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Writing Workshop
Day #1: Organizing Thoughts
Monirul Hasan (Tomal)
July 23, 2012
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Outline
1
2
3
Workshop Layout
Layout
Motivation
CSE/ETE/EEE 400/434
Spring 2012 Grades
Grading Policy
Midterm Presentation
How to Search
Search Engines to Use
Choosing the Right Source
Monirul Hasan (Tomal)
4
How to Read
Organization of the Thesis
Abstract
Introduction
Background Study
Problem
Implementation
Results and Evaluation
Conclusions
References
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Workshop Layout
Day #1: Organizing Thoughts
Day #2: Using LATEX for Typesetting
Day #3: Preparing a Presentation
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Motivation
When there is an elephant in the room, introduce it
The elephant in this case are the reports we produce every
semester
Organization is horrible
English is pathetic
Formatting is awful
Plagiarism is outrageous
We will take a hands on approach to fix some of the issues
Before I forget to mention: the comic strips for these slides
are taken from Jorge Cham (2012)
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Past Grades Policy Midterm
Outline
1
2
3
Workshop Layout
Layout
Motivation
CSE/ETE/EEE 400/434
Spring 2012 Grades
Grading Policy
Midterm Presentation
How to Search
Search Engines to Use
Choosing the Right Source
Monirul Hasan (Tomal)
4
How to Read
Organization of the Thesis
Abstract
Introduction
Background Study
Problem
Implementation
Results and Evaluation
Conclusions
References
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Past Grades Policy Midterm
Spring 2012 Grades
Grade
A+
A
AB+
B
BRest
Total
CSE400
0
2
1
0
1
0
0
4
# of Students
CSE434 ETE400 ETE434
1
0
0
2
1
1
3
1
1
0
2
1
0
4
0
0
3
1
1
1
0
7
12
4
Total
1
6
6
3
5
4
2
27
Note
Your grade in this course can possibly have higher impact on your
prospect for higher studies or a job than what your CGPA will have
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Past Grades Policy Midterm
Grading Policy
Item
Marks
Supervisor
Attendance
Knowledge about the Topic
Midterm Presentation
Final
Presentation
Knowledge & Q/A
Report
Total
10
10
30
10
20
20
100
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Past Grades Policy Midterm
Midterm Presentation
Date: July 21, 2012
Room: Computer Lab #2, #3
What should be addressed
What are you working on?
Why is it important?
How much of it have you done so far?
How will you do the rest of it?
Be lively, no mumbling, no rushing, no reading from the slides
Sell your idea to the audience
30% of your total grade depends on it
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Search Engine Right Source Read
Outline
1
2
3
Workshop Layout
Layout
Motivation
CSE/ETE/EEE 400/434
Spring 2012 Grades
Grading Policy
Midterm Presentation
How to Search
Search Engines to Use
Choosing the Right Source
Monirul Hasan (Tomal)
4
How to Read
Organization of the Thesis
Abstract
Introduction
Background Study
Problem
Implementation
Results and Evaluation
Conclusions
References
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Search Engine Right Source Read
Search Engines to Use
Academic searching is different from your everyday searching
Sites that will come in handy
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/)
Citeseer (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/)
IEEE (http://www.ieee.org/index.html)
ACM (http://www.acm.org/)
JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/)
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Choosing the Right Source
Articles published in quality journals are the most reliable
In reality, for Computer Science conference papers have higher
status – (Michael Ernst, 2006)
You can cite books
Use webpages as your last resort
Why?
Get as much details as possible
Who is the author?
What is the title?
When was it last updated?
javascript:alert(document.lastModified)
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How to Read (Philip Fong, 2004)
Read in the following order: abstract, introduction,
conclusion, the rest of the paper
Read critically, read creatively, take notes
Ask yourself the following questions
What is the research problem the paper attempts to address?
What are the claimed contributions of the paper?
How do the authors substantiate their claims?
What are the conclusions?
Evaluate the work
Is the research problem significant?
Are the contributions significant?
Are the claims valid?
Synthesize
What is the crux of the research problem?
How can the research results be improved?
Bottomline: Can we do better than the authors?
