COSC 5050 Research Writing for Computer Science

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COSC 5050Research Writing for Computer Science

• Spring 2004
• Dr. Rex Gantenbein
• Lecture 11 Revising documents

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Course information

• Second (complete) draft due 15 April
• First draft to be returned next week
• Individual consultations on 1 April

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Revision strategies

• Step 1 Complete the paper
• Make sure it is self-contained and focused on the
  research topic
  
• Step 2 Make global revisions
• Fix large problems (from first draft)
• Step 3 Make prose revisions
• Fix sentence-level problems
• Step 4 Proofread the final document

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Global revisions

• Address the larger elements of the document
  first
  
• Focus
• Organization
• Paragraphing
• Content
• Overall strategy

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Global revisions

• Purpose and audience
• Does the draft accomplish its purpose? Does it
  convince the reader of the significance or value
  of the work described?
  
• Is it appropriate for its audience? Does it
  consider their level of knowledge and interest?
  
• Is the reading level appropriate?

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Global revisions

• Focus
• Do the introduction and conclusion focus clearly
  on the main topic? Is the research question
  clearly stated?
  
• Are there any ideas or material not directly
  related to the main topic?

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Global revisions

• Organization and paragraphing
• Does the reader have organizational cues (topic
  sentences, headings) that help structure the
  paper?
  
• Are the ideas ordered effectively?
• Does the paragraphing make sense? Are the
  connections among the paragraphs?
  
• Are any paragraphs too long or too short for easy
  reading?

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Global revisions

• Content
• Is the supporting material persuasive and related
  to the main topic?
  
• Are there ideas that need more explanation or
  further development?
  
• Are the sections proportioned sensibly? Do major
  ideas receive enough attention?
  
• Is there material that could be deleted?

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Global revisions

• Hints for revising at this level
• Distance yourself from the paper (dont re-read
  it continuously put it aside for a while)
  
• Try to view it as an outside reader (get help
  from others if you need to they dont need to
  be content experts to look at global concerns)

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Global revisions

• Hints for revising at this level
• Check the major organizational points does your
  paper follow your original outline? If not, why
  not? (Can you draw a flow chart of the
  organization?)
• Do the introductory sentences of each section
  relate to the headings? (Use these sentences to
  expand on the ideas in the headings.)

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Global revisions

• Hints for revising at this level
• Check your facts are you making any claims that
  you dont support or substantiate? Do you need
  arguments/sources/data to back them up?
  
• Read a hard copy, not a screenful at a time
• Save your old version(s)!

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Moving on

• After youve made your global revisions, check
• Focus (is the main topic clear and supported)
• Organization (is order easy to follow and are
  transitions between topics clear?)
  
• Content (is the supporting material persuasive
  and free of irrelevant or repetitious ideas?)
  
• Style (is the voice appropriate and the sentences
  clear?)

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Moving on

• Check your supporting material for logical
  fallacies (mistakes in reasoning)
  
• Unsupported generalizations (everybody
  thinks)
  
• Conclusions that dont follow arguments (Since
  the Net is so popular, it has to be secure.)
  
• Connections between unrelated events (The
  clients increased business requires more
  computers.)
  
• Limited alternatives (Either learn programming
  or you wont get a job.)

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Prose revisions

• Address issues of grammar, punctuation, and
  mechanics here
  
• Wordiness, overly complex sentences
• Word choice and sentence structure
• Typographic errors

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Prose revisions

• Review document for wordiness and complex
  structures
  
• The official language isnt always the best
  language, but try to avoid being more opaque than
  necessary
  
• Consider breaking long sentences down
• Dont use jargon (without explaining it at the
  appropriate level)
  
• Dont use big words if a small one will do the
  same job

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Prose revisions

• Check your paragraphs for effectiveness
• Paragraphs are clusters of information supporting
  the papers main point (or that of a section)
  
• Paragraphs should be
• Clearly focused
• Well developed
• Organized and coherent
• Neither too long or too short

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Prose revisions

• The main point of a paragraph should be stated in
  a topic sentence (what is this paragraph about?)
  
• Usually comes first in the paragraph
• The rest of the paragraph should be related to
  the topic
  
• Develop the point with enough evidence to
  convince even a skeptical reader

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Prose revisions

• Use a suitable pattern of paragraph organization
• Examples and illustrations
• Description (show details)
• Process (show steps)
• Comparison (show similarities or differences)
• Analogy (explain one thing by describing its
  similarities to something more familiar)

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Prose revisions

• Use a suitable pattern of paragraph organization
• Cause and effect (explain why something happens)
• Classification and division (categorize)
• Definition (put a concept into a general category
  and then differentiate it from other members or
  just explain what this concept means)

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Prose revisions

• Paragraphs should be coherent (that is, they flow
  from one to another without large shifts in
  thought)
  
• Link the ideas with transition sentences or
  words
  
• Using parallel structures to link paragraphs or
  sentences discussing related ideas
  
