summarize your whole story at the very beginning of your paper, without holding anything back Not only describe what you set out to do, but you should also tell the reader what you found out 24

His advise Spill the beans in the title, Technical Writing Details Marc Raibert His advise Spill the beans in the title, Spill the beans in the abstract, Spill the beans in the introduction, and Spill the beans in the body When you are spilling the beans at the beginning of your paper, don't just refer to your results, give your results Use simple summaries of your most important points 25

Technical Writing Details Marc Raibert For instance Wrong way: In this paper I will give you my formula for good writing. Right way: My formula for good writing is simple - once you decide that you want to produce good writing and that you can produce good writing, then all that remains is to write bad stuff, and to revise the bad stuff until it is good. 26

Technical Writing Details Marc Raibert One step in producing good writing get feedback from a friend or colleague about your work ... spouse too When you get comments back from your readers, trust what they tell you If they get confused, don't argue with them Rewrite that part to overcome whatever confused your reader You'll be surprised to find that more than one reader will get stuck in the very same place in your paper 27

Organization of a Research Paper Next slides from: Scott MacKenzie , York University http://www.yorku.ca/mack/CourseNotes.ppt Title Abstract Body Main sections… Introduction Method Participants Apparatus Procedure Design Results and Discussion Conclusions

Title Authors Affiliations Abstract – not an introduction. State what you did and what you found. Keywords

Introduction – context for the research Introduction – context for the research. State why it is interesting and relevant. Identify a problem as it currently exists. Give an overview of the contents of the entire paper. Use subsections as appropriate to provide the background and rationale for the research.

Number equations consecutively throughout manuscript Give and assess findings from prior research. Cite as appropriate.

Use sub-subsections as appropriate (It’s your story to tell.)‏

Use figures with captions as appropriate

Objectives – good lead-in to the methodology that follows

Method – tell the reader what you did and how you did it Participants – state the number of participants. Give demographic information, such as age, gender, relevant experience. State how they were chosen. (Note: The term “Subjects” is now obsolete.)‏ Apparatus – describe the hardware and software.

Procedure – specify exactly what happened with each participant. Use screen snaps of software if appropriate

Design – factors and levels, order of administering conditions, etc. Be thorough and clear! It’s important that your research is reproducible.

Results and Discussion Use subsections as appropriate If there were outliers or problems in the data collection, state this up-front.

Organize results by the dependent measures Organize results by the dependent measures. Give means across conditions. Use statistical tests as appropriate (e.g., analysis of variance). Again… It’s your story to tell. Use charts, tables, etc., as appropriate. Don’t overdo it! Giving too many charts or too much data means you can’t distinguish what is important from what is not important. Give the results that are important, no more, no less.

Discuss the results. State what is interesting in the results Discuss the results. State what is interesting in the results. Explain the differences across conditions. Compare with results from other studies.

Conclusions – sum up what you did, restating the important findings Conclusions – sum up what you did, restating the important findings. Restate the contribution. Restate any problems noted earlier. Identify topics for future work. Do not develop any new ideas in the conclusion.

Acknowledgements – optional Acknowledgements – optional. Thank people who helped, and funding agencies supporting the research.

References – formatted as per the submission requirements of the conference or journal

Summary Writing tips Must practice writing to become better A lot of advice is given Must sift through and find what works for you. There are common techniques that most agree constitute good papers and writing 44

Assignment this week - Find Good and Bad Writing !!!! End 45