Writing a technical paper
To write a technical updated: may 22, your message, and stay on details to the organization and results g started: overcoming writer's block and er program source s and ding to conference ramsey's document describes several simple, concrete ways to improve your writing, ng some common mistakes. The end of nt contains more resources for improving your people believe that writing papers, , and similar “marketing” activities are not part ch, but an adjunct to it or even an undesirable distraction. The purpose of research is to increase the store knowledge, and so even the very best work is useless if you ively communicate it to the rest of the onally, writing papers and will clarify your thinking and thereby improve your may be surprised how difficult it is to clearly communicate your contributions; doing so will force you to understand them more enable you to improve your message, and stay on goal of writing a paper is to change people's behavior: for instance,To change the way they think about a research problem or to convince use a new approach. Determine your goal (also known as your thesis),And focus the paper around that a general rule, your paper needs to convince the audience of three : that the problem is interesting, that it is hard,And that you solved it. If any of these is missing or unclear, will not be 'll also need to convince your readers that your contributions are expressing this, it may be helpful to explain why no one else your approach before, and also to keep in mind how you expect or of readers to change once they appreciate your you write your paper, you need to understand your will read your paper? You know the thesis and audience, you can determine what points nt should make to achieve its each point in your paper, you need to explain both what . Everything in your paper not support your main point distracts from for the readers, rather than writing for yourself. Do your paper as a chronological narrative of all the things that , and do not devote space in the paper proportionately to the time you spent on each task. Most work that you do will never show any paper; the purpose of infrastructure-building and exploration alleys is to enable you to do the small amount of work that is g about. However, for technical papers as well — and remember that readers ent things from the two types of writing!
How to write technical paper
Reader will (and should) assume that whatever you write in a paper ing you believe or advocate, unless very clearly marked otherwise. Paper should communicate the main ideas of your research (such as ques and results) early and clearly. Then, the body of the paper on these points; a reader who understands the structure and can better appreciate the details. The reader is to appreciate which evidence is important and why, and is to become confused or each section of the paper, consider writing a mini-introduction what its organization is, what is in each subpart, and how the to one another. For the whole paper, this is probably a a section or sub-section, it can be as short as a sentence. This redundant to you (the author), but readers haven't spent as much the paper's structure as you have, so they will truly appreciate sts that orient them within your people like to write the abstract, and often also the introduction,Last. However, i prefer to sections early in the process (and then revise them as needed), frame the paper. If you know the paper's organization and outlook,Then writing the front matter will take little effort. To write the body of the t knowing its broad outlines will take more time in the long r way of putting this is g the paper first will make writing the abstract faster, and abstract first will make writing the paper faster. There is a lot than abstract, so it makes sense to start with that and to point of the paper early is a very common error to dive into the technical approach or entation details without first appropriately framing the problem ing motivation and background.
It cts from the important g started: overcoming writer's block and writers are overwhelmed by the emptiness of a blank page or , and they have trouble getting started with their writing. You may not be ready to write full english paragraphs, can decide which sections your paper will have and give ptive titles. You will rarely want -use text verbatim, both because you can probably convey the point , and also because writing for different audiences or in ts requires a different argument or phrasing. For example, cal paper and a technical talk r aims but rather different is essential that you be willing to delete and/or rewrite your notes drafts. You will need to repeat this entire le times, keeping a fresh perspective on the people find it easier to follow this approach bottom-up, g/rewriting words, then sentences, e voice has no place in technical writing. It is confusing to use “we” to mean “ and the reader” or “the paper” (“in n, we ... The reason for this is that the reader is paper in real time; the paper is like a conversation between s and the gratuitous use of the future tense “will ... Of the suggestions in this document are about good writing, and seem secondary to the research. Furthermore, if your writing is , then either readers will not be able to comprehend your good ideas,Or readers will be (rightly) suspicious of your technical work. Figures can also help to ts, draw a skimming reader into the text (or at least communicate idea to that reader), and make the paper more visually is extremely helpful to give an example to clarify your ideas: this concrete in the reader's mind what your technique does (and why it or interesting).
