W rit ing a research paper

Writing a research paper

연구 개발의 의미 • 연구 • 硏: 갈고 닦는다는 뜻 究: 궁리한다는 뜻 • 어떤 일에 대하여 깊이 생각하고 사리를 따지어 보는 일 • Research • Search again • Scientific investigation • 개발 • 開: 새로운 길, 방법을 연다 發: 꽃을 피운다 • 새로운 것을 고안해 내어 실용화함 (교학사 국어사전) • Development • To bring, grow, or evolve to a more complete, complex, or desirable state (American Heritage Dictionary)

연구 개발이란 무엇인가? • “When you steal ideas from many people, it is called research. When you steal ideas from one person, it is called plagiarism.” • Research = re-search • 즉 다른 사람이 해 놓은 일을 다시 조사하는 데서 또는 새로운 각도에서 조명하는 데서 연구개발이 시작된다 => 硏究員은 곧 調査員!!

R&D 분야의 세계적 추세 • Outsourcing • Licensing • Strategic alliance (적과의 동침) • Grand alliance (세계적 표준 전략) • Contract research • M&A • Concurrent Engineering vs Sequential Engineering • R&D 초기 단계부터 여러 부서(특히 마키팅 부서) 가 공동참여

Matrix Management & Dual Ladder • Matrix management • 기본조직과 프로젝트 조직의 2원화 • 기본조직: 수직적 구조 (계장, 과장, 부장, 이사…) • 프로젝트 조직: 수평적 구조 (project manager, project leader, team leader….) • Dual ladder • Scientist 나 engineer 가 기본조직을 통하지 않고 연구에만 전념하여도 직급승진과 보수를 많이 받을 수 있는 제도 • Research and Engineering Fellow: 미국 • 연구위원: 한국의 대기업 연구소에서 채택한 제도

R&D skill vs. People skill • 연구원은 연구를 함으로 과학, 공학적인 지식을 얼만큼 갖고 있느냐 하는 것만 중요하다. • 과학 공학적 지식만큼, people skill, leadership skill, speaking and writing skills도 아주 중요하다. 특히 writing, speaking skill은 project에 아주 중요한 역할을 한다.

How to write a research paper Simon Peyton Jones Microsoft Research, Cambridge

“The best way to understand something reallybig, is to reduce it to something meaningful.”Alex Beam, Boston Globe

Writing papers Crystallises what we don’t understand Opens the way to dialogue with others: reality check, critique, and collaboration Idea Write paper Do research

Do not be intimidated Fallacy You need to have a fantastic idea before you can write a paper. (Everyone else seems to.) Write a paper, and give a talk, about any idea, no matter how weedy and insignificant it may seem to you

Papers communicate ideas • Writing the paper is how you develop the idea in the first place • It usually turns out to be more interesting and challenging that it seemed at first

Your narrative flow Here is a problem It’s an interesting problem It’s an unsolved problem Here is my idea My idea works (details, data) Here’s how my idea compares to other people’s approaches

Structure (conference paper) Title (1000 readers) Abstract (4 sentences, 100 readers) Introduction (1 page, 100 readers) The problem (1 page, 10 readers) My idea (2 pages, 10 readers) The details (5 pages, 3 readers) Related work (1-2 pages, 10 readers) Conclusions and further work (0.5 pages)

The abstract I usually write the abstract last Used by program committee members to decide which papers to read Four sentences [Kent Beck] State the problem Say why it’s an interesting problem Say what your solution achieves Say what follows from your solution

Structure Abstract (4 sentences) Introduction (1 page) The problem (1 page) My idea (2 pages) The details (5 pages) Related work (1-2 pages) Conclusions and further work (0.5 pages)

The introduction (1 page) Describe the problem State your contributions ...and that is all

Describe the problem Use an example to introduce the problem

State your contributions Write the list of contributions first The list of contributions drives the entire paper: the paper substantiates the claims you have made Reader thinks “gosh, if they can really deliver this, that’s be exciting; I’d better read on”

State your contributions Bulleted list of contributions Do not leave the reader to guess what your contributions are!

