做学问与写论文 How to do research and how to write papers

1. 做学问与写论文How to do research and how to write papers 高新波 西安电子科技大学电子工程学院 School of E.E., Xidian Univ. xbgao@ieee.org

2. 提纲 • 如何做研究 • 如何投稿 • 如何撰写论文

3. 一、如何做研究 How to do research

4. What Is Research? • 研究方向 • 具体研究课题 • 解决方法

5. 做学问的三个境界 • 昨夜西风凋碧树，独上高楼，望断天涯路 • 衣带渐宽终不悔，为伊消得人憔悴 • 众里寻她千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在灯火阑珊处 • 王国维《人间词话》

6. The Fun • Keep yourself motivated everyday • Believe in what your are doing • Be excited about your project • Find interesting people • Research is not bigger than life • Have a life

7. 做学问的三各层次 • 一流高手提问题； • 二流高手解问题； • 三流高手抄问题。

8. How to do research? • Choose a good topic • Master the state of the art • Good idea • Sound supports • Reasonable explanations • ……

9. What is a good topic? • A real problem, not a toy problem • Topic connected to existing research • Topic related to products • You have interests in • Potentially useful • Not outdated • Significant, yet manageable • Neither too big nor too trivial • Solid theoretical work, or • Good empirical results • Or both

10. How to master the state of the art? • Query your advisor or senior researchers • International communication • attend conferences, personal communications • Reading • about 20 papers for a new area • ……

11. How to read? • Books by leading experts • Tutorials • Good surveys • Classic papers • Very related papers

12. Happy Read • Need to know the state-of-the-art • Read a lot • Read selectively • Find the key ideas in the paper • Understand the motivation of the paper • Learn how to write a good paper

13. How to get reading materials? • Library • IEEE, Elsevier, Kluwer, Springer • Internet • author’s URL, Institution’s URL, search engine, • mailing lists, …… • Email the author • Your friends abroad • ……

14. What is a good idea? • Original • Useful • Reasonable • Feasible • A real progress instead of trivial improvement • …… • A good idea is the core of good research

15. Where are good ideas • Depth-first: 枪扎一条线 • Breadth-first: 棍扫一大片 • Cross-disciplinary

16. When you get an idea, Don’t realize it immediately, instead, you should • Check whether the work has already been done by others • Ask yourself: Is it feasible? • Bad idea will kill life • Lay the idea aside, come back a month later and ask yourself: • Are there better topics? • Are there better ideas? • Is the idea feasible? • If all the answers are “yes”, then realize the idea a.s.a.p. • In this way, the chances of failure will be greatly lowered

17. What are sound supports? • Solid theoretic analysis • Solid experiments • Well-defined experiments • Benchmark tests • Data sets available to other researchers • Comparisons • Repeatable results

18. Why explanations? • Strength and weakness • How/when strong • Why strong • How/when weak • Why weak • No work is perfect

19. 如何做好研究 • Establish goal • Think simple • 可简单、生动地描述研究问题 • 分解为一些子问题，逐个击破 • Hand-on • Experiment and build prototype • Use scientific methodology and tools • Collaborate • Document results

20. 简单生动的描述 • 不是 • “图形学”，“图像学”，“语音” • “网络”，“多媒体” • 是 • “让计算机能听懂任何人的语音” • “从照片推出三维环境” • “使多媒体的浏览与文本浏览一样简单”

21. 科学的方法 • 基础研究不是 • 坐着想事情 • 肤浅的、无用的、无法扩张 的简单结果 • 不看别人的研究，或者抄袭别人的研究 • 理论的，没用的纸上谈兵 • 不承认失败，永无止境的延续研究 • 博士生带头，本科生编程 • 基础研究是： • 想着做事情 • 经过科学手段、大量的数据、可重复的深入研究 • 研究、理解、借用前人的结果 • 经过亲自设计工程原型证实对用户有用 • 承认失败，从头再来 • 专家带头，梯队联合攻关

22. 分为子问题，逐个击破 • 浏览多媒体 • 多媒体--〉视频 • 视频--〉新闻 • 将来：体育、音乐 • 浏览的前提 • 结构化 • 音频分析、语者分析、视频分析 • 将来：语音识别、人脸识别 • 用户界面

23. Hands-on • Research is a process • Hands-on coding and experiment of our ideas • Experiment design and data collecting are important processes of research • Junior students are extension of our team

24. Talk Is NOT Cheap • It is very important to communicate • Help you clarify what your idea really is • Get constructive feedback • Help you build critical skills • Find sympathetic ears • Force your advisor/boss to listen • Listen to your colleagues

25. 二、如何投稿 How to submit your paper

26. Why publishing is hard? • Publishing paper is critical for researchers • Publishing is hard: • Difference between thought and language • Low acceptance rate • Competing with good papers • Reviewers is potential competitors • Revisions: Never be perfect

27. How to choose a target? • Know the hierarchy of publications in your area • International Journal • For formal evaluation and archival • Conference • For quick presentation and interaction • Native Journal

28. International Journals • top international journals • such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning • most are milestone works • first-class international journals • such as JAIR, IEEE Transactions • most are significant works • second-class international journals • such as most journals of Elsevier, Kluwer, some of Springer • most are very good works • third-class international journals • most international journals • most are good works • Other journals

