Presenting Your Research: Papers, Presentations, and People

1. Presenting Your Research:Papers, Presentations, and People Marie desJardins University of Maryland Baltimore County (mariedj@cs.umbc.edu) 2005 AAAI/SIGART Doctoral Consortium July 10, 2005 Thanks to Rob Holte for permission to use some slides

2. Research Isn’t Just Research • Who cares what you do, if you never tell them? • You’ll need to present your ideas in various forms and venues: • PEOPLE: Networking with colleagues at your institution and elsewhere • PAPERS: Writing and submitting papers to workshops, conferences, and journals • PRESENTATIONS: Giving talks at workshops, conferences, and other institutions • (You should also put together a website that highlights your interests and research activities) • …oh, and these things also provide useful experience for job interviews, not to mention valuable job skills… Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

3. People

4. Networking • Meet people! It helps to have an objective: • Find out what research they’re currently working on • Tell them what you’re currently working on • Find an area of common interest • Learn what their visions/future directions are • Suggest a new direction for research or topic for a class • What’s in this interaction for you? • What’s in it for them? • If you know two friends, and they know two friends, and they know two friends… Pretty soon you know everybody! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

5. Be Prepared • You need to be prepared to summarize your research • For a thesis topic, you should have a 1-minute, 5-minute, and 15-minute presentation already thought through • The same goes for other projects you’ve been working on • Be able to distinguish between your original contributions, your advisor’s contributions, and ideas drawn from previous research • Practice with other students! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

6. Publishing

7. Writing and Submitting Papers • For a master’s thesis, you should aim to have at least one “good” conference paper by the time you graduate • For a doctoral dissertation, you should aim for a couple of good conference papers and a journal paper • Writing these papers is great practice for the thesis itself… (and you can reuse the material!) • Where to submit? • Look at publication lists of people doing research related to yours, and see where they publish • Publish at the conferences that have the most interesting papers Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

8. Paper Writing: Strategies • First, decide where you plan to submit the paper • You may not finish in time, but having a deadline is always helpful • Two to four months away is a good planning horizon • Next, decide what you will say • What are the key ideas? Have you developed them yet? • What are the key results? Have you designed and run the experiments yet? Have you analyzed the data? • What is the key related work? Have you read the relevant background material? Can you give a good summary of it? • Now get started on the work you need to do to fill in the missing holes! • Write early and often: You can (and should)write in parallel with finishing the work! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

9. Paper Writing: Design • Abstract –summarizes the research contributions, not the paper (i.e., it shouldn’t be an outline of the paper) • Introduction/motivation – what you’ve done and why the reader should care, plus an outline of the paper • Technical sections – one or more sections summarizing the research ideas you’ve developed • Experiments/results/analysis – one or more sections presenting experimental results and/or supporting proofs • Future work – summary of where you’re headed next and open questions still to be answered • Related work – sometimes comes after introduction, sometimes before conclusions (depends to some extent on whether you’re building on previous research, or dismissing it as irrelevant) • Conclusions – reminder of what you’ve said and why it’s important Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

10. Paper Writing: Tactics • Top-down design (outline) is very helpful • Bulleted lists can help you get past writer’s block • Unless you’re a really talented/experienced writer, you should use these tools before you start writing prose • Neatness counts! Check spelling, grammar, consistency of fonts and notation before showing it to anyone for review • If they’re concentrating on your typos, they might miss what’s interesting about the content. (More about the reviewer’s perspective later...) • Leave time for reviews! • Fellow students, collaborators, advisors, … • A paper is only done when it’s submitted... and usually not even then. Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

11. Authorship • Who should be an author? • Anyone who contributed significantly to the conceptual development or writing of the paper • Not necessarily people who provided feedback, implemented code, or ran experiments • What order should the authors be listed in? • If some authors contributed more of the conceptual development and/or did most/all of the writing, they should be listed first • If the contribution was equal or the authors worked as a team, the authors should be listed in alphabetical order • Sometimes the note “The authors are listed in alphabetical order” is explicitly included Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

12. The Review Process

13. Conference Reviewing • Program committees • Selection process • Senior vs. area chair vs. regular members • Paper assignments • Keyword-based • Self-selection • All for one and one for all • Decisions • Reaching a consensus • Final decisions • Conditional accepts (rare) • Acceptance rates (~~~20% in good conferences/journals) Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