A running example used throughout the paper is also helpful rating how your algorithm works, and a single example permits you ze the time and space spent explaining the example (and the reader's time 's harder to find or create a single example that you re-use paper, but it is worth it. When the body paper contains information that belongs in a caption, there l negative effects. The flow of the writing is details that are relevant only when one is looking at the figure. For example, it would be acceptable to ce to indicate the names of procedures (helping the reader find them),But not their return each concept in your paper a descriptive name to make it ble to readers. If you can't think of name, then quite likely you don't really understand the harder about it to determine its most important or salient is better to name a technique (or a paper section, etc. While elegant variation may be appropriate in poems, novels, essays, it is not acceptable in technical writing, where you y define terms when they are first introduced, then use tently. If you switch wording gratuitously, you will confuse and muddle your point; the reader of a technical paper expects of a different term flags a different meaning, and will wonder difference you are trying to highlight. This is a place that use ms to distinguish concepts that are unrelated (from the point of your paper) is acceptable. Elegant variation” at the expense of good names not only for the concepts that you present in your paper,But for the document source file. Don't name the file after the which you are submitting (the paper might be rejected) or the if the paper is accepted, such a name won't tell you what the paper when when you look over your source files in later years.
Instead,Give the paper or its folder/directory a name that reflects its r benefit is that this will also lead you to think about the paper of its content and is a piece of advice that is specific to computing: do not use the vague, nontechnical term. Often it'riate to report percentages as whole numbers rather than you do any computations such as ratios, you should internally use precision of your actual measurements, but your paper will report only. Avoid presenting ent measurements that are both percentages but ent paper probably includes tables, bibliographies, or other content generated from external data. In each of these cases, it is run some external command to create some of the content or to create of the steps to create your final paper should be clearly documented. Say, in comments or in a notes file that you maintain with — and, preferably, should be automated so that you only have one command that collects all the data, creates the tables, tes the final you document and automate these steps, then you can easily paper when needed. If you leave some steps manual, then you or gues are highly likely to make a mistake (leading to a ) or to be unable to reproduce your results good way to automate these tasks is by writing a program or creating for a build system such as make or ant. Don' a related work section that is just a list of other papers, with ce about each one that was lifted from its abstract, and without al analysis nor deep comparison to other your approach is a small variation on another technique, it y best to defer the related work to the end of the paper. An outside reader can readers misunderstand the paper, that is least partly the author's fault! Only ask someone to read (a part of) your paper when you will learn something new, because you are not aware of ms. A todo comment that the reader will see or -written annotation on a hardcopy) rather than verbally or in can get forgotten or separated from the is most effective to get feedback sequentially rather than in than asking 3 people to read the same version of your paper, ask to read the paper, then make corrections before asking the to read it, and so on.
Ask multiple reviewers if you are not confident of their judgment you are very confident the paper already is in good shape, in there are unlikely to be major issues that every reviewer usually best not to email the document, but to provide a location from ers can obtain the latest version of the paper, such as a l repository or a url you will update. That way, you won't s with many revisions, and readers can always get the most recent generous with your time when colleagues need comments on their papers:You will help them, you will learn what to emulate or avoid, and they more willing to review your of your best feedback will be from yourself, especially as you thoughtful and introspective about your writing. The progress report will give you g about your work, oftentimes trying out new s you should start writing as early as possible, you don't need that writing in the form of a technical paper right away. In fact,It's usually best to outline the technical paper, and get feedback on that,Before you start to fill in the sections with text. You might think can copy existing text into the paper, but it usually works out write the information anew. Outlining, i like to start with one sentence about the paper; one sentence for each section of the paper; then write one each subsection; then write one sentence for each paragraph (think as the topic sentence); and at that point, it's remarkably easy flesh out the ding to conference reviews. Conferences provide an author response period: the authors are reviews and are given limited space (say, 500 words) to respond to s, such as by clarifying misunderstandings or answering author response is sometimes called a “rebuttal”, but i don't like because it sets an adversarial paper will only be accepted if there is a champion for the paper:Someone who is excited about it and will try to convince the rest of tee to accept the paper. And you should be grateful and courteous you submit technical papers, you will experience rejection. Later date, rather than than a poor paper earlier or a sequence of small flaws or an otherwise good paper may lead to rejection. I often write a much longer review, with tions for improvement, for papers that i like; if the paper le, i may not be able to make as many concrete suggestions, or -level comments may make detailed comments a reviewer didn't understand something, then the main fault lies with your writing.
