1. Presenting Your Research: Papers, Presentations, and People
Prof. Marie desJardins University of Maryland Baltimore County
Lyceum Series
University of Maryland, College Park
October 20, 2004
Thanks to Rob Holte for permission to use some slides

2. Research Isn’t Just Research
Who cares what you do, if you never tell them?
You’ll need to present your ideas in various forms and venues:
PEOPLE: Networking with colleagues at your institution and elsewhere
PAPERS: Writing and submitting papers to workshops, conferences, and journals
PRESENTATIONS: Giving talks at workshops, conferences, and other institutions
(You should also put together a website that highlights your interests and research activities)
…oh, and these things also provide useful experience for job interviews, not to mention valuable job skills…
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Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

3. People

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Networking
Meet people! It helps to have an objective:
Find out what research they’re currently working on
Tell them what you’re currently working on
Find an area of common interest
Learn what their visions/future directions are
Suggest a new direction for research or topic for a class
What’s in this interaction for you?
What’s in it for them?
If you know two friends, and they know two friends, and they know two friends… Pretty soon you know everybody!
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Be Prepared
You need to be prepared to summarize your research
For a thesis topic, you should have a 1-minute, 5-minute, and 15-minute presentation already thought through
The same goes for other projects you’ve been working on
Be able to distinguish between your original contributions, your advisor’s contributions, and ideas drawn from previous research
Practice with other students!
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6. Publishing

7. Writing and Submitting Papers
For a master’s thesis, you should aim to have at least one “good” conference paper by the time you graduate
For a doctoral dissertation, you should aim for a couple of good conference papers and a journal paper
Writing these papers is great practice for the thesis itself… (and you can reuse the material!)
Where to submit?
Look at publication lists of people doing research related to yours, and see where they publish
Publish at the conferences that have the most interesting papers
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8. Paper Writing: Strategies
First, decide where you plan to submit the paper
You may not finish in time, but having a deadline is always helpful
Two to four months away is a good planning horizon
Next, decide what you will say
What are the key ideas? Have you developed them yet?
What are the key results? Have you designed and run the experiments yet? Have you analyzed the data?
What is the key related work? Have you read the relevant background material? Can you give a good summary of it?
Now get started on the work you need to do to fill in the missing holes!
Write early and often: You can (and should) write in parallel with finishing the work!
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Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

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Paper Writing: Design
Abstract –summarizes the research contributions, not the paper (i.e., it shouldn’t be an outline of the paper)
Introduction/motivation – what you’ve done and why the reader should care, plus an outline of the paper
Technical sections – one or more sections summarizing the research ideas you’ve developed
Experiments/results/analysis – one or more sections presenting experimental results and/or supporting proofs
Future work – summary of where you’re headed next and open questions still to be answered
Related work – sometimes comes after introduction, sometimes before conclusions (depends to some extent on whether you’re building on previous research, or dismissing it as irrelevant)
Conclusions – reminder of what you’ve said and why it’s important
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10. Paper Writing: Tactics
Top-down design (outline) is very helpful
Bulleted lists can help you get past writer’s block
Unless you’re a really talented/experienced writer, you should use these tools before you start writing prose
Neatness counts! Check spelling, grammar, consistency of fonts and notation before showing it to anyone for review
If they’re concentrating on your typos, they might miss what’s interesting about the content. (More about the reviewer’s perspective later...)
Leave time for reviews!
Fellow students, collaborators, advisors, …
A paper is only done when it’s submitted... and usually not even then.
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Authorship
Who should be an author?
Anyone who contributed significantly to the conceptual development or writing of the paper
Not necessarily people who provided feedback, implemented code, or ran experiments
What order should the authors be listed in?
If some authors contributed more of the conceptual development and/or did most/all of the writing, they should be listed first
If the contribution was equal or the authors worked as a team, the authors should be listed in alphabetical order
Sometimes the note “The authors are listed in alphabetical order” is explicitly included
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12. The Review Process