29. Conference • top conferences • such as IJCAI, ICCV • comparable to first-class international journals • first-class conferences • most ACM Conferences, Some IEEE Conferences, etc. • comparable to second-class international journals • second-class conferences • most IEEE Conferences, etc. • comparable to third-class international journals • third-class conferences • most international conferences held in China

30. Native Journals • top native journals • 中国科学，科学通报，自然科学进展 • comparable to second-class international journals • first-class native journals • 电子学报，计算机学，报软件学报，自动化学报，etc. • comparable to third-class international journals • second-class native journals • 计算机研究与发展，模式识别与人工智能，西电学报，…… • comparable to third-class international conferences • third-class native journals • 计算机科学，小型微型计算机系统，etc. • Other journals

31. Journal & Conference papers • Journals are archival publications • Don’t write two journal papers with a same idea! • Invited, regular, correspondence • usually about 1/2 proportions are experiments • Conferences are intended for communication • Papers can be expanded to journal papers • Keynote, Plenary, oral, poster • fewer experiments than journal papers • Don’t care SCI & EI, to be cited is more important !

32. How to submit your paper? • Great work • submit to top international journals, top conferences, first class international journals • Very good work • submit to second-class international journals, first-class conferences, top native journals • Good work • submit to third-class international journals, second-class conferences, first-class native journals • Moreover, ……

33. Knowing the review criterion may be helpful • most papers will be reviewed by at least 3 reviewers • that are experts in your area • best papers: accept without change about 1% • very good papers: accept with minor change about 3% • good papers: accept with major change about 6% • potential good papers: reject with resubmission encouragement about 25% • about 15% papers will be rejected without review • Remember that most competing papers are good ones

34. Review form 1: CSTV

35. Review form 1: CSTV

36. Review form 2

37. In summary, reviewers will check: • Does the paper introduce a new problem or provide a new solution to an existing one? • What is the main result of this paper? • Is the result significant? • Is the paper technically sound? • Does the paper provide an assessment of the strength and weakness of the results? • Is the paper clearly written so as to accessible by most researchers in this area? • Does the paper refer appropriate related works? • …… • Don’t fool the reviewers !

38. Rebuttal • When you submit a rebuttal • Point-by-point detailed response to each reviewer • Constructive and positive • Clear and to-the-point（中肯的） • Responsive (<1 month) • It is fine to disagree with the reviewers, AE may be on your side • You need to make some compromise, but not on principles • It is your paper

39. Misconceptions 1: • The more, the better • Don’t provide too much “new” ideas in a paper. • Try your best to focus the readers on your core work.

40. Misconceptions 2: • The bigger, the better • A revolution, a breakthrough, paradigm shift, • ……

41. Misconceptions 3: • The more complex, the better • Try to make your paper easy to be understood. • Remember: You are showing your thoughts instead of confusing the readers • Mathematical language is to help you clearly express your thoughts when natural languages cannot

42. Misconceptions 4: • The more selling, the better • Don’t exaggerate too much on your work. The readers will judge it for you. • The first-ever, the best, unprecedented, ……

43. Misconceptions 5: • The more authoritative, the better • Don’t refer too much own works while ignoring others.

44. 三、如何撰写论文 How to write paper

45. 撰写科技论文的重要性 • 交流－ 科学技术进步大多数都要通过论文表达出来的，撰写论文主要是与同行交流，既是介绍作者的工作促进科学技术进步，也是吸收别人意见改进作者工作的重要步骤。 • 提高－ 撰写论文是对研究工作的整理、总结和精练的过程，是科技工作者提高自己水平的重要步骤。 • 训练－科技写作是科技工作者必要的基本训练。

46. 科技论文 从哲学意义讲： 在认识和改造客观世界的过程中，通过足够的、可以重复的实验，揭示事物的本质，并用文字表达出来。 通俗的表达： 科技论文是科学工作者对创造性成果进行理论分析和科学总结，并进行发表或答辩的文字表达形式。

47. 科技论文 • 科技论文必须完整回答为什么研究（why），怎么样研究（how）和结果是什么（what)。 • 研究工作或实验总结与科技论文不同，总结在内容上可能更详细，但也不一定有创造性，也不一定发表，格式也不十分严格统一。 • 论文强调科学性、创造性、逻辑性和有效性。

48. 科技论文的基本特征（1） • 科学性——方法论上的特征 科学性是科技论文的生命。一是论文内容的科学性，表现为论文的内容是真实的，其数据是可以重复的。二是论文表述的科学性，即表达要明白准确。

49. 科技论文的基本特征（2） • 首创性——科技论文的灵魂 论文中揭示的事物现象的本质、规律和特性，应该是前人未见的或部分未见的。也就是说文章要有所发现，有所发明，有所创造。

50. 科技论文的基本特征（3） • 逻辑性——文章的结构 撰写科技论文应该思路清晰，结构严谨，数据图表完整可靠，文字通顺，最后要分析讨论、推理，提高到学术的高度，而不是象实验报告一样，成为数字、现象的简单堆砌。