1. Research Papers: Techniques and Myths
John Morris
Faculty of Engineering, Mahasarakham University
Computer Science/ Electrical and Computer Engineering,
The University of Auckland
Iolanthe III racing at Jomtien Jan 2014

2. Techniques
OUTLINE

3. Outline - journal or conference paper
Similar for any other report or your thesis
Title
Abstract
Introduction
Literature Review
Hypotheses and methods
Results
Analysis
Conclusion
Future work
Acknowledgments
References | Bibliography
Commonly each item in a separate section
Variations OK – eg combine 3 & 4 or 5 & 6
Make ‘Literature review’ or ‘Related work’ subsection of Introduction to a separate section
Sometimes combined
Sometimes combined
Optional

4. Additional sections Abstract Tables of contents
Always necessary for a paper
Important – may be read more times than your paper!
Tables of contents
Only for long survey papers or book chapters
Glossaries of terms, symbols and acronyms
Very good idea if you have space
In particular, not all acronyms are obvious to even expert readers
Index
Long documents only
Lists of tables, figures
Actually of limited use, but can be generated automatically 
Consider making one
Even for a conference paper (always limited space!)
Rarely in a journal paper Never in a conference paper (not enough space!)

5. Preparing your paper Choose a journal Impact factor is essential
There are many ‘fake’ or ‘for-profit’ conferences now!
Your first paper?
Choosing a `prestige’ (high impact factor) journal
Good idea
but time consuming
Review time is long
Acceptance rate is lower
Google ensures that your paper will be found
As long as it is in an indexed journal!
If it can be found, it will be cited if it’s good
Citation counts are valuable in your CV too!
High citation count will compensate for a low impact factor!
Recommendation for your first paper
Find a journal with a non-zero impact factor that has reasonable publication delay
You can choose a high impact journal for your 2nd paper!

6. PREPARATION

7. Detailed paper preparation
Read topic list for your chosen journal
Check papers already published in that journal
Make sure your paper fits with others in the same journal
If your paper is beside others on the same topic, it will be read more often!
Read the ‘Instructions for authors’
Usually available on journal web sites now
Also in front or back of printed journals

8. Detailed preparation
Instructions will specify how to format your paper
One or two columns
Font style and size
Style and position of abstract
Style for references
English or American spelling
etc
Often you can download templates
LaTeX
Word
Format your paper so that it matches the guidelines
EXACTLY!
If you don’t do it now, it will just slow the process down!
This will take a long time – the first time!
Next time it will be easy!

9. Writing
SECTIONS

10. Keep It Simple!! KISS principle Writing: First principle
Also known as the
KISS principle
Keep It Simple Stupid!

11. Keep It Simple!! It is really important! Do NOT forget it!
Did you remember the advice on the previous slide?
Keep It Simple!!
It is really important!
Do NOT forget it!
Good technical English is simple
Now
50% of readers are NOT native English speakers
Write for them!

12. Myth Keep It Simple!! Editors expect complicate words and phrases:
I must write like others!

13. Myth Reality Keep It Simple!!
Editors expect complicate words and phrases:
I must write like others!
Reality
Editors, reviewers and readers want clear expression of your ideas, results and conclusions
Use simple, uncomplicated English, then nobody will notice!
More people will read your paper in full and
Cite it!
because
they understood it!

14. Myth Reality (2) Keep It Simple!! Models and examples
Editors expect complicate words and phrases:
I must write like others!
Reality (2)
Models and examples
There are many bad papers in the literature
Try to find a good one as your model!
Can you understand every word?
Do you understand the analysis and conclusion?

15. Writing
TITLE

16. Title: Keep It Simple! Start with the title! Remove unnecessary words
It should be short and concise!
Remove unnecessary words
Words usually NOT needed in a title
Research
Method
Experiment
Procedure
Measurement
Analysis ….
These are part of every paper!
Obvious and not needed

17. A typical Thai title
The Optimization of Single Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) by Improvement of Nafion Content in the Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA)
better
Single Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell using Nafion in the Membrane Electrode
Optimization, Improvement not needed!
Paper is obviously going to talk about enhancement of the design
No Acronyms in the title
Words are already spelt out in full!
Assembly, content not needed – full details in abstract or text

18. Using Nafion in the Membrane Fuel Cell Electrodes
A typical Thai title
The Optimization of Single Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) by Improvement of Nafion Content in the Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA)
or possibly even better
Using Nafion in the Membrane Fuel Cell Electrodes
Focus on the key words in the title
Title should draw readers to the abstract!