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Abstract Ch#1 Ch#2 Ch#3 Ch#4 Ch#5 Ch#6 Ref
Outline
1
2
3
Workshop Layout
Layout
Motivation
CSE/ETE/EEE 400/434
Spring 2012 Grades
Grading Policy
Midterm Presentation
How to Search
Search Engines to Use
Choosing the Right Source
Monirul Hasan (Tomal)
4
How to Read
Organization of the Thesis
Abstract
Introduction
Background Study
Problem
Implementation
Results and Evaluation
Conclusions
References
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Abstract Ch#1 Ch#2 Ch#3 Ch#4 Ch#5 Ch#6 Ref
Thesis Chapters
Abstract
Chapter 1: Introduction 5-10 pages
Chapter 2: Background / Related Work 8-20 pages
Chapter 3: Theory / Solution / Program / Problem 15-30 pages
Chapter 4: Implementation / Formalism 15-30 pages
Chapter 5: Results and Evaluation 15-30 pages
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Future Work 5-10 pages
References
Appendix
This list is based on (Tim Brecht, 2011). It doesn’t include the other obvious necessities – title page, declaration,
acknowledgement, table of contents, list of figures, list of tables, etc. Read (Christoph Schommer, 2011) for more
details.
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Abstract
One page stating what the thesis is about
Highlight the contribution of the thesis
Be brief, avoid starting off with “in this paper ...”
Should stand on its own, no literature references
Ideally abstract should be the last item you write
Remember, your readers will read the abstract to
have a quick overview of your whole paper
decide whether to read the rest of your paper or not
A good abstract can sell your paper
Some people will only read your abstract, introduction and
conclusion
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Abstract Ch#1 Ch#2 Ch#3 Ch#4 Ch#5 Ch#6 Ref
Chapter 1: Introduction
Thesis Statement
What is your thesis about and what have you done?
If you have a hypothesis what is it?
How will you test (prove/disprove) your hypothesis?
Motivation
Why is this problem you’ve worked on important?
Goals / Objectives
What are you trying to do and why?
How will you or the reader know if or when you’ve met your
objectives?
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Chapter 1: Introduction continued ...
Contributions
What is new, different, better, significant?
Why is the world a better place because of what you’ve done?
What have you contributed to the field of research?
What is now known/possible/better because of your thesis?
Why is your work the greatest thing since sliced breads?
Outline of the thesis
One paragraph guiding the reader how the thesis is organized
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Thesis Statement
Determine what kind of paper you are writing
Your thesis statement should be specific – it should cover only
what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported
with specific evidence
The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first
paragraph of a paper
Your topic may change as you write, so you may need to
revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have
discussed in the paper
For more tips read (Purdue Online Writing Lab, 2011b)
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General Guidelines
Before you start writing STOP!
Take your time to “brainstorm”
Let your ideas grow into sentences and paragraphs
Every paragraph should have a topic sentence
Every paragraph should talk about one idea
Do not decide whether to start a new paragraph or not based
on the number of lines in the paragraph
There should be a general flow from one sentence to another,
and then from one paragraph to another; use linking words as
needed, keep the flow – your reader will not enjoy a bumpy
ride
(Wilhelmiina Hämäläinen, 2006; Purdue Online Writing Lab,
2011a) can help a ton with grammar related queries
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General Guidelines ... continued
According to Wilhelmiina Hämäläinen (2006) scientific writing
should be
Exact
Avoid vague expressions “quite large”, “very few” ...
