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

2. 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?

3. 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)

4. Technical Report on Wikipedia - 1
Where does it come from

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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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?

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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)”

12. 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?

13. 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…

14. A Latex Sample

15. 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.

16. Demo

17. Questions?