19. Your name You should decide NOW how to spell your name You want
Choose ONE of the many transliterations of your name!
Use it consistently
Search tools are using the text of your name
Not it’s sound!
You want
ALL your papers to be found with the same search
ALL your citations to be grouped together
If you change your name
Consider continuing to use your original name on papers
Otherwise your publications will not be found so easily

20. Abstract Summarize results of paper Concise Make every word count!
200 words usually enough
Some editors limit you to less, eg 100
Make every word count!
Must include results
Numeric results
If paper has many pages of numeric results, Summarize some key values
Bad Abstracts
Force you to read the paper itself to find anything useful!

21. If you put key results in your abstract, others may cite your paper
Abstract - Importance
Read many more times than the paper!
Publishers always make abstracts available on-line
Anyone with a computer and internet access can learn about your work
Not all have access to the full paper
Expensive – typically ~$30++
Libraries don’t subscribe to every journal - Too many
If you put key results in your abstract, others may cite your paper
Without having read the full paper!
Citations are really important!
Employers sometimes count citations before counting your published papers!
Good abstracts  more citations

22. Abstract – Bad example
Feasibility analysis has been performed to find the financially optimum green building label for buildings in Thailand conforming to the Thailand’s green building standard (Thai’s Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability for New Construction and Major Renovation, TREES-NC). Three sample buildings comprising an office building (4 floors, 1, m2), a school building (6 floors, 6, m2), and a hospital building (3 floors, 6, m2) were used in this study. To achieve each level of the green label (i.e., certified, silver, gold, and platinum), 4 groups of green measures according to the 8 topics in the standard were assumed to be implemented to earn credits in the following order: measures with no investment & provide benefits, measures with no investment & no benefits, measures with investment & provide benefits, and measures with investment & no benefits. The EnergyPlus software was used to evaluate the energy savings from the measures in the Energy and Atmosphere topic. It was found that both silver and gold labels were financially feasible. At those levels, energy and water savings were within a range of % and %, respectively. The investment would be % higher than that of the baseline building. The payback period was found to be within a range of years which was the shortest compared with the other labels. The net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return (IRR) were found to be within a range of 108, ,486, Baht and %, respectively, which were the highest compared with the other labels.
Published in a recent conference in Thailand

23. Abstract – Sentence by sentence
Feasibility analysis has been performed to find the financially optimum green building label for buildings in Thailand conforming to the Thailand’s green building standard (Thai’s Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability for New Construction and Major Renovation, TREES-NC).
Too many words!
We show how to earn a green building label for buildings conforming to the Thai green building standard (Thai Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability for New Construction and Major Renovation, TREES-NC) economically.
Typically …
This abstract was printed in the conference proceedings
Arguably, more important the full paper!
Many people will read the abstract
How many will continue to the full paper?
First aim: keep it concise and attractive to read!

24. Abstract – Sentence by sentence
Three sample buildings comprising an office building (4 floors, 1, m2), a school building (6 floors, 6, m2), and a hospital building (3 floors, 6, m2) were used in this study.
Reduce to
Three buildings - an office (4 floors, 1,300 m2), a school (6 floors, 6,540 m2) and a hospital (3 floors, 6,890 m2) - were studied.
Two many words
Repetitions removed
‘buildings’ – four instances reduced to ONE!
Active verbs
‘were used in this study’ to ‘were studied’.
Excessive significant figures
m2  1300 m2 – remove the noise!
Relative sizes are important : 6540 : 6890
Do you care about the – it’s only 0.5% of 1300 ???

25. Abstract – Sentence by sentence
To achieve each level of the green label (i.e., certified, silver, gold, and platinum), 4 groups of green measures according to the 8 topics in the standard were assumed to be implemented to earn credits in the following order: measures with no investment & provide benefits, measures with no investment & no benefits, measures with investment & provide benefits, and measures with investment & no benefits.
Reduce to
To achieve certified, silver, gold, and platinum levels, 4 groups of measures in 8 standard topics earned credits in the order: measures with no investment but benefits, measures with no investment and no benefits, measures with investment and benefits, and measures with investment and no benefits.
Simplify phrases like
‘were assumed to be implemented to earn credits ’ –reduced to ‘earned’ !
Active verb is ‘earn’

