1. Technical Writing (Applies to research papers and theses)
Vikram Pudi
IIIT Hyderabad
Created on 31st July 2007

2. My Ph.D advisor Prof. Jayant Haritsa IISc, Bangalore
Dedicated to:
My Ph.D advisor
Prof. Jayant Haritsa
IISc, Bangalore
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3. Phases in Research One Year Find area to work in Read papers
Extract / formulate high impact problems
Search for related work
Usually related work is not good enough
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4. The Interesting Part One Year Invent your own solutions
In CS research, this translates to
algorithm design / analysis
coding
lots of fun and challenge
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5. The Boring Part 3 years Write reports, papers, thesis, …
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6. But it is important…
It is your duty as a scientist to share your discoveries with others
Your work is understood only from what you present / publish
You are evaluated only based on what you write in your reports, etc.
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7. It is actually exciting!
It is your work
You want others to feel the excitement you felt when you invented the solutions
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8. It has ingredients of programming
Modularity
As mentioned in Section 2, …
As mentioned in the Introduction, …
Minimize redundancy
Linear – don’t jump back and forth
Clarity, elegance and flow
Choose good titles (like variable names)
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9. Popular Misconceptions
Should have lot of math
Should be hard to read
Should fill all 20 pages
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10. Reality Math should be used only where it is required
to make things more precise / unambiguous
where equivalent English is too verbose
Reviewers don’t like reading hard-to-read papers
academic readers know that hard-to-read doesn’t mean weighty matter
will be able to detect when a writer is just showing off
Quality is more important than quantity
It is usually hard to fit your content in 20 pages
Be concise
Use figures and examples to fill space if necessary
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11. Typical Format of Papers
Title: Less than about 11 words
Abstract: 200 – 250 words
Write this after writing rest of paper; easier to summarize then
Mention what you have achieved; mention key expt results
Introduction
One para – background / history
One para – motivation
One para – your contributions
One para – organization
Formal Problem Statement – some other name
Mention assumptions of setting under which your solution applies
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12. Format (contd.) Background – some other name
Describe background necessary to understand the rest of the document
Optional – point to other documents
Use to fill space if required
Your Solution – in one or more sections
Related Work
cite and briefly discuss other related work
mention how it is different from your work
mention their limitations but be polite
people like to see their work here; so mention anything that seems related if done by a program committee member!
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13. Format (contd.) Performance Model Experiments Conclusions
Describe your experimental setup and metrics you used to evaluate your solution against previous work
Experiments
Use graphs and tables to show results
Refer the graphs / tables in the text: We see in Figure 1 that …
Discuss intuition behind why the graphs are the way they are
Should sound like: Due to these reasons the results are as expected.
Conclusions
Like abstract, but some more technical points like merits of data- structures used, etc. – assume reader has already read thru the document
Can mention possible future work
Acknowledgements
References
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14. Format of a Thesis Almost like a paper Sections become chapters
Sub-sections become sections
In addition, it has:
a table of contents
list of figures
list of tables
index
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15. Checklist Do a spell-check
Ensure figure / table / section numbers match those in text
Look at start and end of each page
E.g. A section title should not be at the end of some page
Use \noindent after figures / tables
Ensure figures / tables are placed where you want them
Give good names for your algorithms / solutions – some nice expansions
Use those names to make your title
Take a printout and read thoroughly
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16. Other tips
Use LaTeX
Review lots of good / bad papers; avoid their mistakes
Be ambiguous in your initial abstract
Just mention what you achieve without revealing techniques
Be picky about how your sentences sound & feel
Can you write the same thing in a simpler way?
Can you write the same thing in a concise way?
Are you moving back and forth between two concepts?
A different word may be a better fit to explain this?
Expect to change your organization a couple of times
Like changing a software’s design
Finish a draft of the paper at least a week before the final deadline
Otherwise your chance of acceptance reduces to 20 – 30%
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17. Take Home
Writing a paper requires effort, time, an eye for detail, is addictive, exciting and rewarding.
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