About Writing Technical Papers: Organization, English, and Some Tips

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About Writing Technical PapersOrganization,
English, and Some Tips

• Michael R. Lyu
• September 27, 2004

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Main Sections in A Scientific Paper

• Introduction (Why?)
• Methods (How?)
• Results (What?)
• Discussion (So what?)

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Introduction

• What is the overall purpose of the research?
• How does the research fit into the context of its
  field? Is it, for example, attempting to settle a
  controversy? show the validity of a new
  technique? open up a new field of inquiry?
• What is your rationale for studying the question
  in this way?

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Methods

• What is your approach? Do you describe each step
  clearly and comprehensively?
• Are the methods and measurements appropriate for
  the questions you are approaching?
• Are the methods and measures in this research
  related to the objectives you identified?
• What is the innovation in your approach?

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Results

• What is the one major finding?
• Are enough of the data presented so that readers
  can judge how the experiment turned out?
• Do you make use of figures and tables to clearly
  convey the results?
• Do you see patterns or trends in the data that
  should be emphasized? Are there problems that are
  not addressed?
• What is the significance of the results?

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Discussion

• Can you make convincing conclusions drawn from
  the data?
• Are these conclusions over-generalized or
  appropriately careful?
• Are there other factors that could have
  influenced, or accounted for, the results?
• What further experiments would you think of, to
  continue the research or to answer remaining
  questions?
• Do you clearly state your contribution of the
  paper?

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Writing Style

• Write below the readers' reading level. The
  avg. person in the US reads at a 5th grade level
  (11 years of age). The avg. professional reads at
  about the 12th grade level (18 years of age).
• Keep paragraphs short and sweet. Keep sentences
  shorter and sweeter. This means "concise," not
  cryptic.
• White space is not wasted space it greatly
  improves clarity. A blank line only adds a byte
  to the article length, so don't be stingy if it
  will help make your meaning clearer.
• Pick your words carefully. Writing with precision
  is as important here as it is in any other kind
  of discourse. Consider carefully whether what you
  have written can be misinterpreted, and whether
  that is something you wish to have happen.
• People can only grasp about seven things at once.
  This means ideas in a paragraph, major sections,
  etc.
• Avoid abbreviations and acronyms, if possible,
  and define the ones you use.
• There are several variations on any one sentence.
  A passive, questioning or negative sentence takes
  longer to read.
• "Cute" misspellings are difficult to read,
  especially if the reader is not fluent in the
  language involved.

Intentionally stolen from Jeff Offutt lets
see when he finds out. See http//www.isse.gmu.ed
u/faculty/ofut/hints-net-write.html
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Pay Attention to Every Detail

• Format.
• Grammar.
• Avoid klear errores

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Format

• General You need a space after comma ",", a space
  before and after "", and two spaces after period
  ".".
• Avoid obvious grammatical mistakes. For example,
  analyses is noun, not verb. Its verb is
  analyze.
• Period or comma at the end of Eq?

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Count Them Right!

• Some words are not countable
• research
• work
• Future Researches is not English
• Do not use the word "work" in plural, unless you
  mean "factory" "a piece of art". "Research
  works" is not a correct term.

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Careful Use of Words Have

• Avoid using the word "have/has" unless it is used
  for a tense.
• This book has three chapters -gt this book
  contains three chapters
• These models have the same property -gt These
  models enjoy the same property.

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Careful Use of Words To

• Avoid using words "to" excessively.
• Opinion is originally a 3-dimentional metric to
  represent belief or trust and is extended to
  contain a 4th redundant parameter in order to use
  in combination with logical operators
• Opinion is originally a 3-dimentional metric in
  representing belief or trust and is extended to
  contain a 4th redundant parameter for simple
  usage in combination with logical operators

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The Word Useful" Is Not Useful

• Choose word with concrete meaning for precise
  expression.
• A word with too general meaning becomes
  meaningless.
• You should provide a concrete word to say how
  "useful" is it.
• XML is useful in the Web.
• XML is innovative in the Web.
• XML is popular in the Web.
• XML is powerful in the Web.

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Words and Sentences

• Don't repeat words. Change them to their
  synonyms. (MS Word gives you a good tool for
  that.)
• Make shorter sentences when possible. The longer
  the sentences you make, the more ambiguous they
  may sound.
• And should connect sentences of the same tense.
• Bad Our solution is based on network models in
  1 and we proposed a new approach for
  authentication.
• Right Our solution is based on network models
  in 1. We proposed a new approach for
  authentication.
• Better Based on network models in 1, we
  proposed a new approach for
  authentication.

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Should I Include The?

• All countable things need an article if they are
  not in plural. When you first mention a thing,
  use "a" as the article make that things plural.
  Since then, you use "the" as the article.
• When in doubt, always use "the" as the article.

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Acknowledgement

• Acknowledge grant in the final camera-ready
  paper. For example
• "The work described in this paper was fully
  supported by a grant from the Research Grants
  Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative
  Region, China (Project No. CUHK4205/04E)." 

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About Reference

• Put reference in either appearance order or
  alphabetical order (according to the first
  author's last name).
• Include your own related papers in the reference
  list.
• No reference citation in abstract and conclusion.
• Consistent reference format, including authors,
  paper title, proceedings names, issue number,
  volume, places, dates, page numbers. They not
  only need to be in a consistent sequence, but
  also with right fonts and punctuations.

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How Do I Correct Your Manuscript?

• "underline" means "in italic face"
• "double underline" means "in bold face"
• "triple underline" means "capitalize"
• "/" means "in small case"
• "?" (a line or a circle with a curvy tail) means
  "delete"
• "???" means "undo"
• "\/" or "/\" means "insert"
• means "connect"
• small circle (usually at the end of a word)
  means insert and connect
• "P " means starting a new paragraph
• "clouded quote " means "my
  comments"

P
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Summary

• Read others published papers and study their
  good writing skills.
• If you are writing your first paper, find a
  similar one and copy its style and organization.
• Writing in English is tough but important. Keep
  writing until it is right.
• Read the book The Element of Styles by Strunk
  White
• And the book How to Write For the World of Work
  by Cunningham Pearsall