26. Abstract – Sentence by sentence
At those levels, energy and water savings were within a range of % and %, respectively.
Reduce to
At those levels, energy savings were 30-39% and water savings 22-66%.
Authors are like magnets attracted to ‘respectively’!
but
note how much simpler the sentence is without it!!
Again, excessive, meaningless digits …
If the range is 30-39, then the margin of error is ~30% !
So has no significance!
And ‘.20’ is pure noise which slows your reader

27. Abstract – Bad example Compare this one ..
Feasibility analysis has been performed to find the financially optimum green building label for buildings in Thailand conforming to the Thailand’s green building standard (Thai’s Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability for New Construction and Major Renovation, TREES-NC). Three sample buildings comprising an office building (4 floors, 1, m2), a school building (6 floors, 6, m2), and a hospital building (3 floors, 6, m2) were used in this study. To achieve each level of the green label (i.e., certified, silver, gold, and platinum), 4 groups of green measures according to the 8 topics in the standard were assumed to be implemented to earn credits in the following order: measures with no investment & provide benefits, measures with no investment & no benefits, measures with investment & provide benefits, and measures with investment & no benefits. The EnergyPlus software was used to evaluate the energy savings from the measures in the Energy and Atmosphere topic. It was found that both silver and gold labels were financially feasible. At those levels, energy and water savings were within a range of % and %, respectively. The investment would be % higher than that of the baseline building. The payback period was found to be within a range of years which was the shortest compared with the other labels. The net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return (IRR) were found to be within a range of 108, ,486, Baht and %, respectively, which were the highest compared with the other labels.
With the next slide ……..

28. Abstract – Better! Excellent! Shorter Simpler wording
We show how to earn a green building label for buildings conforming to the Thai green building standard (Thai Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability for New Construction and Major Renovation, TREES-NC) economically. Three buildings - an office (4 floors, 1,300 m2), a school (6 floors, 6,540 m2) and a hospital (3 floors, 6,890 m2) - were studied. To achieve certified, silver, gold, and platinum levels, 4 groups of measures in 8 standard topics earned credits in the order: measures with no investment but benefits, measures with no investment and no benefits, measures with investment and benefits, and measures with investment and no benefits. ‘EnergyPlus’ software evaluated energy savings from the measures in the Energy and Atmosphere topic. Both silver and gold labels were found to be financially feasible. At those levels, energy savings were 30-39% and water savings 22-66% with only 2-4% added cost. The payback periods of years. The net present value (NPV) was between 100,000 and 9 million Baht and the internal rate of return (IRR) in the range %.
Shorter
But still long: I would be trying to make it shorter
Simpler wording
Comparing the two versions – if you were the journal editor, which one would you prefer?
Note the inclusion of actual numeric results!!
I could cite these results without reading the paper!!
Excellent!

29. Writing
Main BODY of the PAPER

30. Length of your paper Myth Reality I have to make
My paper longer
Fill the allowed space
It will get rejected if it’s not long enough
Reality
Editors, reviewers and readers are delighted if your paper is shorter
They only want a convincing argument
More words will not make it better!
More data, more and better experiments
More comprehensive literature review

31. Actually writing! Keep it simple!
Did I say this before 
Do NOT try to add words to make it longer!
Use the simplest language you can!
English is an irregular language
It is hard for native speakers!
It’s harder for you!
Make your task easier with simple language!
Remember >50% of readers struggle with English too!
Find some tips for Technical English here:

32. Translators
Google and other translators cannot do everything for you!!
Some tips
Don’t ask them to translate transliterated versions of European names!
Put the Latin characters in
Same for acronyms like
DC, AC
PID, PIO, .. ….
Amazingly, Google sometimes understands them …
Mainly use Google for single words and terms
It makes a good dictionary
It’s really bad at turning Thai into grammatical English

33. Factors to check Background, previous work
You must cover all recent relevant work!
Scary!
There are 1000s of papers on every topic!
Check recent (2014, 2013, .. ) papers in
Important journals
Major international conferences
Usually they have references to previous important work
Often it will be sufficient to cite most recent work
Look for survey papers
Cite them in place of 10’s of individual papers
Missing important recent work
Rejection or
Revision

34. Factors to check Experimental method Repeatability Principle
Provide sufficient detail of your experiments
Enable someone else to repeat your experiments
Methods
Equipment used
Sample sources
Experimental conditions
Detail!!!!
eg ‘Room temperature’ in Thailand is typically 30oC If this is a factor, include it!
Repeatability Principle
Your work will not be accepted until someone else can reproduce your results

