DESIGNING AN ARTICLE Effective Writing 3

Objectives Raising awareness of the format, requirements and features of scientific articles Sharing information of scientific/technical article writing

General issues Both engineers and academics teaching science and technology need the same skills Sharing results is an important part of the scientific process. By discussing your results -- and your interpretation of your results -- with others, you let the world know about your important findings.

Scientific papers give other researchers several specific kinds of information: What were our questions? How did we do our research? What data did we collect? What do the data mean? What conclusions can we draw from our research?

STAGES of the writing process Planning Collecting information Organizing Drafting Revising Proofreading

Before writing the article, plan Choose/determine a topic and objectives Do you have the writer’s block? Think of the audience Search for keywords, determine style and type Do your research Create the outline for your article Decide the length of the article

Collecting information Brainstorm Do your personal research Do your personal experimental work Identify and collect sources of information Skim, select, read in detail the materials Take notes

Organizing Collect material relevant or not at this stage Develop the outline of the paper Mark issues to be supported by citations, quotations, references Incorporate your research

Write the article - Drafting Fill in the outline *Write the rough draft of the article* Tell them what you are going to tell them. Them them. Tell them what you told them. Write without paying attention to style. Do not correct spelling mistakes. Correct wrong data, add information.

After writing the first draft – revising and proofreading Take a break and then revise Check your article for: -faulty information, -unnecessary or contradictory information, -grammar and spelling errors Rewrite the article as often as it takes and turn it in.

A typical article consists of arguments, evidence, experiments, proofs, background required to support a central hypothesis. does not consist of invalid hypotheses, misconceptions, experimental mistakes. has a result, expected or not.

Article components Title and author Abstract Introduction Survey Results Summary Bibliography Appendices

Title and author Use title generator Use adjectives describing the distinctive features of your work e.g., reliable, scalable, high-performance, robust, low- complexity, or low-cost. Avoid all abbreviations. Avoid common phrases like "novel", "performance evaluation" and "architecture",

Title and author In computer science the convention is to not give your position, title or qualification Include full name (M. T. Granescu, Marinela Granescu), affiliation, address Use the same style in all papers to be indexed together

Abstract words a concise summary of the aims, scope and conclusions of the article must not contain references, as it may be used without the main article. highlight not just the problem, but also the principal results. will be used by search engines avoid equations and math. avoid use of "in this paper" or “significant reduction”

INTRODUCTION presents the topic, the problem studied, the approach to the solution, nature and scope of the problem investigated reviews pertinent literature states the method of investigation and prepares the present research introduces the present research

Introduction TIPS –Briefly introduce problem, outline solution (why the problem is important (or interesting). –Related Work (or before summary). Cite the relevant work from last 2-3 years/ volumes or so. –Outline of the rest of the paper: example –Language tips: *Note that Section is capitalized. *Vary between "Section 2 discusses..." and "In Section, we discuss...".]

Introduction TIPS "The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we introduce..Section 3 describes... Finally, we describe future work in Section 5.“

Introduction TIPS Avoid stock and cliche phrases such as “recent advances in” Repeating the abstract in the introduction is a waste of space. Be sure that the introduction lets the reader know what this paper is about

Introduction (cont.) Bad wording e.g. “Here at the institute for…, me and my colleagues have created the SUPER… system and have applied it to several specific problems. We had previously fumbled with earlier versions of SUPER…for a while. This system allows the programmer to easily try lots of parameters, and problems, but is not very reliable so that we have decided to …””

SURVEY Most results are extensions or corrections related to previous research Compares new results to existing, similar ones from literature Sometimes not a discrete section, but discussed where it is used (e.g. as background in introduction)

The MATERIALS AND METHODS (M) section provides a clear description of exactly what you did and how you did it. identifies the materials used. identifies the special conditions of the experiment. identifies the special criteria and the method used.

The RESULTS (R) section presents your data in both a generalized form and the data that support your generalizations. explains chain of reasoning. contains graphs or tables (the best way to present lots of numbers). should match your Materials and Methods section

Results Can be long, narrative, flowing logically, Sometimes results are analyzed as they are presented Structured in chains, according to specificity, according to complexity

SUMMARY or conclusions can look beyond the current problems to other problems not addressed, to questions not answered

BIBLIOGRAPHY A list of references Book citations include publication years, but no ISBN number. Avoid use of et al. in a bibliography unless list is very long (five or more authors). The author subsumed into et al. may be your advisor or the reviewer... Note punctuation of et al. Internet drafts must be marked ``work in progress''. It is now acceptable to include URLs to material, but avoid long URLs.include URLs

Appendices detail of proof or experimental results, not usually necessary (to be cut first if forced to): detailed protocol descriptions proofs with more than two lines other low-level but important details listings of computer programs