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Where to Publish
Workshops vs. conferences vs. journals
Length of decision cycle
Quantity vs. quality
Aim high! (or at least appropriately)
Acceptance rate vs. time to prepare/publish
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Purpose of a Review
Evaluate the paper’s scientific merit
Check the validity of the paper’s claims and evidence
Judge the paper’s relevance and significance
Provide constructive feedback to the author
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15. Typical Conference Review Form
1. How RELEVANT is this paper?
2. How SIGNIFICANT is this paper?
3. How ORIGINAL is this paper?
4. Is this paper technically SOUND?
5. How well is this paper PRESENTED?
Additional comments for the author(s)
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Good Reviews Are...
Polite
Fair
Concise
Clear
Constructive
Specific
Well-documented
Represent the scientific community
... but you get what you get!
Bad, unfair review that missed the point? Fix your paper anyway!
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17. Knowing Your Audience: A Reviewer’s Perspective
First, I read the title: is it in my area? (self-selection)
Next, I read the abstract: is it interesting? (self-selection)
Next, I skim the introduction and form my opinion about the paper
Next, I read the rest of the paper looking for evidence to support my view
 By the time I get to Section 2, I already have a very strong opinion about whether to accept or reject.
Your job is to give me the evidence I need in the title and abstract to select your paper for review, and in the introduction to result in the right opinion!
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Rejected!!  Now What?
Fix the paper!
Read the reviews, rail and complain, berate the reviewer
Calm down
Read them again with an open mind
Do more experiments, revise the paper, …
Go back to the reviews again – have you addressed all the points?
Have people read the revision critically
Repeat until the next deadline 
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19. Presentations

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Know How Long You Have
How long is the talk? Are questions included?
A good heuristic is 2-3 minutes per slide
If you have too many slides, you’ll skip some or—worse—rush desperately to finish. Avoid this temptation!!
Almost by definition, you never have time to say everything about your topic, so don’t worry about skipping some things!
Unless you’re very experienced giving talks, you should practice your timing:
A couple of times on your own to get the general flow
At least one dry run to work out the kinks
A run-through on your own the night before the talk
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Know Your Audience
Don’t waste time on basics if you’re talking to an audience in your field
Even for these people, you need to be sure you’re explaining each new concept clearly
On the other hand, you’ll lose people in a general audience if you don’t give the necessary background
In any case, the most important thing is to emphasize what you’ve done and why they should care!
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22. Know What You Want to Say
Just giving a project summary is not interesting to most people
You should give enough detail to get your interesting ideas across (and to show that you’ve actually solved, but not enough to lose your audience
They want to hear what you did that was cool and why they should care
Preferably, they’ll hear the above two points at the beginning of the talk, over the course of the talk, and at the end of the talk
If they’re intrigued, they’ll ask questions or read your paper
Whatever you do, don’t just read your slides!
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Preparing slides
Don’t just read your slides!
Use the minimum amount of text necessary
Use examples
Use a readable, simple, yet elegant format
Use color to emphasize important points, but avoid the excessive use of color
“Hiding” bullets like this is annoying (but sometimes effective), but…
Don’t fidget, and…
Abuse of
animation is a
cardinal
sin!
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How to Give a Bad Talk Advice from Dave Patterson, summarized by Mark Hill
Thou shalt not be neat
Thou shalt not waste space
Thou shalt not covet brevity
Thou shalt cover thy naked slides
Thou shalt not write large
Thou shalt not use color
Thou shalt not illustrate
Thou shalt not make eye contact
Thou shalt not skip slides in a long talk
Thou shalt not practice
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Some Useful Resources
Any Questions?
Some useful resources:
Writing:
Lynn DuPre, Bugs in Writing
Strunk & White, Elements of Style
Giving talks:
Mark Hill, “Oral presentation advice”
Patrick Winston, “Some lecturing heuristics”
Simon L. Peyton Jones et al., “How to give a good research talk”
Dave Patterson, “How to have a bad career in research/academia”
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