Clear
Write brief introductory paragraph for each section /
subsection
Compact
Say only what needs to be said; short words, short sentences
“based on the fact that” → “because”
“at the present time” → “now”
Smooth
Stay within the chosen tense
Objective
Avoid biased words (gender, race, disability, age)
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Abstract Ch#1 Ch#2 Ch#3 Ch#4 Ch#5 Ch#6 Ref
Chapter 2: Background Study / Related Work
More than a literature review
Organized related work – impose structure
Be clear as to how previous work being described relates to
your own – the reader should not be left wondering why you’ve
described something
Critque the existing work
Identify opportunities for more research – hence your thesis
Highlight the unaddressed, or more important related topics
Make the reader understand the motivation and importance of
your work
Define all your key concepts for the rest of the thesis clearly
and precisely
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Chapter 3: Theory / Solution / Program / Problem
Continuing from Chapter 2 explain the issues
Outline your solution/extension/refutation
Use a top down approach to explain your solution
Remember: pictures say a thousand words
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Abstract Ch#1 Ch#2 Ch#3 Ch#4 Ch#5 Ch#6 Ref
Chapter 4: Implementation / Formalism
Not every thesis has or needs an implementation
If yours does, then be thorough in describing exactly what you
are going to do
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Chapter 5: Results and Evaluation
Adequacy, efficiency, productiveness, effectiveness
Ensure that you are using a fair measure
Only compare with techniques that you have mentioned in
Chapter 2
Be honest in evaluation – admit weaknesses
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Chapter 6: Conclusions and Future Work
State what you’ve done and what you’ve found
Summarize contributions
Outline open issues/directions for future work
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References
Include references to:
credit others for their work
help to distinguish your work from others
provide pointers to further detailed readings
support your claims
Ensure that all your bibliographic entries are complete
including: authors, title, journal or conference, volume and
number of journals, date of publication and page numbers
Learn how to use a good typesetting program
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Referencing Style
Cite consistently, fully and properly
There are different referencing style: MLA, APA, CSM,
Harvard, IEEE, ACM etc.
Pick the one that you’re supposed to use for your writing
The author year style is now preferred by many researchers
(IEEE being an exception)
Here are some examples from Peter Coxhead (2011)
X
X
X
×
×
Carson (1970) argued that ...
The system developed by Brown & Smith (1986) is ...
On the other hand, Jones et al. (1988) have reported that ...
An earlier paper Carson (1970) states that ...
It has been claimed that in this area AI has been effective,
Hamza (1983).
If you take out the year in parentheses your sentence should
still be valid
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Appendix
Include technical material that would disrupt the flow of the
thesis
Do not include source codes, put your code and
implementation on a CD/DVD instead or prepare another
document for it
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Lessons Learned
Read and cite from reliable sources (Journal and Conference
articles, not webpages)
Do not wait to start writing till your work is done – hurried
writing = bad writing, in general
It’s never to early to start writing
Follow a proper outline, follow style and grammer guidelines
Cite reference for every claims, do it properly and consistently
Ask your advisor which referencing style you should follow
If you are publishing your work, your publisher will tell you
which referencing style they want
If you are not using a document/reference processor, then
ensure formatting and ordering aspect of all references
manually
Proofread your work many times
Get your peers to read it
Get your advisor to read it
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Christoph Schommer (August 30, 2011). Some Thoughts about
how to Write a Thesis in the Field of Computer Science. http:
//wiki.uni.lu/mine/docs/How+To+Write+A+Thesis.pdf.
[Online; accessed July 16, 2012].
Jorge Cham (July 18, 2012). PhD Comics: A Graduate Student
Comic Strip. http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php.
[Online; accessed July 23, 2012].
Michael Ernst (December, 2006). Choosing a venue: conference or
journal? http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/mernst/
advice/conferences-vs-journals.html. [Online; accessed
July 16, 2012].
Peter Coxhead (July 5, 2011). A Referencing Style Guide.
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/refs/index.html.
[Online; accessed July 23, 2012].
Philip Fong (July 15, 2004). How to Read a CS Research Paper?
http://www2.cs.uregina.ca/~pwlfong/CS499/
reading-paper.pdf. [Online; accessed July 23, 2012].
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Purdue Online Writing Lab (February 24, 2011a). Purdue Online
Writing Lab. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/. [Online;
accessed July 16, 2012].
Purdue Online Writing Lab (February 24, 2011b). Tips and
Examples for Writing Thesis Statements.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/545/1/.
[Online; accessed July 16, 2012].
Tim Brecht (April 18, 2011). A Simple Approach to Thesis
Writing. http:
//www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~brecht/thesis-hints.html.
[Online; accessed July 16, 2012].
Wilhelmiina Hämäläinen (September 6, 2006). Scientific Writing
for Computer Science Students. http://www.cs.joensuu.fi/
pages/whamalai/sciwri/sciwri.pdf. [Online; accessed July
23, 2012].
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