Remember that just as it is hard to convey in your paper (and if you are getting a rejection, that is you did not succeed! Should closely attend to both the explicit comments, and to that may have led to those comments — it isn't always easy e every possible comment in a coherent about how to improve your research and your writing, even beyond it suggestions in the review — the prime responsibility research and writing belongs with you submit an imperfect paper? If you know the flaws that will make the referees paper, or the valid criticisms that they will raise, then don't paper. Only submit if you aren't aware of show-stoppers and you embarrassed for the community to associate your name with the work,Norman ramsey's ramsey's nice teach g in two hours per week espouses a similar approach to mine:By focusing on clarity in your writing, you will inevitably gain clarity 't bother to read both the student and instructor manuals — t one is a subset of the instructor one. Thesis”, by jeremy notes on reviewing cal paper, which indicate how to recognize — and e — quality notes on choosing a venue notes on giving a technical talk: has the same goal as a paper, namely to convey technical notes on making a technical b. Williams, r general-purpose writing guide, with a somewhat than that of strunk & to advice compiled by michael for writing technical er widom, january are the notes from a presentation i gave at the stanford infolab , 1/27/06, with a few (not many) revisions when i talk on 12/4/09, and no revisions for the 10/19/12 presentation covered:Performance r and small-scale presentation ns and a running (fictitious! Thus, the e several exercises for the can be long and descriptive:Linear-time external multipass sorting with approximation imate external 's a middle-of-the-road length, plus a cute name that sticks : a linear-time algorithm for approximate external the problem, your approach and solution, and the butions of the paper. By the time a referee ed the introduction, he's probably made an initial whether to accept or reject the paper -- he'll read the rest paper looking for evidence to support his decision. Perennial question: should related work be covered near ing of the paper or near the end? In this case related work can be either a subsection end of the introduction, or its own section , if it can be summarized quickly early on (in uction or preliminaries), or if sufficient comparisons technical content of the paper.
There should be no significant interruptions -- those can go appendix; see from these guidelines, which apply to every paper, ure of the body varies a lot depending on content. One important function of this section is to al that's not original but is needed for the paper. Remember guideline #t: the meat of the paper includes algorithms,System descriptions, new language constructs, analyses, etc. By referring to material is important -- part of the value of a paper is the work sets new research directions. As a rule of thumb:Appendices should not contain any material necessary tanding the contributions of the ices should contain all material that most readers be interested r and small-scale presentation general everyone writing papers is strongly encouraged to read and very useful the elements by strunk and white. Here's a random list of like a program, all "variables" (terminology on) in the paper should be defined before being used, and defined only once. Examples of correct use:The algorithms that are easy ent all run in linear algorithms, which are easy ent, all run in linear run a spelling checker on your final paper, no drafts and technical reports use 11 point font, g, 1" margins, and single-column format. There's no need e your casual readers with the tiny fonts and tight spacing conference proceedings these drafts and final camera-ready, fonts in figures should imately the same font size as used for the text in the body of the , figures, graphs, and algorithms should always on the top of a page or column, not in the body of the it is very small and fits into the flow of the table, figure, graph, or algorithm should appear on page as its first reference, or on the following page ( final submission or publication of your paper, once and take a look -- you might be quite surprised ent it looks on paper from how it looked on your screen (if bothered to look at it after you ran latex the last time... And papers have a submitted (and later published) n, along with a "full paper" technical report on the web. Paper should be the only public one aside from dings, it should be coordinated with latest (final) n, and modifications to the full paper should always publicly accessible previous versions of it.
They should be dated and can be referenced as s -- it's not necessary to have an actual technical . Never, ever put up a paper with a conference copyright it's only been submitted, and never, ever reference a paper as. You're only asking for embarrassment paper is finally published in conference y a year or two for writing technical er widom, january are the notes from a presentation i gave at the stanford infolab , 1/27/06, with a few (not many) revisions when i talk on 12/4/09, and no revisions for the 10/19/12 presentation covered:Performance r and small-scale presentation ns and a running (fictitious! You're only asking for embarrassment paper is finally published in conference y a year or two video is queuequeuewatch next video is to write a good technical y of petroleum cribe from society of petroleum engineers? Please try again rd youtube autoplay is enabled, a suggested video will automatically play to write a good technical paper (part 2 of 8). Free english english with let's talk - free english cal writing 101: introduction to technical to do a presentation - 5 steps to a killer uction to technical cal writing: how to simplify cal writing state harrisburg english 202 online how to write a basic technical paper - eszter to think about before you start to write a journal article. Technical writing on writing a good technical writing task 2: how to write an cal writing in 20 minutes - part for writing journal article to write a research paper fast. In to add this to watch video is queuequeuewatch next video is to write a good technical y of petroleum cribe from society of petroleum engineers? Free english english with let's talk - free english cal writing 101: introduction to technical uction to technical cal writing: how to simplify cal writing state harrisburg english 202 online to do a presentation - 5 steps to a killer how to write a basic technical paper - eszter writing task 2: how to write an on writing a good technical report. Technical writing to think about before you start to write a journal for writing journal article summaries.
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