14. Journal Reviewing • Executive editor  Area editor  Board members or reviewers • Longer decision cycle • Typically higher quality, longer, and deeper reviews • Decision options: • Accept as is • Accept with minor changes • Accept with major changes (subject to re-review) • Reject with encouragement to resubmit • Reject out of hand Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

15. Where to Publish • Workshops vs. conferences vs. journals • Length of decision cycle • Quantity vs. quality • Aim high! (or at least appropriately) • Acceptance rate vs. time to prepare/publish Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

16. Purpose of a Review • Evaluate the paper’s scientific merit • Check the validity of the paper’s claims and evidence • Judge the paper’s relevance and significance • Provide constructive feedback to the author Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

17. Typical Conference Review Form 1. How RELEVANT is this paper? 2. How SIGNIFICANT is this paper? 3. How ORIGINAL is this paper? 4. Is this paper technically SOUND? 5. How well is this paper PRESENTED? Additional comments for the author(s) Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

18. Good Reviews Are... • Polite • Fair • Concise • Clear • Constructive • Specific • Well-documented • Represent the scientific community • ... but you get what you get! • Bad, unfair review that missed the point? Fix your paper anyway! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

19. Knowing Your Audience:A Reviewer’s Perspective • First, I read the title: is it in my area? (self-selection) • Next, I read the abstract: is it interesting? (self-selection) • Next, I skim the introduction and form my opinion about the paper • Next, I read the rest of the paperlooking for evidence to support my view •  By the time I get to Section 2, I already have a very strong opinion about whether to accept or reject. • Your job is to give me the evidence I need in the title and abstract to select your paper for review, and in the introduction to result in the right opinion! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

20. Ethical Issues • Multiple submissions • Journal versions of conference papers • Authors and author order • Listing papers in your CV Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

21. Rejected!!  Now What? • Fix the paper! • Read the reviews, rail and complain, berate the reviewer • Calm down • Read them again with an open mind • Do more experiments, revise the paper, … • Go back to the reviews again – have you addressed all the points? • Have people read the revision critically • Do more experiments, revise the paper, … • Repeat until the next deadline  Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

22. Presentations

23. Know How Long You Have • How long is the talk? Are questions included? • A good heuristic is 2-3 minutes per slide • If you have too many slides, you’ll skip some or—worse—rush desperately to finish. Avoid this temptation!! • Almost by definition, you never have time to say everything about your topic, so don’t worry about skipping some things! • Unless you’re very experienced giving talks, you should practice your timing: • A couple of times on your own to get the general flow • At least one dry run to work out the kinks • A run-through on your own the night before the talk Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

24. Know Your Audience • Don’t waste time on basics if you’re talking to an audience in your field • Even for these people, you need to be sure you’re explaining each new concept clearly • On the other hand, you’ll lose people in a general audience if you don’t give the necessary background • In any case, the most important thing is to emphasize what you’ve done and why they should care! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

25. Know What You Want to Say • Just giving a project summary is not interesting to most people • You should give enough detail to get your interesting ideas across (and to show that you’ve actually solved, but not enough to lose your audience • They want to hear what you did that was cool and why they should care • Preferably, they’ll hear the above two points at the beginning of the talk, over the course of the talk, and at the end of the talk • If they’re intrigued, they’ll ask questions or read your paper • Whatever you do, don’t just read your slides! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

26. Preparing slides • Don’t just read your slides! • Use the minimum amount of text necessary • Use examples • Use a readable, simple, yet elegant format • Use color to emphasize important points, but avoidtheexcessiveuseofcolor • “Hiding” bullets like this is annoying (but sometimes effective), but… • Don’t fidget, and… • Don’t just read your slides! Abuse of animation is a cardinal sin! Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

27. How to Give a Bad TalkAdvice from Dave Patterson, summarized by Mark Hill • Thou shalt not be neat • Thou shalt not waste space • Thou shalt not covet brevity • Thou shalt cover thy naked slides • Thou shalt not write large • Thou shalt not use color • Thou shalt not illustrate • Thou shalt not make eye contact • Thou shalt not skip slides in a long talk • Thou shalt not practice Marie desJardins -- Getting Published

28. Some Useful Resources Any Questions? • Some useful resources: • Writing: • Lynn DuPre, Bugs in Writing • Strunk & White, Elements of Style • Giving talks: • Mark Hill, “Oral presentation advice” • Patrick Winston, “Some lecturing heuristics” • Simon L. Peyton Jones et al., “How to give a good research talk” • Dave Patterson, “How to have a bad career in research/academia” Marie desJardins -- Getting Published