Introduction To Writing for
Computer Science and Engineering
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Course Objective
• Learn how to write technical documents!
• Including
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User manuals – Have you written one?
Technical manuals - Have you written one?
Describing algorithms – Do you know?
Technical Papers – What’s that?
Project proposals - ???
• NOTE: We don’t learn how to write essays
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Why such a course?
• The biggest problem for engineers (including
computer scientists) is that
– They cannot communicate effectively their
thoughts
• They can write millions of line of code that will do
extra-ordinary tasks but..
• This limits significantly their career prospects
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Motivation
• A scientific paper presents new ideas and
demonstrates their correctness.
• These should be presented with clarity and
without ambiguities.
• Unfortunately scientists in many cases cannot
communicate well.
• Why? Please provide your opinion.
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Scientific Writing
• Scientific writing is about structure, nonambiguity, completeness.
• The reader must be able to reconstruct the
author’s work.
– In clearly written senior project report this should
hold true
• A difficult to understand paper is never
convincing.
– After half-a-read people will give up
• Good writing and presentation can persuade the
reader that the work is of value
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Scientific writing
• For example, the reader tends to judge
statements to be wrong if they contain
numerous spelling errors.
– The issu hear is that this teqnical paper is realy interestin.
– The issue here is that this technical paper is really interesting
• Layout issues such as font and spacing are
also important.
– The issue here is that this technical paper is really interesting
– THE issue Here is that this technical paper is really interesting
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Problems
• English is the language of science
• If English is not your native language, you
probably confront many difficulties
• Usually scientists have little experience of
writing extended documents.
• Many are intimidated by writing and avoid it
because it’s not fun
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Remarks
• Few scientists are natural writers
• Those who write well, learn usually through
experience
– Their early papers are often embarrassingly poor
• It is not so difficult to become a good writer
• Steps: create a logical organization, use
concise sentences, revise against checklists of
possible problems, seek feedback and
• PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
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Getting Started with Latex
• Download TexMaker v3.5
(www.xm1math.net/texmaker/).
– This is a free, multiplatform latex editor
• Download Miktex (http://www.miktex.org/)
– Version 2.9, Basic
– These are the latex libraries
• Install both in the default folders
– If you can
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Now you are ready!
• Download and start reading the latex getting
started tutorial
and
• Create the first example
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