Writing Your Research Paper MastersDoctoral Seminar Research Paper

Writing Your Research Paper Masters-Doctoral Seminar

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. 2

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. 3

Research Paper Requirements (cont) • A first draft of the paper must be submitted to me electronically by 5 pm 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 • • Doesn’t 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 5 pm on Wednesday December 8, 2010. 4

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 5 papers on these same topics.

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. 6

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 100200 words. – Eliminate all non-essential information from abstract 7

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 8 attract other researchers to “read your paper”.

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 = mc 2) 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(log 2 n) running time. ” 9

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. 10

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. 11

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 12

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. html – http: //www. cs. columbia. edu/~hgs/etc/writingstyle. html 13