Contributions should be refutable

Structure Abstract (4 sentences) Introduction (1 page) Related work The problem (1 page) My idea (2 pages) The details (5 pages) Related work (1-2 pages) Conclusions and further work (0.5 pages)

No related work yet! We adopt the notion of transaction from Brown [1], as modified for distributed systems by White [2], using the four-phase interpolation algorithm of Green [3]. Our work differs from White in our advanced revocation protocol, which deals with the case of priority inversion as described by Yellow [4]. The reader knows nothing about the problem yet; so your (carefully trimmed) description of various technical tradeoffs is absolutely incomprehensible

Presenting the idea 3. The idea Consider a bifircuated semi-lattice D, over a hyper-modulated signature S. Suppose pi is an element of D. Then we know for every such pi there is an epi-modulus j, such that pj < pi. • Sounds impressive...but • Sends readers to sleep • In a paper you MUST provide the details, but FIRST convey the idea

Presenting the idea Explain it as if you were speaking to someone using a whiteboard Conveying the intuition is primary, not secondary Once your reader has the intuition, she can follow the details (but not vice versa) Even if she skips the details, she still takes away something valuable

Using examples Introduce the problem, and your idea, using EXAMPLES and only then present the general case

Using examples Example right away

The details: evidence Your introduction makes claims The body of the paper provides evidence to support each claim Check each claim in the introduction, identify the evidence Evidence can be: analysis and comparison, theorems, measurements, case studies

Related work Giving credit to others does not diminish the credit you get from your paper • Warmly acknowledge people who have helped you • Be generous to the competition. “In his inspiring paper [Foo98] Foogle shows.... We develop his foundation in the following ways...” • Acknowledge weaknesses in your approach

Conclusions and further work Be brief.

The process Start early. Very early. Hastily-written papers get rejected. Papers are like wine: they need time to mature Collaborate

Getting help Experts are good Non-experts are also very good Each reader can only read your paper for the first time once! So use them carefully Explain carefully what you want (“I got lost here” is much more important than “Jarva is mis-spelt”.)

Getting expert help A good plan: when you think you are done, send the draft to the competition saying “could you help me ensure that I describe your work fairly?”. Often they will respond with helpful critique (they are interested in the area) They are likely to be your referees anyway, so getting their comments or criticism up front is Jolly Good.

Listening to your reviewers This is really, really, really hard But it’s really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, reallyimportant Treat every review like gold dust Be (truly) grateful for criticism as well as praise

Listening to your reviewers Read every criticism as a positive suggestion for something you could explain more clearly DO NOT respond “you stupid person, I meant X”. Fix the paper so that X is apparent even to the stupidest reader. Thank them warmly. They have given up their time for you.

Basic stuff Submit by the deadline Keep to the length restrictions Do not narrow the margins Do not use 6pt font On occasion, supply supporting evidence (e.g. experimental data, or a written-out proof) in an appendix Always use a spell checker

Visual structure Give strong visual structure to your paper using sections and sub-sections bullets italics laid-out code Find out how to draw pictures, and use them

Visual structure

Use the active voice The passive voice is “respectable” but it DEADENS your paper. Avoid it at all costs. “We” = you and the reader “We” = the authors “You” = the reader

Use simple, direct language

Figures • Graphs – not more than two curves on a diagram • up to four if well separated – show points only if scatter is important • points should be visible – abstractions with respect to text

Figures • Numerical tables are difficult to read • – use a diagram, istogram, pie chart, … • if you need to use a table, no more than 6-8 rows and 3-4 colums

Dave Patterson's Writing Advice

Active voice • For example, use "Figure X shows ..." rather than "... as shown in Figure X." Also, it is much better to mention a Figure that summarizes a lot of information early in a paragraph rather than go into details and mention the figure at the end, as early mention gives the reader a framework to refer to while reading the text.

Ambiguous use of pronoun • Put a noun after "This" to make it clear what you are referring to.

"While" instead of "and", "but", "although". • In general while should be used only in the strict sense of "during the time

A single numbered subsection • Why do you need to number it if there is only one? Either eliminate the single subsection, or change the part that precedes the subsection into a second subsection

Refering to Chapters, Figures • Capitalized when used to refer to a specifuc number. So its Chapter 1, Table 3.1, Figure 1.2.

W rit ing a research paper