35. m = 93.456 ± 0.0005 kg (half a gram in 90kg!!!)
Factors to check
Presentation of results
Common failings
Omission of error altogether!
Inclusion of excess significant digits in numeric values
m = kg
With no specified error, this implies
m = ± kg (half a gram in 90kg!!!)
Write more realistically
m = 93.5 kg (implies ± 0.05 )
or (using a spring balance in the field)
m = 94 kg (implies ± 0.5 )
Allow for errors!!
All measurements have observation errors

36. Factors to check Presentation of results m = 93.4 kg ( = 0.6)
Adding errors shows that your work was careful
Standard deviation is a minimum
m = 93.4 kg ( = 0.6)
but remember that the error is an error estimate!
m = kg ( = 0.63)
Error is already ± 0.6 , so round .43 to .4!!
Don’t exaggerate accuracy!
Often you don’t need to!
If previous researchers obtained 21% efficiency
Your system achieved 27%
This is already a good result!!
You don’t need to claim 27.12% !
(No one will believe the .12% anyway!)

37. Factors to check Graphs Plot the original data points
Add the predicted behavior as a smooth curve
Usually linear
Non-linear models: normalize data and plot as straight line
Do NOT ‘join the dots’ with Excel
Your observations have errors!
Joining the dots is physically meaningless!
Do NOT add a high-order polynomial trend line with Excel
Nice curve, but physically meaningless!
Plot the theoretically predicted model

38. Process
ReviEWS

39. Blind reviewing
Some journals and conferences review papers without authors’ names on them
To prevent bias
Reviewer may not believe the work of someone
he’s had an argument with or
who criticized the reviewer’s work before!

40. Blind reviewing Preparing for blind reviews
Remove your names and institution from the author list
I usually substitute some dummy names like
Author X, Author Y, etc
University ABC
Check for references to your institution in the text
.. in the Photogrammetry Laboratory at Auckland
changes to
.. in the XYX Laboratory at PQR University
Remove citations to your own work from reference list
Again I usually substitute something like
Self citation 1: some journal, 2006
Substituting dummy names makes it easy to put the real ones back when the paper is accepted!
Layout of the paper will not be changed

41. Reviewing
Journal editor will send your paper to at least two experts in your area
They will be asked to write a review of your paper
They will comment on
Errors
Experimental methods
Presentation
Results
Analysis
Writing style
in fact everything!

42. Reviewing Editor will send the reports back to you
If you agree with the comments of the referees
Amend the paper to satisfy referees’ objections
Submit again
If you don’t agree, then
Write a carefully argued response and send to the editor
Do not attack the referees personally!
Editor may accept your comments and publish your paper or
Send them back to the referee
This may take several iterations
Actual procedure depends on journal policy and editor
and may take some time!
Allow many months!

43. Reviewing Referees are anonymous You will not be told who they are
Don’t even ask!!
It’s a big mistake of some authors to argue personally with the referees
Journal editors will not allow it
If you start such an argument, your paper is likely to be rejected immediately
You will be considered unprofessional
You must accept the referees’ comments as reasonable
Even if you don’t agree with them!
Anonymity is important in the reviewing process
Allows the referees to express their opinions freely!
Even a junior lecturer can criticize a senior professor
IF he or she can justify the criticism!!

44. Final preparation Editor has advised you that your paper is accepted
Make any corrections that the editor or the referees have requested
Prepare a final copy of your paper
Often referred to as the ‘camera ready’ copy
It will be photographed and bound into the journal
Check it carefully!!
Any mistakes will end up in print forever!
Check formatting requirements too
Some journals will ask for original LaTeX files and separate image files

45. Technical Reports
Many university departments publish research first in a Technical Report
Faster
Can be sent to colleagues and other researchers immediately
Publication delays
Small conference – 3 months
Large international conference – 6 months
Journals – up to 2 years!
NOT refereed
Informally by your colleagues only!
This informal review is valuable
Helps you to improve the paper
Reduces time for formal review by a journal
Wait for formal reviews - main reason for publication delay
Referees review papers in their own time
It is not part of our formal job!
Remember this when planning to get your (required) journal paper published

46. FINAL WORD Get your paper checked! John Morris, Engineering, EN 110
PhD (Physical Chemistry)
So most scientific and engineering papers are OK
There are others better qualified for other disciplines 
It does not take me long …
Bring your paper on a memory stick or send by
LaTeX or Word documents are best
I can edit quickly and directly!
pdf or paper is less efficient