How to write and present Technical Papers

1. How to write and present Technical Papers C.P. Ravikumar C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

2. Objective • At the end of this talk, you should be in a position to appreciate what formal writing style is, and how formal paper presentations are made. • The hidden motive: To entice you to participate in the Controlnet internal workshop C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

3. Outline of this presentation • What is a technical paper? • How does one write a technical paper? • How is a technical paper presented? C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

4. Writing a paper is … • A lot like chip design • You need • Conceptualization • Floorplanning and layout • Interconnections • DRC and ERC • Testing C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

5. What is a technical paper? • A brief and to-the-point document which describes a body of technical work • There are many types of technical papers • Original research papers • Survey papers • Journal papers • Conference papers • Letters C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

6. Getting ready to write a paper • What type of paper am I writing? • What do I wish to state? • Have I got all the background work with me? • Have I organized the paper? • What electronic format will I use? • LaTeX, MS Word, … C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

7. Organizing a paper • Title of the paper • Authors, designations, and addresses • Abstract (100 to 150 words) • Keywords • Sections describing the work • Introduction (Background) • Previous Work (Literature Survey) • Proposed Work (Algorithm, Design, Methodology) • Analysis (Complexity Analysis, Quantitative Analysis, Statistical Analysis, …) • Implementation and Results • Conclusions C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

8. Abstract • Summary of your work • Entices the reader to read on • Must bring out the novelty of your work • Must be brief (100 to 150 words) C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

9. Introduction • Introduction to the problem • Why is it worth solving? • What did others do? • Why did they not succeed? • Why do I believe I did better? • Contribution of the paper • Is there anything new in the paper? • How good are your results? • Is your survey different from other available surveys? • Introduction to the paper itself C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

10. Literature Survey • Brief description of the existing body of work • Citations to published work • In [2], Rosetti and Longfellow described the meaning of life. Wordsworth presented a different view point in [3] • Bring out the specific advantage of your work w.r.t. published work. • However, the Rosetti-Longfellow formula [2] fails for technologies below 0.2 micron. In this paper, we extend their formula to the deep submicron domain. C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

11. Sections and Subsections • Organize each section into subsections and (possibly) sub-subsections 1. Introduction 1.1 Problem Description 1.1.1 Inductance Extraction 1.1.2 Transmission Line Models 1.2 Organization of the paper In Section 2, we summarize the previous work in this area. In Section 3, we present a new algorithm for … C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

12. Main body of work • Organize your work into sections and sub-sections. • 3. New Algorithm for Graph Partitioning • 3.1 Genetic Algorithm • 3.2 Data Structures • 3.2 Crossover Operator • 3.3 Convergence Criterion C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

13. This is competitor's work This is the best any one could ever get Analyze your work • This is my work C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

14. Types of Analysis • Quantitative Analysis • Present numerical results: size of the chip, clock rating, power dissipation, … • Present tables: Run-time of your algorithm for several benchmark examples • Present graphs: Chip Area Vs Clock Frequency • Present improvement figures: Our optimization algorithm resulted in a 20% reduction in chip area for the sp292 benchmark circuit … C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

15. Comparative Analysis • Comparing two different approaches to the same problem • Tabulate results for two different heuristics • Comparing the performance for two different parameters • Tabulate results for two different technologies/ voltage values/ … C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

16. Graphic Items • They say one picture is equal to … 65,536 pixels • Include at least one or two graphic items • Figures • Pictures, Photographs, Algorithms, Plots … • Tables C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

17. Figures and Tables • Number all the figures and tables • Graphs are also shown as figures • Provide captions for all figures and tables • Figure 3. Floorplan of the SONAR Chip • Refer to each figure and table. • In Figure 3, we show the floorplan of the SONAR Chip as obtained using the MASON software [4]. C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

18. The “Conclusions” Section • State what was achieved in the paper • Were you able to come to some definite conclusions? • We presented two algorithms, A1 and A2, for the floorplanning problem. Our experimental results indicate that A1 outperforms A2 in terms of solution quality, but requires about 100% more time than A2 in most cases. • Be frank about the limitations of your work • Point out directions for further work C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

19. References [1] A.V. Aho, D. Hopcroft, and J.D. Ullman. “Design and Analysis of Algorithms,” Addison-Wesley, 1974. [2] C. Rosetti and H.W. Longfellow. “Life and its Meaning,” Proceedings of the 14th International Conference of the Dead Poets, 1999, 334-339. [3] W. Wordsworth. “Daffodils,” In “Collected Poems of William Wordsworth,” Ed. R. Roselin, Artech House, 1976. C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

20. Writing Style • Use simple sentences, unless you are comfortable writing complex and compound sentences • Avoid repetition • Make use of the grammar and spelling checker, but exercise caution • Will a figure or table be able to say the same thing more effectively? C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

21. Presenting your work • Who is my audience? • What is the purpose of my presentation? • What should I talk about? • How much time do I have? • How many slides should I make? • How should I handle questions? • Rehearsals C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001

22. Are you ready to start writing? C.P. Ravikumar, Jan 2001