Writing Your Research Paper

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Writing Your Research Paper

• Masters-Doctoral Seminar

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Research Paper Requirements

• All students taking this course for a letter
  grade must write a short research paper
• Must be in ACM SIG Conferences Proceedings
  format
• Font sizes and formats for citations and
  references must be as specified in this document.
  
• Exceptions Categories and Subject Descriptors
  and General Terms parts can be omitted.
• Length should be 4-6 pages (minimum).
• Conference papers usually limited to 6-8 pages
• Each journal specifies their length limits.

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Research Paper Requirements (cont)

• Should be written at a level that is accessible
  to CS graduate students.
• Should be based on either
• research you have conducted towards your thesis
  or dissertation
• 2-3 research papers of interest to you on the
  same topic, but should not be based on a single
  paper.
• Must include several appropriate research
  citations.
• All citations, including web citations, must
  follow appropriate style.

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Research Paper Requirements (cont)

• A first draft of the paper must be submitted to
  me electronically by 5pm Monday Nov 29, 2010.
• Must follow the required ACM style and be in
  .doc, .docx, or .pdf format.
• Papers that do not meet reasonable standards will
  be returned for revisions
• Doesnt follow ACM formatting rules
• English grammar needs improving
• English presentation (e.g., paragraphs) needs
  improvement
• Technical presentation needs improvement
• Final version must be submitted electronically by
  5pm on Wednesday December 8, 2010.

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Choosing a Good Title for Paper

• The title is the part of your paper that will be
  seen by the most people.
• Must be carefully selected in order to properly
  convey the main focus of the paper
• Do not try to mention every topic covered in
  paper in its title
• Leads to long complicated names that difficult to
  recall and to understand its meaning
• Preferable to avoid titles that are long,
  complex, and difficult to remember
• Title should not be similar to the title of
  another paper, as that will cause confusion in
  the future.
• Specific and reasonably short names that fit the
  main topics will leave options open for future
  titles for follow-up papers on these same topics.

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Abstracts

• The abstract is a stand-alone description that
  captures the most important information about a
  paper
• Other than the title, it is the part of the paper
  that will be read by the largest audience.
• Abstracts are often published without the rest of
  the paper, it must be self-contained, brief, and
  non-repetitive.
• Researchers often make a decision about whether
  to purchase or read your paper, based on your
  abstract.

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Abstracts (cont-1)

• The abstract should be written last after all
  other parts of the paper are completed.
• It is a compact summary of the essential
  information from the entire paper
• If a version of the abstract is required earlier,
  it should be re-written after paper is finish.
• Normally written as one compact single paragraph
  that conveys as much about the paper as possible.
• Often papers and conferences limit the length to
  100-200 words.
• Eliminate all non-essential information from
  abstract

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Abstracts (cont-2)

• Ideally, the first sentence will convey the new
  information contained in the paper.
• Try to convey as much essential information as
  possible in a very direct manner using concise
  sentences.
• Delete any extra words, extra phases, and
  background information.
• Delete any citation of references, as the
  abstract may be able to stand alone without the
  paper.
• Omit or include at most only a brief mention of
  the methods used in the paper.
• View the abstract as your advertisement to
  attract other researchers to read your paper.

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Abstracts (cont-3)

• Normally avoid all motivation in the abstract.
• While unusual, another paper can be mentioned by
  listing its first author and an abbreviated
  title.
• Usually avoid any use of math (e.g., equations
  and formulas except for famous ones like E mc2)
  in the abstract.
• An exception could be including an important
  running time for your algorithm
• E.g., This is the first algorithm of this type
  to have an O(log2 n) running time.

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Abstracts (cont-4)

• Normally avoid use of the phase "in this paper"
  in the abstract. What other paper would you be
  talking about here?
• Usually write abstract (and paper) in third
  person, avoiding use of I. we, our, etc.
• Can use words like this investigation or this
  research instead.

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Contents of a Technical Paper

• Title, Author(s)
• Short abstract
• Introduction -- first section/chapter in paper
• Related Work
• Main body Problem, approach, results
• These may be broken up into more than one
  section/chapter, if desired
• Conclusions, summary, future work
• Usually in the final section/chapter in paper
• References
• Appendices
• Not appropriate for a research paper.

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Writing Style

• Re-read Elements of Style by Strunk and White
• See our webpage for a link to online copy
• The first sentence of a paragraph should be a
  topic (or introductory) sentence and provide an
  overview of content of that paragraph.
• Use of one sentence paragraphs are occasionally
  appropriate, but should be minimized.
• Give the paper to one or two other people to read
  and critique.
• E.g., one person who has good English skills and
  another who is familiar with technical area of
  paper

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Links on Technical Writing

• Study the references cited on our web page for
  more advice and details.
• Two (possibly new) useful links
• http//www.rpi.edu/web/writingcenter/abstracts.htm
  l
• http//www.cs.columbia.edu/hgs/etc/writing-style.
  html