• Maintain consistent language (use the same tense
  or person in all paragraphs)

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Prose revisions

• Most paragraphs contain 100-200 words
• Longer paragraphs are hard to read
• Shorter paragraphs force the reader to start and
  stop too often
  
• Start a new paragraph when
• You introduce a new idea or time/place
• You want to make a new or important point
• Your text looks too dense

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Prose revisions

• Hints for revisions at this level
• Read troublesome sections out loud (sometimes
  your ear is a better editor than your brain)
  
• Have someone else read it to you!
• Get an editor or native English speaker to read
  the draft for basic correctness and word choices

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Other material

• Figures and tables should be appropriate for the
  material
  
• Use figures and tables to enhance the text, not
  replace it (discuss them in the text)
  
• Use a decent graphics package or drawing tool
  (dont include hand-drawn figures)
  
• Cite the source of a figure or table if taken
  from somewhere else

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Other material

• Citations should be properly placed in the text
• Use IEEE style if theres no reason not to
• Look for examples if the formal of a reference
  isnt clear
  
• Make references consistent and accurate
• Double space the final copy and use a laser
  printer if possible

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Sentence-level revisions

• The final step in the revision process is working
  on sentence-level changes
  
• Making sentences more effective
• Looking for appropriate word choices
• Checking grammar
• Proofreading fixes errors or other problems in
  mechanics rather than style or organization

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Effective sentences

• Similar ideas should be expressed in parallel
  form to make them easier to grasp
  
• In matters of principle, stand like a rock in
  matters of taste, swim with the current. Thomas
  Jefferson
  
• Make all items in a series the same form
• Repeat function words to clarify parallels
• We try to please everyone if we can or to annoy
  as few people as possible if we cant.

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Effective sentences

• Make sure the sentences say what you meant!
• The robber was described as a six-foot-tall man
  with a mustache weighing 150 pounds.
  
• Place modifiers near the thing(s) they modify so
  the meaning of the sentence is clear.
  
• On entering the doctors office, a skeleton
  caught my attention.

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Effective sentences

• Make the point of view consistent and avoid
  shifts between sentences or sections
  
• Use a consistent verb tense (are you describing
  something that happens or that happened?)
  
• Use the same mood and voice
• The system was designed to be reliable. You
  also want it to be efficient.
  
• Dont shift between active and passive voice
  quickly

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Effective sentences

• Avoid unnecessarily complex sentences
• See if you can break up long sentences into
  smaller, more coherent thoughts
  
• Avoid short, choppy sentences
• Use and, or, but, etc. to combine ideas
  that are closely related and equally important
  
• Use after, since, whose, etc. to introduce
  an idea that is subordinate (less important or
  supporting, but related) to another idea

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Effective sentences

• Use a variety of sentence structures and
  openings
  
• Try inverting sentences occasionally
• Change the standard subject-verb-object order
• In contrast to C, C is a true object-oriented
  language.
  
• Make sure it sounds natural!
• Throw the cow over the fence some more hay.

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Word choice

• Dont use the wrong word!
• Accept/except, all ready/already, complement/
  compliment, principal/principle, site/cite, etc.
  
• Look for unnecessary words or phrases
• Cooperate together, basic essentials, true fact
• the Department of Redundancy Department

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Word choice

• Look for ways to simplify sentences without
  losing the meaning
  
• We cannot make an estimate of the systems
  performance because we did not measure it.
  
• In my opinion, security on the Web is not as
  serious as the media make it out to be.

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Word choice

• Avoid jargon, pretentious language, and
  euphemisms
  
• performance challenged slow
• economically deprived zones poor
  neighborhoods
  
• Avoid slang or informal English
• Did you ever wonder how this all really works?

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Word choice

• Be cautious about the connotations of your words
• Use specific words to describe specific ideas
• performance, not speed
• availability, not reliability

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Grammatical sentences

• Make sure your subject and verb agree (watch out
  for intervening words)
  
• The components in the system was tested by
• Treat collective nouns, organization names, etc.
  as singular unless the meaning is clearly plural
  
• This class of program is difficult to test,
  because
  
• The data was/were entered using

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Grammatical sentences

• Use present tense to indicate general truths or
  when summarizing an authors views
  
• The system performs at 14,000 FLOPS maximum.
• Gantenbein says that such systems cannot be
  built using current technology.
  
• Use past tense to indicate a previous event
• The maximum performance observed was 14,000
  FLOPS.

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Grammatical sentences

• Be cautious in using superlatives can you
  support a claim that something is fastest or
  best?
  
• Comparing two things makes one better than the
  other
  
• Three things compared may make one of them the
  best of the three, but maybe not the best of all
  possibilities

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Grammatical sentences

• Watch for sentence fragments and run-ons
• This system is an improvement over previous
  work. Which attempted to solve the problem at
  the network level.
  
• Systems such as these are important, they
  provide a variety of services.
  
• Fix these by creating an appropriate structure